Marketing Now

How Search Has Changed Your Business

Doesn’t Google Show the Most Relevant Sites to Searchers Without My Input?

I was recently talking to Wired magazine senior writer Steven Levy (pre- viously the senior technology editor for Newsweek), who’s been spending a lot of time at Google researching his book, Searching for Google.⁶ Levy doesn’t believe that businesses should have to do anything “special” to their sites for Google since Google’s purpose is to surface the most rele- vant, useful results to the top. He compares the practice of site owners trying to in?uence this to students having coaches for the SAT exam.

I told him I didn’t see things that way at all. I see the situation as similar to a retailer who opens a store in a new city. Before leasing a building, they’ll likely scout out the area to ?nd the best corner. They’ll do some competitive research to see where the other retailers are located, as well as some customer research to see where their target consumers shop. (Many even stand on sidewalks and count people walking by!) Retailers know that even if their store has the most amazing merchandise at super low prices, they might not have many customers if they open their store in an alley that’s closed to traffic and they don’t let anyone know they’re there. John Deere probably wouldn’t have many people buying riding lawn mowers in a store in Manhattan.

Companies should think of their online presence as another “retail location.” Organic search is the city they’re in, the street they’re on, the sign above their door. John Deere opens stores in towns where people have really big lawns, and they keep the doors unlocked so their customers can get in. If you don’t do the same with organic search, you’re missing an increasingly large percentage of your potential customers.

Note:

6. Author interview with Steven Levy of Wired magazine
(accessed August 2009).

Source: Vanessa Fox, “Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy is Your Business Strategy,” JohnWiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2010

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