If we increasingly rely on Google to find answers, and if Google decides which ones to show us and in what order, it makes sense for a company to invest time and money in being Top of Mind. What if being Top of Google was enough?
Google, you can’t do without it
Saying how important Google is today
is rather redundant. We know it and it is not news.
The volume of searches on Google – thanks also and above all to smartphones – is constantly increasing (5.7 billion searches on Google per day according to internetivestats.com).
But don’t try to find out how many searches are made every day by an Italian because Google has not released precise data since 2012.
What we do know is that, for a long time now,
Google has been the primary source of traffic for a site and generates 57.8% of total traffic (excluding direct traffic). In second place, but very distant, is Facebook which generates only 5.2% of traffic (source Spark Toro)
This article explores the intricate world bangladesh phone number library of phone numbers — their history, how they work, types, global formats, the technological advancements behind them, and their role in both personal and professional communication. We will also explore the challenges and future of
The market recognizes Google as the leader
and for this reason entrusts it with a библиотека пользователя базы данных телеграмм large part of the investments destined for digital media. The search sector alone obtains 34% of total investments (source Nielsen 2017). Yet paid traffic represents only 5% of the average overall traffic of a site (source HubSpot on 15,000 sites studied).
This significant disparity between investment (34%) and yield (5%) can only be explained in one way: AdWords is the channel that converts the most.
This happens because companies focus their
investments on transactional keywords or branded keywords, that is, on those who are ready to buy . Therefore, the ROI of Adwords campaigns is almost always positive.
But users trust organic results more bh lists than advertising. In fact, only 8% of clicks on Google are on ads. The remaining 92% of clicks are recorded on non-sponsored search results.
This last type of click translates into organic traffic to the site, which is, in fact, a particularly relevant source for any website. On average (again according to HubSpot research) 33% of a site’s total traffic comes from organic sources.
Not just transactional searches
Even though we all browse and search on Google (94.81% to be precise, considering Google’s market share in Italy), we obviously don’t do it just to buy. According to estimates, only 4% do searches to buy , 80% simply give vent to their curiosity and the rest are busy evaluating their options before thinking about buying.
Let’s take an example.
The marketing director of a small hotel in Tromso (Norway), a world-famous place to admire the Northern Lights, can decide to focus solely and exclusively on paid search knowing that he will have to fight against a lot of competition (aggregators, hoteliers, Google itself!) and be ready to pay a high cost per click .
Or you can decide to do some upstream work, targeting those who don’t want to buy a hotel room yet, but are looking for information on the Northern Lights. That is, targeting the upper phase of the funnel . Search volumes (see graph) will be much higher and competition will be very limited (translation: organic traffic).
This is true for all product sectors.
This is why brands are now increasingly orienting their strategy towards intercepting, and converting, the large volume of non-transactional searches .
This translates into the production of qualitative content that allows you to respond to the search terms relevant to the brand and in building relationships with users where the brand acts as a “helper” to those who, at least for the moment, do not want to buy anything.
But it also means positioning yourself among
the very first results on Google (possibly in the first 3 or even better via Featured Snippet). Because whoever is in the Top of Google gets all the traffic.
Otherwise, your ability to generate organic traffic remains severely limited.
Is Top of Google replacing Top of Mind?
Google must “organize information and make it accessible and useful to everyone,” tweeted Paul Haahr, who has worked in Mountain View for 16 years. And how does it do that? By evaluating companies, deciding which ones should be rewarded and positioned at the top of search results. And which ones shouldn’t.
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Google decides whether and how to make you visible
It may seem like an immense, exaggerated power (in fact it is, but that’s another story), but fortunately the criteria on which Google’s algorithm is based are clear:
site structure : it must allow Google to index you in your target market and based on what you offer (SEO – Content);
Site quality : How long do people stay on your site? What is the exit rate? What is the number of page views? These are elements that tell Google whether people are “really” browsing or whether they arrived there by mistake (Content – UX);
notoriety and authority : how many sites talk about you? Are they authoritative sites? The greater their authority, the more yours will grow (Content – Digital PR).
If a company has a well-defined SEO strategy, quality content to support its keywords of interest, an optimal UX and an efficient link building strategy, it has all the credentials to obtain a large part of the traffic of its interest. And this even if it is completely unknown.
Once the user has clicked and arrived on the company’s site, it will be the quality of the content (and its relevance to the user) and the experience it offers that will do the rest, that is, generate awareness and establish a relationship of trust with the user.
Being Top of Mind is almost completely irrelevant to Google
Of course, there are some exceptions. For example, if many people do this type of search: [keyword] + [Brand] (e.g. “Nike Sneakers”), it is very likely that by doing a search with only [Keyword], Google will directly associate it with [Brand].
Do we bury the Top of Mind?
