Evolving Media Part 2: Paying to Ignore SEO

What is the business of Google? The normal response is to say, ‘a search engine.’ It’s a convenient answer and it looks to be the case but it’s not correct. Instead, the business of Google is promotion.

Brands give Big G funds to promote them when a target audience member searches a relevant query. The search engine is merely the excuse for the audience member to be on the site in the first place. It’s window dressing. Google has trained us all to come to them when we are in search of an answer.

Google may say that there are 15.6879 million results of a given query but for the user that is superfluous. A user simply wants the answer or an answer when applicable. If you search for ‘lavender soap for sale’ Google gives you a list of purveyors who are relevant and reasonable responses. The solution you seek is, more often than not, found on the front page.

It is therefore reasonable that brands would spend money of search engine optimization (SEO). By being on the front page of relevant queries they ought to see better outcomes. However, if being at the top of the stack is what you want, why not just pay Google to put your brand on top?

So long as your website is reasonably tagged and designed then Google ought to find it reasonably quickly when a user searches something relevant. Brands do not pay Google to have their sponsored links on any old search responses but on relevant ones. Therefore, the paid results you get when you search for something on Google are, nine times out of ten, reasonable responses that align with your query.

The user asked for an answer and Google gave them one that satisfies their parameters. Plus, Google makes their money off of the sponsored links. It is in their interest to show good results that are paying to be there instead of well executed SEO pages.

In this environment Google is happy, the user is satisfied, and brands get what they want – top billing – so tell me why SEO ought to be a priority at all?