Internet Visibility and Search Engines

Internet visibility has become a valuable asset and hotly contested commodity, and search engines have become the focal point of this marketplace. A few years ago a catchy and recognizable domain name (i.e. “pets.com”) was the hot property, but today a top slot in search engine results is considered even more important. There are two challenges to manage regarding search engines: finding new customers and protecting brand name. In this CEO Topic we will discuss both.

Finding New Customers: The search engines are good at finding specific business names, so you probably don’t have to worry about customers finding you if they are specifically looking for you. What’s much harder is getting top billing for your business when potential new customers search for more innocuous terms, such as the the products or services you sell.

For example, try typing “Pepsi” into a Google search. Now try typing “Cola”. See Pepsi’s problem? Unless you are the Coca-cola of your industry, you probably have the same problem.

There are things that can be done to increase the likelihood that search engines will associate your company with the search terms you desire, but you have to understand how the search engines work and be careful about how you go about it. All search engines start using programs called “spiders”. A spider will index a web page, then follow each of the links on that page to new pages, index all of those pages, follow all those links, etc. The spiders will use the words on the page to determine its likely subject, and might pay particular attention to words that look like titles or headings. In addition, the spiders use the context of the links and the URLs of the destinations to infer even more information about the pages.

Once you think you know how a spider works it can be tempting to try to trick it. For instance, there are a number of companies that offer “link farm” services. Link farms are web sites with nothing but links to other sites, tricking the spiders into thinking that the destinations are more popular than they really are. The problem with fooling the search engines is that if you get caught (and the fight between the two sides is a hard fought and constantly escalating war) you may very well end up blacklisted or at least punitively downgraded.

A much better approach is to understand how the engines work, and then design your web site to help the spiders index your content correctly. Inserting the appropriate keywords or 'meta tags' that identify your company on your website, press releases and other materials disseminated on the internet will increase the likelihood of being properly indexed by spiders.

Being more descriptive in links and being listed on other relevant sites also helps. A simple example: rather than making a link that reads “click here!”, have it say, “Click here for a great deal on carburetors.” In the latter case, the spiders will index the words “deal” and “carburetors” and associate those words with the destination. Name mentions and website links with customers, strategic partners and other relevant sites can also improve search results.

By the way, this discussion has been focused on open search. Most search engines also have a “paid search” feature (at Google it’s the right-hand results) that allow you to bid on keywords. There are many third party services that can help you optimize your ad word bidding if you choose to go this route. General Atlantic can direct you toward some reputable ones.

Protecting Your Brand: Your company’s home page is probably already the top result of searches on your company name. But what about the results right below that? Do the search results reflect what you would like others to know about your company? It is possible that critics of your company or your industry have managed to work their way up the results to show up on that important first page.

Unfortunately, perhaps, this situation demonstrates the effectiveness of the search engines: they are quite good at finding a broad selection of relevant links, so it is very hard to “push” these negative links off the first page. You will certainly never accomplish this by producing more web pages on your own site; the engines rarely list more than two pages from the same domain.

Even in the absence of negative publicity, it is in your interest to ensure that the most positive web pages show up on that first page of results, rather than irrelevant or out-of-date material. Your best approach is to work with partners, journalists, and your PR firm to make sure that the related web pages they produce follow the same guidelines you use with your own pages, increasing the likelihood that search engines will associate them strongly with your brand name.

For both of these concerns General Atlantic recommends working with a professional search optimization firm. If you think your company needs help in this area, feel free to contact David Rea (drea@generalatlantic.com) or your GA team for a referral.