Face the Top Two Website Findability Facts!
Three business people asked me the same internet marketing question within a month, so I reckon this warrants a blog post! The question, roughly translated, is this:
Hey! My stats show that I’m not getting as much search engine traffic as I did a few months/years ago! I’m still in the top 10 for most of my favorite keyword terms, so what gives?”
What gives at the search engines? Generally, a decline in search-generated visitation (when your search positioning hasn’t changed!) can indicate one of two situations:
1. Your industry keywords aren’t as popular as they were before. This can be seasonal — a quick look at Google Trends for the keyword phrase “tulip festival” shows that searches for this term tend to spike in spring and all but disappear in autumn. Naturally!
Other than a decline from seasonal search, you might have to face a harder truth: your products or services may be in market decline. For example, as new technologies become more popular, searches for the term “iPod Shuffle” became less popular. You’re still likely to see “iPod Shuffle” searches spike during the holiday shopping season — but probably nothing like what we saw in 2005.
So ask yourself: is your product seasonal? Or is your product or industry in decline? Because if the answer is “yes” — of course you’re going to get less visitation from the search engines for your search terms!
But if the answer is, “no” — you’ll have to face findability fact #2…
2. People are expanding internet search far beyond Google. Vertical search is certainly becoming more popular. By vertical search, I mean search by industry or topic area. For example, back in 1999 or 2000, you might have thought of “Google” to begin an online “used car” search. Not anymore! Today, you might be more likely to think, “Autotrader.com” to begin your online search for a used car. Notice how the gap narrowed — then crossed. Autotrader.com did not squander its search engine capital — and successfully branded themselves as a top site in automotive vertical search.
Aside from vertical search, social media and other valuable information/networking sites are also fragmenting the amount of searching that your audience performs at Google. When I want to get advice about new products, for example, I find that I am more likely to ask my friends on Twitter or FaceBook or LinkedIn for their advice on where to go and what to try. Google has become my second choice.
Google is becoming the second — or third — choice for many online researchers and buyers as they look for information to help make purchasing or business decisions. If you notice that you’re spending more of your budget and time on search engine marketing for your website — and getting less of a return — it’s certainly time to take a look at your overall findability strategy!
It’s not 1999 anymore! There’s more to findability than Google and Yahoo! Update and diversify your findability strategy for 2008. Vertical search and social media may become an important part of your overall findability and engagement plan.
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