Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Best Search Engine of Them All?
Let me start by saying that the purpose of this post is not to sway anyone one way or t’other, I love Google as much as one can love a search engine. However, as a marketing professional, I feel as though it’s my duty to remind my clients that they should know how their business is being represented across as many online entities as possible.
Here at Cohesive, many clients come to us with a goal of being “first on Google”. In and of itself, it’s not a bad goal, but what I like to call “Googlevision” sometimes clouds our vision and lulls us into thinking that if we’re doing well on Google, we’re doing well in life. The translation isn’t always that simple, because we have these wonderful things called customers, who should actually be the ones that dictate how well we are doing, and where we can improve.
In marketing your business, your perception should be twofold: How your business is performing online and how your business is performing in real life!
What a concept; I know, I’m so wild and crazy sometimes.
That said, I read with great interest a couple of articles about search engine alternatives to Google. They say variety is the spice of life, so why not try something new?
Old habits are hard to break, and given that “Google” as a verb was added to popular dictionaries in 2006, this is a longstanding habit that’s now part of the fabric of our lives.
But that’s not to say we can’t look around and see how the other half lives, and more importantly, how they’re representing your business!
This article goes so far as to recommend bidding adieu to Google and offers 14 alternative search engines, while this article focuses solely on the search engine DuckDuckGo.
Again, I’m not recommending a mass exodus from the land of Google Search, but I do believe that in business, as in life, we must expand our perception, keep an open mind, and not discount something simply because it’s not something that we would typically do. If 65% of the world is using Google, that means that 35% is using something else, so it’s at least worth looking into.
In case you’re wondering, these articles and the resulting personal experimentation didn’t involve me hitching my wagon to a new default search engine. I own a Google-enabled smartphone and like over half the world, I am locked in a Google habit that seems too arduous to quit.
However, taking a gander at a new search engine is a good idea in some instances; for example, when you’re looking for a new (to you) restaurant in your city, other search engines might present you with ideas that Google won’t, simply because that restaurant doesn’t have a Google My Business entity; or when you have a client who wants to be “first on Google”, maybe you’ll discover that they’re already first on 13 out of 14 search engines, and that might impress them until you finish the work to improve their rankings.
We can assess how your business is positioned online and in the real world – give us a call to find out more.
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