Three Reasons Why a #1 Ranking in Google is Less Important
Trent Blizzard | 8 September 2006 |
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For the past several years, a #1 ranking in Google has been a “monolithic” ranking. Your hotel our tourism business was either #1 or… it wasn’t. When it came up #1, the results always looked the same. That Monolithic #1 is becoming a thing of the past and your marketing strategy should adjust accordingly.
Google is showing different results to different people
- The Old Monolithic Google showed the same results for a search whether you were in Toledo, Arizona or the UK.
- Now, two people can search for the exact same term hotel or tourism term and get different results because Google is providing “personalized” results. It is increasingly common for someone at Blizzard to be on the phone with a client and say “I see you at #4″ and the client will say “huh? I am #7.” Just this morning I pretended to be two different people by doing the same search on two different computers and browser (IE and Firefox) and got totally different results (see below).
- Google even offered me the option to turn off my “personalized search” during my search for “hotel internet marketing”- and when I did I got different results:
Google is building a profile of your hotel from disparate sources
Depending on what your search terms are in Google, you get results that look entirely different. Try searching for your business name + city and then try just your business name (example: oxford hotel denver vs oxford hotel). You can see the difference immediately: when you add your city to your hotel’s name, Google adds a map and some local information (like your address, telephone, directions, and a 5-star ranking!).
- The Old Monolithic method was to pull all the information from your individual website. NOW, they are adding maps, 3rd-party reviews, contact information, nearby local businesses, driving directions, etc to their results page. These are called “integrated” results because Google is integrating information from several different websites to create your listing. In the future, expect them to add photos, videos, blogs, news and even more to their “integrated” results. It is almost like they are building a “profile” of your hotel or tourism industry business.
- This new “integrated profile” result will change how hotels do their SEO… a hotel optimize its website til it’s blue in the face, but if Google is “building” a “profile”, your optimization techniques will need to address the components of your hotel’s “profile.”
Consumers clicking habits are changing as they seek quality and trustworthiness.
- Consumers are looking at more websites (nearly four websites on average before they book a hotel room) before making a decision. So, they are willing to look beyond that monolithic #1 ranking to find the right hotel. Consumers are especially interested in how other consumers review your hotel in places like Tripadvisor.
- Consumers are also savvier about clicking. We have found that an appealing listing at #2 will get more clicks than a poor sounding listing at #1. How your hotel’s listing looks and feels to the consumer is very important. This is a little known fact that few SEO professionals and few tourism clients are willing to recognize.
- Research indicates that you can increase the click-rate of your #1 ranking if you also have a sponsored ad above it or in the right column…. showing up twice on the same page makes your #1 ranking get 20% more clicks.
- I think a hotel with lower ranking but with an appealing website and good reviews will actually outperform a hotel with a #1 ranking but with a poor website and subpar reviews. We have some tourism industry clients with poor reviews, and trust me when I say that their bad reviews trump their great SEO rankings.
Looking forward to a 2007 marketing strategy, we recommend that tourim industry businesses:
a) Worry about what other websites are saying about you and develop a strategy to manage your hotel’s reputation, especially in the new Social Internet.
b) Recognize that the appeal of your description in Google, the quality of your website, and the tenor of your reviews are collectively a more potent force than your actual rankings in Google.
c) Recognize that search engines are giving different results to different people in an attempt to personalize, and there is nothing you can do about it!
d) Don’t make a #1 ranking in Google your monolithic online marketing goal because that is simple and foolish.
Trent Blizzard - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.
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September 11th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
About a week ago, while scanning through my stats, I noticed a handful of searches from Google for a low competition phrase. After a few days I decided to see where I was ranked for the term and to my surprise I was listed on page 4. I fully expected a top 5 listing based on competition.
It is possible that the term is breaking out and Wordtracker is displaying old information but I find that scenario somewhat unlikely. It is also somewhat unlikely that Google’s algorithm has determined that I don’t want to see this result so it pushed it from a top 5 position to somewhere in the 40s. I would assume initially the personalization aspect of their algorithm wouldn’t be so drastic. I could be overlooking something or the hits may be a result of a combination of the two scenarios above.