Google manipulates the results

Google is trialing an ‘enhancement’ to the way it displays its results. Instead of showing the top ten results for the exact words you enter, in the trial Google suggests three related results that you might want to check out. Where does it display these suggestions? It shunts (or replaces) results 6, 7 and 8 !!!

In this article, I refer to these results as ‘intruders’.

To see some ‘intruder’ results in action, search for “piggy bank”. Results 6, 7 and 8 are actually ‘intruder’ results; they’re the top three results for the more specific, less popular search, “piggy bank lyrics”. Google assumes that people searching for “piggy bank” will probably be interested in results of a search for “piggy bank lyrics”.

On first impressions, it’s tempting to think that this makes it harder to get into the top ten (because now it’s really the top seven, and the last two results may be easily overlooked). But it may actually make it easier – especially for smaller businesses. Let me explain why…

The advantage for smaller businesses

It all comes down to who can rank in the top ten for the most popular searches – like “computers”, “cars”, “doctor”, “pets”, etc. For anyone in these industries, a top ten ranking for these keywords is the holy grail. Unfortunately, these sorts of searches are presently dominated by big corporations with hefty search budgets. Most smaller businesses don’t even try to compete. Instead of focusing on these hotly contested keywords, small businesses tend to focus on much more specific keyword phrases – like “computers boston”, “second hand cars ohio”, “female doctor new england”, “discount pets for children”, etc.

But Google’s trial may change that. Remember, it’s replacing results 6, 7 and 8 of a popular, broad search with results 1, 2 and 3 of a less popular, more specific search. If the trial becomes a standard feature, a search for “computers” might well include three ‘intruder’ results from a search such as “computers boston”. As discussed above, results 6, 7 and 8 are likely to belong to big companies, whereas results 1, 2 and 3 of the more specific search are more likely to belong to smaller businesses. Therefore, when the switch occurs, it’s out with the big and in with the small!

In principle the enhancement appears to work in favor of small businesses:

1. Big business dominates popular / general search results
2. Smaller businesses have a greater chance of dominating less popular / more specific search results
3. General search results are replaced by specific search results
4. Big businesses are shunted out of the top ten by smaller businesses

Now I hear what you’re saying: “Why wouldn’t the big companies simply start optimizing for the more specific searches?” Granted, this is a possibility; but for most big companies, it would be a monumental task. Big companies tend to service a large geographic region, and they typically offer numerous products and services. Even a hefty search budget would be stretched to the limit if it was required to bankroll optimization for every single product, every single service, and every single location. And this is what would be required to dominate all of the more specific results, thereby gaining back their number 6, 7 or 8 position. It’s far more likely that they’ll simply try harder for a position in the top 5 of the popular/general search. This approach would be less complex and probably more rewarding.

The fine print

Of course, where Google is involved, nothing is ever that simple. I’ve oversimplified things above to make the trial a little easier to understand. In reality, the situation is a bit more complex because of the way Google chooses which search the three ‘intruder’ results come from. Take the “piggy bank” search for example. Google assumes that most users who search for “piggy bank” will also be interested in results from a search for “piggy bank lyrics”. This assumption is based on the fact that thousands of other people are searching specifically for “piggy bank lyrics” – in fact, it’s one of the most popular searches containing the original term “piggy bank”. And that’s why it gets the nod.

In other words, the intruder results come from popular searches (less popular than the original, but still popular). This means you’d already have to rank highly in a very popular search before you’d become an intruder. So, in reality, the above “computer” example is a little simplistic; the intruder results for “computer” are more likely to be from a search for something like “computers ibm”. In reality, the top three results for “computer peripherals boston” are more likely to appear as intruders in a “computer peripherals” search.

Conclusion

The important thing to remember is that if this trial becomes a standard feature, it will be implemented on all searches. And the more specific the original search, the easier it would be to become an intruder in that search. In theory, it has great potential to help smaller businesses reach the next rung of the search engine ladder.

Other Examples

Here are some further examples if you’re interested:

* Search for “add url”
* Search for “on demand”

Happy shunting!

Pay per click advertising is an on-going and growing arsenal for all entrepreneurs world wide. Whether your have a small business or a large business, buying a search engine placement is definitely the way to go.

Pay per click advertising is an on-going and growing arsenal for all entrepreneurs world wide. Whether your have a small business or a large business, buying a search engine placement is definitely the way to go.
Why fight a never ending battle against some of the worlds best webmasters who have years of experience and are dedicated to search engine placement 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Don’t fight the battle, win the battle by utilizing pay per click search engine marketing!

1st Thing 1st: Testing Your Market Place…

If you’ve never attempted a pay per click campaign, a good idea is to start with a small budget in order to test your market place.

The key is to find what your potential customers are searching for. There’s no better place to test that out by going to Google. Google allows you to pay for a small ad off to the right within a small green box.

Huh? If you’ve never seen these small ads within Google, go to: www.google.com

If you type in “web design” in google’s search engine, you will no doubt get the regular results on the left, as well as a list of small ads off to the right within small green boxes.

Underneath the small green boxes, you will see a link that says; “Place your ad here”. Another route is by going here: http://adwords.google.com

Please do yourself a favor and dedicate yourself to a small ad within Google in order to learn the ropes and utilize an inexpensive way to some fabulous research information.

You’ll want to determine how much you are willing to pay for 1 month. It could be as low as $20, but I recommend starting out with $50.00 to start your 1st campaign.

Try coming up with an ad that’s catchy and to the point!

Ex. Legal Services

Get A FREE Consultation!
Legal Services in Ontario

http://www.legalservices.com

After that you need to predetermine the “Key Phrases” you think that your potential clients are typing in Google when it comes to your product or service.

EX. “Legal Services”.

When Google asks you to enter your key words or phrases, you might want to try entering something like this….

1. Legal Services
2. Lawyers in Ontario
3. Law Services
4. Lawyer Services
5. Lawyer Services in Ontario

Try using as many as you can think of… Google will later show you the most popular key phrases compared to the key phrases that don’t work at all.

Please Note: I am using Goggles Adwords as an example because of how easy it is to log into your account at any time and check to see how many people have seen your ad and how many people have actually clicked on your ad to visit your site.

Once you’ve entered your “Key Words & Phrases” now you’re going to be asked to enter the maximum amount of money you want to pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

Ex. If someone searches “Legal Services”, you enter that you will pay a maximum of 0.07cts per click.

This will give you a pre-qualified potential client for 0.07cts.

Let’s move on a little now..

Assuming that your ad is all set up and already on the way. Now you can return to Google, log into your account and see how your “Key Words & Key Phrases” are performing with your campaign.

It might read something like this….

1. Legal Services ———- Ad was viewed 2000 times ————- Clicked on 100 times.
2. Lawyers in Ontario —– Ad was viewed 4560 times ————- Clicked on 9 times.

Now you will get a much better understanding at what your potential clients are searching for and what they are actually clicking on.

KEY NOTE: Try to experiment with this as much as possible and as quickly as possible so you can really begin your Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing.

Are you ready???

Now that you have your predetermined key words of phrases you want to use, you can now start looking into pay per click campaigns. Per per click search engines are a little different compared to the Google Adwords because instead of getting a small ad off to the right you are now going to bid on actual search engine placements.

1st thing you want to do is to visit a pay per click search engine. For instance, you might want to visit: www.goto.com or www.lycos.com or any other pay per click search engine online and test your new key words to determine what the top placements are paying for those spots.

Ex. Let’s use “Lawyer Services” again, type in that phrase in any Manchester PPC search engine and look at the top placements! It should read something like this…

5) Legal Services.com
Our firm is dedicated to helping you win your case each and every time.
Cost: $0.10

The key is to look at the cost. The cost is what “Legal Services.com” was willing to pay for the 5th search engine placement.

And there you go, you now have the basic knowledge to plan out a pay per click campaign. Always remember to lay out how much you are willing to commit to your search engine campaign and keep yourself to it.

I recommend to all my clients to at least master the Google Adword program. Goggles search engine is the #1 hotspot on the internet for potential clients, why not get a slice of the pie!