Has The World Gone Mad About Google?

I've been reading Aaron Goldman's blog posts in Search Insider over the past month and I have begun to wonder if the world has gone mad about Google.

In a sense, the answer is as resounding as any major victory can be. Google has a 72% market share of the U.S. Search Market and their world-wide share is pretty close to that percentage. Google is my personal search favorite for the same reasons it became so dominant. It displays the most relevant results. Additionally, it offers a religiously clean and uncluttered user interface and a cult-like devotion to preserving the clarity and purpose of the user's search experience. These are the strong, historic reasons for its amazing rise.

So, on the one hand the world is bonkers for Google. Yet, on the other hand maybe we still need a more competitive marketplace? Perhaps Bing will close the gap. Or, maybe Yahoo will continue to edge its way into capturing more market share. One thing is clear: they will have to do something significant and worthwhile in order to gain momentum.

As a marketing professional, with his own Agency, I'm very impressed with Google and am working on new Search business for a few of our current clients. It's very hard to say no and not recommend Google. They literally invented the current search marketplace. They are the innovator. The ones who wrote the proprietary algorithm which evaluates the number and quality of inbound links for every website they index. In essence their thinking was this: if a site truly has great content, then other high quality sites will have discovered it, and linked to it on behalf of their own audience. In a similar fashion, Google doesn't just take money from advertisers and throw up their sponsored listings on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Google pioneered in ranking paid search advertisers, not just on a CPC basis, but on the click through rate as well. They had the audacity to take the measure of their clients and reward them with a Quality Rating if they offered a high degree of relevancy (there's that word again) to the user's search, thereby keeping themselves aligned with the intentions and passions of the user.

Paying attention to Google is a little bit like watching Tiger Woods play golf. You almost hope he slips up and let's someone else capture a win. But you always come away impressed. He's so capable, dominating and likable at the same time. So it is with Google. They had the good sense to be altruistic, to give their employees great perks (such as free haircuts) and to stay rooted in the belief that the user experience was the holy grail of their company.

I'm neither here to praise Caesar (Google), nor bury him. I'm here to leverage his success on behalf of my clients, and my own business. What else would a thinking marketer want?

So just like Google, we're going to keep things simple with keyword strategies that remain clean and well set up. In Google this means keeping the Adwords groups well organized, with no overlapping keywords which might create analytical difficulties for evaluating results and managing bids. Though an entire campaign is based on semantics, that doesn't mean it's simple. Using online keyword search tools it's possible for a medium sized company to generate thousands of keywords and keyword phrases, which is problematic at best and potentially very expensive. Plus if you get off the ground in the wrong way on Google, you're account quality score will suffer. Studies have shown that it can be very difficult to get back on track after this kind of rocky beginning.

There are two things that keep me coming back to Google, and not just as a user. As an advertiser as well. With Google you see how important it is to think about the user mindset (called user intent). Google is successful in part because they allow advertisers to reach people when they're in a commercial mindset, an active shopping mode. To the extent this means actively shopping versus background fact-finding is moot. When people are using Google they're not just passively watching. They're actively engaged in looking for information. They might be ready to transact that moment. Just when you want them at your site. The second thing keeping me in the Google fold is the principle of simplicity. Everything they did is a reminder of the power of simplicity. They came of age during a time of cluttered portals. Google stood apart with its clean white page. Additionally, their call to action was center stage.

The important lesson is to make every call to action equally clear and clean whether it says buy now, or order online. And, keep the design environment clean and de-cluttered. Maintain a high degree of usability. That's always in style. Of course, that Google market share is also a good reason to keep your interest in them at a high level.

Has the world gone mad about Google?

Well of course it has. Now, what are you going to do about it?