Search Engine Marketing: Google’s smart play : Achieving efficiency is hard when it comes to marketing, but search engine marketing has long been one of the best marketing tools in terms of ROI. Search engine marketing is so successful because it reaches people who are looking to buy a product or service. If you search for red jeans, for example, odds are that you want to buy red jeans. An ad about red jeans will result in you making a purchase right then. There’s almost no other medium of advertising that is so useful, aside from maybe instore advertisements.
Search engines have always played an important role in the development of the internet. They allowed new websites to flourish by allowing people to discover them. Search engine marketing grew with the internet and is now one of the most important tools in the digital marketing landscape. Google knows this, and so does every other company, but there are two things which Google has done that showcase their grasp on the zeitgeist of the internet. Both were linked to search engine marketing, and both are amazing because of how smoothly they were pulled off.
Voice Search
Ask people about Google Voice Search or Siri and they will tell you that they are assistants that help us do stuff on our phones. The reality is that the main function of both of these is to act as a search engine – they simply make it easier and more natural to search for information. Search engine marketing’s productivity and efficiency have grown exponentially with the growth of voice search. People ‘ask’ their phone questions, using Google search without even realizing they are using a search engine. The answers they get are just that – answers, not search results.
Putting Google Search in the URL Bar
Previously, there was a simple process when you were looking for something. You would open Google (or some other search engine) and search for what you wanted. It was clear that you were using a search engine. Google, on its browser Chrome, changed the game. They combined both. While it seemed like a simple step towards efficiency and saving visual real estate, in reality, it was a smart move to make people search more.
Now, you don’t open a search engine – entering words instead of a URL in the bar is just a natural thing you do to look for what you want. Google has you using their search engine without realizing that you are using a search engine.
Both of these moves make Google search an intrinsic part of a user’s internet experience. They make us so used to Google’s search that we cannot go back to not living without it. We may use Bing or some other search engines to test it out, but Google is just the default thing used. As search volume grows, so does the audience for search engine marketing, and so does the demand in companies for certified search engine marketing professionals.
