Chapter 2
Reality Check: Google Is a Monopoly

At this point you understand that visibility is key. If you are not visible, you are invisible and will not be able to sell your product or service or develop a fan base. Or it will be much more difficult. So the question becomes, “What is the best way to be visible?” I established that the answer is “the Internet.” The Internet is the most powerful form of marketing and advertising with the highest ROI. The next question is, “What is the most powerful form of Internet/digital marketing?” The answer is unequivocally “search engine domination,” specifically through the “oracle ” itself, Google. Of course there are other major players in the search engine space that exist, such as the following:

  • Bing: 350 million unique monthly visitors as of 2014
  • Yahoo!: 300 million unique monthly visitors as of 2014
  • Ask: 245 million unique monthly visitors as of 2014
  • AOL: 125 million unique monthly visitors as of 20141

While these statistics may be shocking, none of them comes close to Google. Google is the leviathan in the search space. Google receives over 1.1 billion unique visitors per month. There are 7.046 billion people on planet Earth and 1.1 billion of them uniquely search Google monthly. That is just about equal to all of the other major search engine providers combined! Comscore ranks the search engine market share as follows:

  1. Google: 67.5 percent
  2. Bing: 18.7 percent
  3. Yahoo!: 10 percent
  4. Ask: 2.5 percent
  5. AOL: 1.3 percent2

To be crystal clear, all of the other search engines combined don't equal even half of Google's reach. If that wasn't enough reason to believe, let's add YouTube into the mix. YouTube is also a search engine, and it is actually the number two search engine, not Bing. The reason it wasn't included in the top-five list is simply because it isn't a traditional search engine. It is a video search engine, but it is a search engine nonetheless. Consumers go to YouTube to search for answers just like they go to Google. The only difference is they are specifically requesting a video response to their specific search.

Here is an amazing breakdown of YouTube:

  • There are over 3 billion searchers every month
  • Over 1 billion unique visitors per month
  • 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute
  • Bigger than Bing, Yahoo!, AOL, and Ask combined
  • 6 billion hours are viewed every month

And the most incredible aspect of YouTube is that it is owned by Google! That is right! In 2006 Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Let's put this into perspective. Google already is the preeminent search engine entity on the planet.3 Google is bigger than the other four competing search engines combined. Now when you add in the dynamic that Google also owns the number 2 search engine, YouTube, it becomes no question that Google dominates (practically monopolizes) the search space.

Consider these stats for Google and YouTube combined:

  • Over 2.1 billion unique visitors per month
  • Over 103 billion searches per month

I share this with you because it is very important to always be careful of distractions disguised as opportunities. There are so many shiny objects in digital marketing and Internet advertising, so many choices, so many search engines, and so many solutions promising to be the ultimate answer to your visibility needs. You have to put first things first and ask yourself how you are going to get the biggest bang for your buck and the biggest return for your time. After all, time is money. It is the most precious commodity we possess. Once it's gone…it's gone. So you need to be careful not to allow companies, people, or backseat drivers the opportunity to sway your thoughts and coerce you into investing your attention, time, and resources into “B” player options. Their arguments may be compelling and sound something like this:

  • B player: Bing has 350 million unique users and almost 20 percent of the market share.
  • I say, so what! As impressive as that may sound, it still doesn't compare to the potential exposure Google has to offer.
  • B player: If everyone is focused on Google, then there is less competition on the other platforms.
  • I say, so what! Again, remember our goal is to be where the most fish are, not just where a fair amount are.
  • B player: I don't like Google or even use Google.
  • I say, so what! That makes you the minority, not the majority.
  • B player: You should diversify and maximize your opportunity and minimize your risk.
  • I say, not a good idea. I spoke about spreading yourself too thin and diluting your effectiveness by trying to implement various strategies simultaneously. You want to conquer one action item or opportunity at a time and make sure to put first things first. This way you can make sure the most important action items pertaining to your marketing strategy are targeted and executed first.

Google is synonymous with search and search engines, the same way Q-tips are synonymous with cotton swabs, Kleenex is synonymous with facial tissues, and Rollerblades are synonymous with inline skates. Q-tips, Kleenex, and Rollerblades are companies, not objects! But their brand and corporate names are so powerful that they have become interchangeable. The brand names have outweighed the name of the products themselves. It's no wonder that the name Google has turned into a verb that is so commonly used in people's day-to-day speech. I'm sure you've heard someway say, “I need to Google that,” or “I Googled that,” or “Google says.” If people are looking to satisfy a curiosity or have a question, they simply turn to Google in order to search for their desired answers. It is surreal, but true, that people find and have found their:

  • Husbands
  • Wives
  • Pets
  • Furniture
  • Directions
  • Advice
  • Automobiles
  • Homes
  • Fitness regimen
  • Health and beauty tips
  • Recipes
  • And everything in between

…all on Google.

In 2011 Jim Lecinski of Google wrote an eBook called Winning the Zero Moment of Truth, otherwise known as the ZMOT. It changed the way people and companies thought about and approached advertising and marketing. It altered our paradigm, the way that we viewed and understood the consumer buying process. It revealed that there is a space between stimulus (something that elicits an action or response) and the “First Moment of Truth” (coined by Procter & Gamble). This new space between consumer stimulus and response is the ZMOT. This is where consumers are influenced by what they see, read, and find online. The days of a consumer seeing a product or service and immediately whipping out the credit card to complete the purchase are over. There is now a space of time consumers utilize to do research before making a decision to purchase. It doesn't mean weeks or months necessarily. It may take only a few hours, or minutes even, but regardless of the length of time, there is that predecision research being conducted. Google's ZMOT eBook goes on to say that over 80 percent of all transactions start on search. From something as inexpensive as a paperback book to something as expensive as a jet plane. Yes, folks, those are actual transactions! A consumer is going to drop the item or service of interest into the Google search field and review what pops up.

Let's look at the automotive sales industry as an example. The second-largest item that the average American will ever purchase in his or her lifetime is an automobile (right behind a home). JD Power & Associates states that 92–99 percent of Americans will go online to do some form of research before they ever step foot into a dealership. Whether this research is due to pricing, availability, service, trade-in information, credit application, insurance, or just to make the process and experience more convenient, people are influenced by what they see online. After all, perception is reality.

I am going to give you a strong example of Google's ZMOT, which happens to be a personal true story.

One early morning, my wife and I were at the gym working out, running on the treadmills side by side. (Side note: Karina is a huge fitness buff and is all about everything and anything fitness- and wellness-related.) So, picture us side by side on the treadmills, with our headphones on, listening to our favorite workout jams via our iTunes on our iPhones, when a TV commercial comes on for the Ab Rocket Twister. Karina immediately looks up with this smile, because it seems that she is the unofficial tester of all of these “As Seen on TV” fitness products. She points to the Plasma and mouths to me, “I want it!” I look over at her like, “Woman, are you crazy? Whatever you want, honey, please just let me be. I am having a hard enough time just trying to keep my focus and stay alive on this treadmill.” I tell you, in less than 27 seconds, as she is running on the treadmill, she Googles “Ab Rocket Twister” and sees that it has only 2.5 stars (Google review) out of 5 stars. And boom! Just like that she went from a state of excitement to a state of disappointment, exited her Safari browser, and went back to listening to her iTunes tracks. She dismissed the product from her thoughts. She put her trust into the recommendations of others who tried the product before her, and she identified that it wasn't a product that she was willing to spend (or in this case risk) her money on. Once again, the amount of time from point of interest (the time from when she was exposed to the infomercial) to the Zero Moment of Truth (the time she decided against moving forward with the product) was less than 30 seconds! Try to imagine all of the time and cost that went into that infomercial for the Ab Rocket Twister, and just like that, it was obliterated in less than 30 seconds by Google reviews. It no longer mattered that the models casted in the infomercial possessed “six-pack” abs, the object of man's envy. In fact, they lost all credibility in her eyes. They were no longer credible examples of the product's results, but simply actors attempting to take advantage of people, despite the product's lack of effectiveness. This visual combined with her strong shopper impulse were no match for the words she read across her cell phone screen from other consumers. Their dissatisfaction with the product was powerful enough for her to change her mind and decide against purchasing the product. And that is the power of ZMOT.

But it doesn't end there. You may possibly be thinking that Karina is only one opinion and one story, and question whether that is enough to make a difference in a world filled with over 7 billion people. But to assume that would be wrong. Sure, in this case she is one voice, but listen to what happens next.

Every Sunday at the Bradley home is family night. This is where we get together for food and entertainment with immediate and extended family members. That first Sunday following the gym incident, Karina and her sister were sitting down talking in the family room when, sure enough, the infomercial for the Ab Rocket Twister comes on. Karina had just given birth to our fourth child, and her sister was pregnant and expecting her third. Naturally, they were discussing their fitness status, wants, goals, desires, and wishes. So what do you think happened when her sister got that same excited look on her face when she saw the infomercial? Karina, of course, shared her Google review findings with her sister, which quickly put an end to any desire to purchase the product. You see, it becomes a ripple effect. Karina goes online and reads the reviews for the Ab Rocket Twister. She then decides not to buy the product. Her sister gets excited over the same product, and Karina quickly puts that impulse to rest. Now if Karina's sister comes across someone who mentions the product, she too will advise against it and so on and so on. This is why it is so important to have a strong Google review presence.

Google has warranted credibility. People feel that if it is on Google, it must be real. It is considered to be a factual resource for anything and everything. If we have a question, it has an answer. It is the oracle of our time. Many years ago, this same phenomenon occurred with the invention of the television. People believed that if it was on TV, it must be real. The same situation has occurred with Google. People feel that if they Google something, the answer they seek will magically pop up. With that in mind, it is important to note that while the perception in the past was that everything seen on television had to be real, there came a time when people realized that they couldn't believe everything they saw or read in the newspaper or magazines. Well, unlike those previous examples, Google is always hard at work to make sure that the information it presents to searchers is as relevant and accurate as possible, therefore ensuring that there will never come a time when people stop relying on the search juggernaut for their quests for information.

Most people don't understand the mechanics of how Google results work, but they don't think twice about questioning its validity. And they still trust and believe it to be so—just like most people don't understand how or why electricity works, nor do they care, so long as it works. They just know that it does and that it allows us to have a source of power for appliances, electronics, and even automobiles. They love to use it, they need to use it, and they depend on it. Just the same goes for Google.

It is for this reason that your search engine focus should consist purely of Google efforts. Once you come to the realization that Google is indeed the leviathan of search engines, the next step is to truly understand Google. Once you understand Google, then you can formulate a powerful strategy to dominate Google through the Googleopoly strategy you will learn herein and create an unfair competitive advantage.

Originally, Google was limited by the type of content it could supply a person when a Google search was conducted. This has all changed with the formation of universal search. Back in 2007, Google announced that it would unify content found on the web from a variety of sources, such as news websites, video, images, and book search engines. The objective was to ensure a more streamlined search process so that it was easier to find relevant information on a specific topic. The evolution of traditional search to universal search has upgraded the search game. At one time people had to go to specific search engines for specific forms of content. For example, images were found on websites like Flickr and Photobucket, and videos were found on websites like AOL Video, YouTube, Metacafe, Viddler, and so forth. Years ago you couldn't Google something and see images, audio, or video show up on the first page of Google's results. Today we count on this unity of information.

Universal search is the consolidated and blended search returns from:

  • Video
  • Images
  • Maps
  • News
  • Local
  • Shopping

Some interesting facts related to universal search:

  • Video shows up for 65 percent of the keywords (people prefer to watch video over static text)
  • Images show up for 40 percent of the keywords
  • News feeds show up for 16 percent of the keywords
  • Shopping shows up for 6 percent of the keywords
  • Maps show up for 1 percent of the keywords4

What this means is that because of universal search, no matter what someone is looking for, no matter what someone Googles, they are now able to find all forms of content in one place, under one search. A simple search can yield results for videos, images, and articles all on page one of Google, seen in all combinations. Yet again, search engines have evolved to make the user search experience a more convenient and more productive one by turning up results in all forms, under one umbrella, without having to visit video-specific, image-specific websites.

Unlocking Page One of Google

Now I am going to talk about Google's layout and what a consumer can expect to see when eliciting a search. A Google page is specific and broken down into different sections. Each section has its own algorithm with its own purpose, strategy, and focus. Figure 2.1 shows a highlighted graphic identifying each area of the Google search results page. I will break these different sections down into further detail shortly.

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Figure 2.1 The Google Search Results page is broken down into many sections, including pay-per-click, organic results, Google+ Business, news, Google Maps, Google's Knowledge Graph, and finally, the organic top 10 results.

Before I break down the various components of a Google page, I must first share with you another interesting but vital fact about Google that, if you weren't aware of already, will change the way you look at Google, alter your Google strategy, and help you understand how to win the game of Googleopoly. Only 5 percent of people go past page one of a Google search. Another way of saying this is that an overwhelming 95 percent of people do not go past page one on Google (or any search engine for that matter).5

It is very important to understand the significance of that statistic. Essentially, it doesn't matter how many times you show up as an option in search (fourth page, ninth page, even second page). If you are not on the first page, you are statistically invisible. You can think of page one of Google like a one-page menu at a restaurant that consists of some appetizers and desserts that are chosen less than the also-listed 10 organic “main entrée” options. If you are not even listed on the menu as an option, how can someone possibly choose you or your product or service? It's like the lottery. You have to be in it to win it. Another wife story comes to mind. My wife, Karina, will catch wind that the lottery is up to an exuberant payout and suggest to me excitedly that we should play. She starts to rattle off all of the items we would buy if we were to win. She speaks about the glorious vacations our immediate family members, extended family members, and friends would take, the home improvements we would make and the charities we would donate to. She begins to paint a picture for me of how our lives would be forever different, yet Karina never buys a ticket! I say to her, “Karina, if you want to win the lottery, you have to actually play. It is not going to magically happen for you just because you speak of it.” Again, you must be in it to win it.

You now know that only 5 percent of people go past page one. So it is obviously imperative that I discuss the components of page one of Google, its level of exposure and relevance, and how you can strategically utilize its various components to create a custom strategy to dominate online. These components consist of:

  • Pay per click (PPC)
  • Local search (Google + Business)
  • Knowledge graph
  • (Organic) Top 10 lists
    • Images
    • Video
    • News feeds
    • Maps

Pay per click (PPC) is Google's primary revenue stream. In 2013 Google reported $50.5 billion in ad revenue and in 2014 reported $13.9 billion in the first quarter alone. This means that Google is due to track over $55 billion in ad revenue for the year 2014. That is approximately a 10 percent increase from 2013. Google's advertising revenue has been on a massive increase for the past 10 years and is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. I preface this section with these metrics before I give a reality check about Google's PPC program.

The truth is that only 6 percent of people click on pay-per-click (PPC) ads!6

That means that the majority of people, 94 percent of people to be exact, skip PPC and go organic. The numbers are staggering but telling. It reinforces that people are more knowledgeable than we, as marketers and business owners, may give them credit for and that regardless of where or what form they are displayed in, people are tired of having commercials forced onto them. This is true even for commercials shown online—even if they are Google commercials. People realize that the top three rows of search returns, as well as the right-hand vertical row of search returns, are essentially Google-sponsored commercials, and they understand that the only reason they are ranked higher is because their position was paid for. Being ranked in those top sponsored positions doesn't make them the best results or most credible results; it just makes them the paid results. The first listings are even labeled with a little yellowish-orange box with the word Ad written in it. It doesn't become any clearer than that. The vast majority of people have no desire to give these ads the opportunity for their business. They simply skip past them and go directly to what they perceive are the real and valuable listings, the organic top 10 results.

This does not mean that Google PPC is not a powerful or viable form of digital marketing. It is, but putting first things first, there are more powerful elements of digital marketing with a higher ROI than PPC on Google.

PPC should behave only as a supplement and complement to organic search, not as the primary initiative. Regardless of budget, no one should put all of their eggs in one basket and use PPC as their only strategy for exposure. But you should especially not if you have only a limited budget. If this is the case, PPC should not be considered a tier-one initiative—that is, organic optimization should be the primary choice and then PPC can add some additional advertisement value, but only after you have mastered a viable organic strategy first.7

Google Local Business

Google Local Business (formerly Google+ Local) helps people find local destinations and businesses, and consolidates a suite of services for local business to be found. Google has a five-star review rating system. This enables a person to review and evaluate a business, product, or service online before they choose to purchase a product or service and before visiting an establishment. This is what ZMOT is all about. Google Local Business is one of the most powerful and relevant pieces of field intelligence for a shopper, buyer, prospect, researcher, or surfer. Zagat-style summaries for Google reviews have a huge impact on people, eliminating bad choices. That's right—a lot of people actually utilize the Internet specifically as a research tool with the intent not of finding a product or service but eliminating a bad choice from their options.

Businesses can customize the following aspects of their Google Local Business page and create powerful content, such as the following:

  • Graphical header: Businesses can customize the header for consistent branding of their corporate identity and to make the page look and feel more professional.
  • Pictures: Businesses can upload images of themselves, their staff, their customers, and their inventory. You can upload any and all relevant images.
  • Videos
    • You can upload video(s) of:
      • Facility walk-through
      • Video testimonials/reviews
      • How-to videos
      • “Why buy from us”/Value package proposition videos
  • Coupons
    • Freebees
    • Discounts
    • Buy one, get one free
    • Referrals
    • Check-ins
  • Text content
    • About the business
    • Why buy
  • Hours and directions
    • Business hours
    • Contact info
      • Email address
      • Phone number (with click to call)
    • Map
      • Directions
  • Reviews
    • Client reviews
    • User reviews
    • Fan reviews
    • Product reviews
    • Service reviews
    • Venue/facility reviews

A review, whether positive or negative, is an opportunity to interact with the public and show your human side. Let's face it—you cannot make everyone 100 percent happy, 100 percent of the time. There may even be a time where you make an honest mistake. It happens to the best of businesses. But it is how you react to those negative reviews or complaints that determines your level of integrity and how your business is perceived in the public eye. Turning a wrong into a right can yield some serious positive consequences. Some of the worst beginnings can result in the best endings if handled correctly. I have seen the power of wrongs made right firsthand and have seen cyberterrorists turn into the ultimate cheerleaders and advocates for the exact business they originally cyberattacked. Regardless, you have the opportunity to thank your clients and fans, as well as an opportunity to make a disgruntled person happy.

Google Knowledge Graph

The Google Knowledge Graph is a system that Google launched in May 2012 that understands facts about people, places, and things and how these entities are all connected. When someone Googles something like “Ford,” for example, you will notice this large square on the right side of the Google search page that is filled with a lot of information, like the following (see Figure 2.2):

  • How many people are in Ford's Google+ Circle
  • Giving you the ability to follow Ford on Google+ right there on the Knowledge Graph!
  • Company bio
  • Stock price
  • Ford's phone number for roadside assistance
  • CEO's name with hyperlink to more information about him or her
  • Ford's headquarters information with hyperlink to more details
  • Ford Motor Company's founder information with hyperlink to more details
  • Most recent news blurb
  • A section at the bottom that shows what other searches people were performing in addition to “Ford”8
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Figure 2.2 This is an example of a well-developed Google+ Business Page. The contact information is complete and accurate, the profile photos are clear and relevant, and photos have been uploaded. Additionally, there are a number of reviews and a clear description of the business.

The Google Knowledge Graph is largely powered by software written by Metaweb in the mid-2000s called Freebase, which bills itself as “a community-curated database of well-known people, places, and things.” 9

Once Metaweb's Freebase became powerful enough to begin to threaten Google's standing as the only “oracle” data set to find information on the web, Metaweb and Freebase were acquired by Google in a private sale in 2010.10 It is important to understand that Google is a content- and data-driven search engine. The simple fact is that Google is constantly consolidating information from multiple sources into one neat and concise section called the “Knowledge Graph,” which completely aligns with Google's primary objective from its conception, which was to provide a more organized web.11

If there are very few people searching for a certain person, company, service, or widget, it is doubtful that Google will create a Knowledge Graph for that particular search query. One of the reasons Google's Knowledge Graph was developed was because when there is an abundance of search queries on a certain keyword, person, place, or thing, it wanted to be able to provide the best and most accurate information in the most powerful format possible. It also wants to encourage you to dig deeper into a topic by presenting you with information that comes from search data acquired by the billions of searches that happen on a daily basis. For example, a search for “Da Vinci” will provide a Knowledge Graph that shows information about Leonardo Da Vinci's birth date and death date, burial place, famous inventions, and an image library of his famous paintings. Presenting the information in the Knowledge Graph format encourages you to learn more about Da Vinci, but can also help you learn more about other related topics that you might find interesting.

I believe Google Knowledge Graph is the future of search. Think about it. Google aims to provide people with the information they are looking for as quickly and efficiently as possible. Imagine not having to click through to a website to get more information because it's shown right there in front of you with all of the information that you'd ever need about a particular person, place, or thing.

Having said that, there is still a long way to go before there is enough information to show in a Knowledge Graph. For example, right now if you do a Google search for “Ford,” you will see a bunch of interesting information about the Ford Motor Company, including a brief description of the company, its customer service telephone number, current stock value, and the current CEO, but consider how much more relevant information is still yet to be shown there!

Even though the Knowledge Graph represents a significant advancement in search technology, I don't believe we have even scratched the surface of what Google has in store. Think about how cool it would be to have contextual search considered by Google in the Knowledge Graph. That way not only would a search for a “Ford F-150” provide you with information about Ford Motor Company, but also you might see model comparisons between the Ram 1500, Toyota Tundra, and Chevrolet Silverado. Remember that Google's aim is to provide you with the most relevant information based on what you're searching for, and the Knowledge Graph has demonstrated that Google wants to get you specific information without even having to click through to a website.

To further my prediction that Knowledge Graph is the way that search is headed, consider that every time someone has to click through and drill down to get information, you lose 24 percent of your audience. There is no question that people want information fast. Remember my discussion about the lack of patience that exists today, the concept of on-demand information, and what will happen if you do not supply the consumer with the requested information in a quick manner.

In addition, the Google Knowledge Graph gives people exactly what they want, how they want it, and as already mentioned—fast! Why even bother to waste time with ranking a static page someone has to click into and search for a phone number or a piece of information? With the Google Knowledge Graph, right there on the first page of Google you can have a convenient list of the most relevant and searched pieces of information. Referring back to the Ford example, one of the pieces of information in the Knowledge Graph is Ford Motor Company's phone number for roadside assistance! How convenient is that? All you have to do is type the word Ford into Google, and there it is! The first page shows the Knowledge Graph with the phone number for roadside assistance, and better yet, if you are searching on a mobile device, which you probably are, you can “click to call.” This is extremely convenient, especially if you are having an emergency with your automobile. You do not have to search within Ford Motor Company's main site or try to find the website for Ford's roadside assistance program. As a matter of fact, you don't have to do anything but type one word—“Ford”—into Google, and then it magically gives you exactly what you need (see Figure 2.3).

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Figure 2.3 The Knowledge Graph appears automatically on a Google Search Results page and contains a collection of data gathered from around the Internet, including phone numbers, company information, Wikipedia content, social media posts, and even related searches.

Source: Example link www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ford.

Google has now become the go-to tool for those looking to find a business or service. Most people don't use the yellow pages or phone book anymore because they have been replaced by Google. And with the masses of people who have the ability to access Google from their smartphones on demand, it has become the most convenient alternative or, better yet, more advanced replacement.12

Organic Listing “Top 10”

The nonpaid listings that appear on Google below and to the left of all the paid advertised listings are known as organic listings. It should go without saying that the “first-position, natural Google” (organic)/top 10 list is the holy grail of optimization placement for webmasters and search engine optimization specialists. This is your “Boardwalk.” Those coveted top 10 placements are what everyone is chasing. Google is constantly changing its algorithms (which I will explain shortly) with the intent to make it hard to achieve first-position, natural Google, especially if it is for a keyword or phrase that is highly searched and has a lot of competition. Don't misunderstand—I'm not trying to frame Google as the bad guys by saying that its intent is to make it hard. It does so in order to make the web a better (and more organized) experience. One of the best ways to make sure that spammy and irrelevant sites stay away from rankings is to create a strict set of guidelines for webmasters to use. Further, it's like anything else, achieving something is only the beginning. Maintaining it is the true goal and should be your long-term strategy. Sustainability is key when it comes to search engines. Google is certainly not an exception.

There are some things that you need to be aware of in order achieve and maintain a top 10 organic/natural placement with Google. First, you need to understand the process that Google goes through in order to get your website or universal search content ranked according to its specific engine. The following pieces of information will help you understand some important key items pertaining to the process that Google uses, and also how its process works.

1. Once a website, video, image, MP3, news feed, press release, blog post, social media, or any form of content is published to the Internet or submitted to the directories, the process of indexing begins by the search engine. This is typically done by uploading a sitemap.xml file inside your Google Webmaster Tools account or equivalent software provided by other search engines.

Sitemaps are a standard protocol that webmasters use to inform search engines of URLs that are ready and available for crawling. If, for whatever reason, you are suspicious that your website is not showing up in search engines, having access to your Google Webmaster Tools account is an absolute must, because you will be able to identify if a sitemap file has even been uploaded and if there are any errors regarding your website that Google wants you to fix.

2. Once Google verifies that your sitemap.xml file is valid, Google's search “spiders” then crawl the content and read, listen, scan, and compare all of it to other website content that is trying to rank for the same keywords and search engine results page (SERP) placements. Based on Google's most up-to-date search algorithm, your website will be ranked according to its relevancy as compared to other sites. If your content meets Google's search algorithm specifications, it will be ranked favorably and hopefully show up within the top 10 placements in the SERPs.

3. Not many people know this, but Google actually updates its search engine algorithms in excess of 500–600 times per year. Isn't it fascinating to think about how much it wants to create phenomenal user experiences through its search engine? Think about it. That is just about twice a day, every day, all year long! Most of these changes are slight. However, from time to time, Google will drop a major update, such as:

  • Penguin

    Google's search algorithm update code-named “Penguin” dates back to April 2012. Its primary focus was to catch sites practicing “black hat” search engine optimization tactics, like buying links or being part of a link farm or link-generating network, designed primarily to boost Google rankings. Black hat SEO refers to practices designed to trick and cheat Google's ranking considerations in order to get higher placements.

    The biggest takeaway for this update is that Google does not appreciate nor does it want you to cut corners or attempt to cheat its engine. That goes expressly against what it is trying to accomplish by making the web a more organized place to find relevant information.

    As of this printing, the most recent rollout to date of this algorithm was Penguin 5 (a.k.a. Penguin 2.1), which was released on October 4, 2013.13 This goes to show that Google is always identifying new ways that websites are attempting to cheat its system, which is the exact reason why it has to be consistently updated. Remember, Penguin is the spam destroyer.

  • Panda 4.0

    Google launched Panda 4.0, on May 19, 2014, in order to crack down on spammers.14 Previous iterations of the Panda algorithm were released in February 2011, which is just over a year earlier than the Penguin algorithm update. The main difference between the two algorithms is that Panda's focus was on downranking websites that contained too much advertising or too little content. This is where sites like PR Newswire and eBay took a massive hit. Early reports show that eBay lost as much as 80 percent of its organic search rankings because Google significantly penalized it for housing so much valueless, spammy content. After all, Google's official mission statement is to “organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful”—the keyword being useful.

    In order to play nice with the Panda 4.0 algorithm, your focus should be on creating high-quality content, not high-quantity content. With every algorithm update that Google releases, the search engine becomes smarter. It's fascinating to think that a computer program (because that's what an algorithm is) can understand enough about your website content to know whether it is high-quality.

  • Hummingbird

    Another update, Hummingbird, named so because of its precision and speed, was the first algorithm overhaul in nearly 10 years. Google literally stripped out the whole engine and rebuilt it from scratch! With this algorithm update came greater understanding of not only the keywords placed in the content of your web pages but also the context behind those keywords. As you can see, with each algorithm update comes a smarter search engine. Ten years ago nobody would have been able to imagine computer programs that could understand the context of written words. What makes this even more fascinating is the fact that language is so ambiguous.

    Previous to Hummingbird, writing content for your website was very systematic. For example, you could write keyword-rich content, such as, “If you're looking for a 2012 Ram pickup truck for sale in Newark, NJ, come and visit our pre-owned trucks dealership to get the best deals,” and with some confidence know that following the formula would increase your chances of ranking well.

    Keyword-specific verbiage is no longer as effective or well received by Google because Hummingbird is looking for greater contextual relevancy. Instead, you must now really focus on providing high-quality content to frame your keyword theme. Referring back to the 2012 Ram pickup example from earlier, if the focus of a particular page is the 2012 Ram pickup truck, you'll find greater success in providing content that is relevant to the truck itself rather than just writing, “2012 Ram pickup truck for sale in NJ” a bunch of times on the page mingled in with meaningless content. Instead you would want to write a full paragraph about the vehicle and its details with greater-quality information, rather than writing solely with keywords in mind.

    Further regarding understanding the context of the content on a particular page of your site, Hummingbird also looks at and understands each word in a user's search query and aims to align that contextual search with content that best represents the user's intended search focus. Hummingbird will weigh the context more favorably over a repetition of specific keywords. It looks at every single word in the search query instead of just cherry-picking the most prominent keywords or phrases. This means that keyword data is not as valuable as it was in previous algorithms because Google is looking at the meaning behind the words and is rewarding high-quality, natural (human-like) contextual content surrounding a topic, rather than the sites that have the right keyword density.

    You may have heard the phrase “Content is king.” Hummingbird agrees with that statement and will reward you if your content is awesome.

  • Pigeon

    On July 24, 2014, Google released a new nameless Local Search algorithm update, which was quickly nicknamed “Pigeon” by the content curators at www.searchengineland.com. In nontypical Google fashion, very few updates were published by Google's search engineers about what was included in the update, though we do know for sure that it has affected local search listings and map listings in Google.15

Some business owners have observed that SERPs that previously appeared in the map pack (the map listings that accompany the organic SERPs) inexplicably have vanished or been replaced by global sites, like Expedia or Hotels.com.

Having said that, SERPs are still appearing to be quite sporadic in their display of map pack listings. It's still too early to tell if any dramatic changes to your web strategy should be made. If your website, business, or brand has been affected already, it is going to be a bit of a painful wait while SEO specialists wait for the algorithm to level out so that we can get a good handle on what has actually changed.

The best practice at the time of writing this book is to strongly focus on making sure your website covers the consideration sets of the other clearly defined and documented algorithms (Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird).

On-Page Elements

Early on, some alluded to the fact that on-page elements—meta-title, description, URL, H1, and so on (to be discussed in depth in Chapter 4)—weren't going to be as important, but I'm finding them just as relevant as ever. There is a very thorough review article posted on Search Engine Land that validates the importance of on-page elements.16

I have mentioned the word algorithm several times so far. If you are wondering what exactly a search algorithm is, allow me to explain. It is a mathematical program or formula that sorts out the trillions of web pages, pictures, videos, articles, and all other forms of content, and based on these formulas, ranks content on priority in relevant order. Algorithm programs look for clues in content and context and try to give searchers exactly what they want in the exact format they want it in. Search engines are so advanced that they possess:

  • Speech recognition
  • Facial recognition
  • Pixel recognition
  • (Virtual) Logic
  • Assumption
  • Correlation
  • Comparison
  • Regional search (geo-targeted)

Google's algorithms rely on more than 200 “clues” or unique signals that make it possible to guess what a searcher is truly looking for.17

Chapter 1 focused on the importance of visibility and showed that the most powerful and cost-effective way to be visible is the Internet and digital marketing. Chapter 2 explains how to stay focused with the most powerful entity and resource on the Internet—Google—and why Google is the most important strategy for digital marketing today. Chapter 3 will break down the components of page one of Google and how it can be viewed with the same principles and objectives as a Monopoly board. It will cover the whole concept and strategy of “Googleopoly.”

Additional Resources

Learn more about how Google works, how search results are gathered and displayed, and how you can utilize such features as Business Pages, Knowledge Graph, and more at www.googleopolybook.com/googles-secret-strategy.

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