Can Small Businesses Build What Google Needs?
Recently Google announced they would be using website speed more heavily as a “signal” in their ranking methodology. “Signal” is just a nice way of saying “important variable”, but it also indicates how Google thinks about the world. They believe that there are a certain set of things that “good” websites (and thus “good” online business) do. One of these is make sure their user experience does not suck because a business’s website is slow. Another is to make sure businesses only place PPC ads on keywords that are relevant to their products (this was the genesis of AdWords Quality Score). While all of this is not a bad thing (and Google is not the only company that is driving these kinds of changes), there are some potential downsides.
The downside argument came to me after a discussion I had with some friends about Google’s SEO algorithms, and how there is a small element of Orwellian doublespeak that is creeping into online content production. For example, a basic tenant of SEO is that your content should include lots of keywords that are relevant to your topic. That’s all fine and logical but in the inevitable competitive marketplace that emerges from rewarding those who rank more closely to the top in organic search, it’s actually changing the way people produce content.
I am reminded of a hilarity and tragedy in the opera world I witnessed. My father is an opera conductor and has many times in his career collaborated on and conducted world premier operas (e.g. Anna Karenina at Opera Theater of St Louis). Yes, I think my dad kicks ass. That set aside, what was funny to me was watching a collaboration between he, David Carlson (the composer) and Colin Graham (the librettist) on the score. At one point my father said something tongue in cheek, “Union rules require us to get the orchestra in and out in 3 hours. If we go 15 minutes over we have to pay double time and this will significantly change the cost of the production. So should we just play faster or cut something out?” In the end, they did cut parts of the opera out, simply because of union rules. How’s that for constrained artistic expression?
I’ve read numerous articles about how to SEO a Press Release (e.g. pack it with keywords that you want to be highly listed in). We also have started at Trada to change our website, content, and create specialized landing pages packed with keywords to get higher rankings in Google and also better Quality Scores (and thus less costly clicks and conversions in PPC). While Google allows for some creative freedom in content, there is definitely a penalty for being too verbose or too general about content you are writing. One does wonder where the logical conclusion of this strategy takes all of us.
Enter a small business into the equation. Most small businesses are simply working their asses off to make their products or deliver their services as best they can. The thought of competing in a global marketplace of advertisers who are constantly trying to outgame them in SEO, PPC, link building, etc. blows most of their minds. In the old days, SMBs were about picking a good location, putting up some signage, getting a yellow page ad and then trying to do the best you could for anyone who walked in your door or picked up your phone. Not anymore. You have to have a content rich website, blog heavily, do social media, get links back to you, manage your listings in Yelp (the new BBB), SEO your site and now make sure your site is fast enough to be considered a good business.
I’m not sure how I feel about all of this yet and how real it really is. A big part of me likes the idea of a gigantic free and competitive marketplace, but part of me also knows not everyone has the same ability (skill, money, or time) to compete in this market. Maybe what I am witnessing is simply a maturation of the Internet where everything needs to grow up a bit. People who want to run businesses need to understand this is the reality (and opportunity) they now live in. Universities need to change their curriculum to teach the next generation of business leaders, marketers, sales people, and executives how to survive in a data-driven, competitive landscape of this sort. And of course new tiers of players (such as Trada) need to emerge to fill the skills gap that will always exist between those who can afford the expertise and those who have to compete against them on a shoestring.
Either way, the times they are a’changing. And for good measure: Google, doublespeak, AdWords, SEO.
(Cross-posted @ Trada Blog)
