Search Marketing: The Illusion that You Have a Choice

People fear change. They fear what they don’t understand. I have seen that behavior time and time again in this new field called Search Marketing, the art and science of getting traffic through Search Engines. Whenever I try to convince someone to engage in a Search Marketing project, even the most basic SEO package, business owners feel like they are taking a risk. The ironic part is, the risk is actually much greater if you are NOT doing it. Here is why.

Search is a zero-sum game. If traffic goes to site A, that means it does not go to site B. Have you followed the Search Engines market share landscape lately? Google’s market share is on the rise. Everybody loves Google. When is the last time you search on AOL, Altavista, Ask and even Yahoo or MSN? Ask any Search Engine other than Google what they think about this. If you don’t get in, someone else with nothing to lose will. They will build market share and you won’t. A famous quote from an IBM executive that I have kept over the years goes like this: “It is no longer the big eating the small, but rather, the fast eating the slow”. It does not matter how small or how big your business and your Search Marketing budget is. You HAVE to step in, before your competitors do. 

One of the Search Marketing grand masters, Gord Hotchkiss from Enquiro, wrote another memorable piece last week that is called Caution will kill you in the Search Game. There is a part within this article that I especially liked where he reported a conversation he had a few weeks back about the idea of taking the risk of investing into Search Marketing. Most people want to use caution when investing in Search Engine Marketing (SEM). They watch their competitors and based on this, then decide to move forward or not. Gord mentions, well, those are only the competitors you know about. I bet competition will arise from completely unexpected places. Here is an excerpt that summarizes this perspective: 

But the irony here is that while it appears you have a choice, you really don’t. Because if you don’t take this chance, someone with a lot less to lose will. And eventually, that someone else will win. They’ll win, and you’ll lose, because Web traffic is a zero-sum game. Just ask every search engine who’s not Google. So while it appears there’s way too much to lose by reinventing your business model, it’s much, much riskier not to. Because as much as you think you’re in control of your business, you’re not. The users are, and you have them now by the simple virtue of there not being a better place to go—yet. In the Internet world, there will always be a better place to go, eventually. Either you build it or someone else will.

Have the courage to step in. It will be rewarded. In the end, you don’t have choice.

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