Jeremy Kaplan
Whether or not we’re aware of its proper use as a verb, and its consequent listing in dictionaries around the world, most of us still use Google – sorry, that should be “google,” of course – as a verb, as well as a proper noun.
“I’ll google it” is a common phrase for English-speaking people worldwide, as it is in several other languages. But just how important is the use of the world’s biggest brand today? And in case you were not aware, Google is officially the world’s biggest brand, according to various sources, including international brand consultancy Interbrand. The world-famous search engine overtook Apple in 2014 and pushed Coca-Cola down into third place. It is, by far, the world’s search engine of choice.
But what’s equally interesting is just how the all-important Google search engine rankings can fluctuate over a single day. UK search engine optimization specialists Greenlight recently ran a fascinating test that delved into this very subject, outlined in their article http://www.greenlightdigital.com/blog/posts/how-much-do-google-rankings-fluctuate-in-a-day/. The digital marketing specialists ran the test over 24 hours using 1,000 keywords. They then recorded the top 100 sites for each of the keywords between 10 and 15 times during the 24 hours. This generated around a million URLs and recorded the ranking fluctuations each keyword went through during that time.
The results were interesting in that perhaps most fluctuations at first seem relatively minor to the casual observer. Just over half the URLs moved in one direction or the other in the ranking by three or fewer places.
But imagine that a slight relegation in rankings takes your brand to eighth place from the ninth place – and onto the second page of your Google search – and consider just how vital such a move can be commercially when you think that an average of 90% of all searches online in the world have been made using Google over the last five years, according to the stats portal Statista. That’s a pretty remarkable statistic in itself, but it probably still won’t be a surprise to anyone today.
And this, in turn, is why there is such a scramble to get brands as high up the world’s favorite search engine as possible. Effective digital marketing strategies are vital, and search engine optimization is an enormous business that has become even more important with the advent of the smartphone. Consider that marketing specialists CMO.com found in the US alone that mobile advertising is now worth in the region of $18 billion a year, and over half that amount is now spent on mobile search spending.
One recent study on this subject suggests that the top position achieved on Google achieves a third of all the search traffic. So, it doesn’t take a genius to work out how far out page two is for a major brand. In short, Google is where it’s at … for the time being anyway.
