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If you watch sports or The Daily Show, no doubt you’ve seen the commercial for Gears of War at least a dozen times by now. That’s the video game with the real catchy tune – “All around me are familiar faces. Worn out places, worn out faces.”
Curious about the song, I asked Yahoo! “what’s the song on the commercial for Gears of War”. The top natural result was – get ready – useful. It took me to a page on Yahoo! Answers out of Australia that told me the song’s a cover of the Tears for Fears song Mad World by Gary Jules. But you already knew that, didn’t you smart guy? Well, over 1,000 other people were searching for that same information in October so go ahead, feather your bangs, put on your parachute pants and get on your I’m-the-80’s-music-queen/king high horse.
Just from this one tiny example, it’s pretty apparent that the use of social media is helping search engines return more relevant results. While search engines have largely done a great job of showing you where you want to go to find what you’re looking for, we’ve all experienced seeing links that just don’t seem to make sense.
In addition to being genuinely impressed with how quickly I got the answer to my seemingly archaic question (I guess I’m not special) I decided to write about this today because I talk to a lot of business owners that just don’t understand why their companies – with relevant content written by experts – doesn’t come up in the natural listings above some of these “bad” links.
I tell them not to feel bad because it can be difficult for even experts in the industry that spend all of their workdays on getting listings to show up higher (search engine optimization). Google uses over 100 different variables like the length of time a site’s been up to how many times a particular term and its synonyms are used in a page to how many and which sites link to those pages in its algorithm. And that algorithm’s guarded more closely than Colonel Sanders’ secret spices.
It’s too difficult for the majority of businesses to have the time and expertise to make sure their Web sites show up for related search engine queries above their competitors. That’s why you should turn to an internet marketing firm with expertise in search engine optimization to help, like, Direct Online Marketing. They’re pretty good if you like 6’5, 230-pound quarterbacks, laser rocket arm. (Except big games don’t get caught in our throats and we don’t have an overrated brother that gets attention because of his name and playing in a huge market.)
You can get your business ranked higher so that potential clients can find you. It just takes a little know-how, patience, and time. You never want to get taken for a ride, but keep in mind that no matter how good a firm is, it will take a little time for the search engines to pick up their changes and that ongoing work is often required to keep listings high.
