Jan 2012 It’s the biggest search engine on earth – so big, in fact, that its’ name, like the name of Hoover (as in, I’m doing the hoovering, which you’re not – you’re vacuuming), has become a verb. People don’t search for stuff on the Internet any more – they Google it. That means, of course, that if you want your site to get found, the place you want it to be found is at the top of Google’s search rankings. But how do you get a Google first place, without paying billions for it?
Achieving Google first place is all about targeting your market. In that respect, at least, getting top spot Internet rankings is not really any different to launching any good advertising campaign. It’s just – different. And that’s always been a sticking point. Companies have been convinced that the Internet is fertile money making ground forever: but they’re only just started to notice that they don’t really know how to make the most of it. What we mean is this: the Internet is excellent ground for making money, because it’s possible to reach a world wide audience for your product and even actually sell it right there, on line. That’s like having an advert that doesn’t just raise awareness of your product – it actually takes money from people while they are in the most receptive frame of mind. However. Without getting a Google first place, or something like it, all those people who could be spending money on your stuff may never even know it’s there. And that is the exact same problem that has been plaguing “real world” advertising since the year dot. Unless a person knows how to target an Internet marketing campaign, which is what you have to do in the “real” world, no-one is going to be able to sell anything. Without a Google first place or a similarly high ranking, the Internet is useless.
The mistake businesses have been making is in thinking, in marketing terms, of the Net as different from the world outside. Until recently the thinking was very much that the Net meant guaranteed sales just because it was there – with the result that it got flooded with sites and businesses selling exactly the same thing. Along comes Google and everyone’s suddenly in trouble – if you can’t get noticed unless people can find you on Google, then you need to get a Google first place on a regular basis. And with Google changing the way it “searches” for sites on an almost daily basis – well, how is anyone supposed to regularly hit a Google first place?
The answer, of course, like everything else in the business world, is outsourcing. Companies don’t think twice about hiring advertising agencies to target their promotions. It’s about time they realised that they need digital marketing agencies to help them get that Google first place.