Hello again,
The title today reflects a growing game in the new World of search engine optimization (SEO) for short. More and more-people are throwing away the traditional methods of searching for service related businesses (ie the yellow pages) and instead turn to Google, Yahoo or MSN and ‘search’ on key words they are interested in. These search engines rely on certain code based on relevancy to try and return the best search results pertaining to what you are looking for. Often they fail miserably and the trend continues to get worse. Making matters even more difficult is the business of ‘paid search’ which is essentially what businesses must do to survive in this ‘marketplace.’
Paid serach is when a company like us purchases key words from the likes of Google. For instance: “Seattle Radiant Heat Contractor, Seattle Geothermal, Seattle HVAC Contractor, Radiant Seattle, Solar Seattle” etc. When someone types those key words together–Mitchell Mechanical is likely to come up on the very top or on the side bar of your web browser (in the sponsored section). Over 80% of people ignore these–knowing through past experience that they are often not nearly as relevant to their search as the ‘organic’ listings. Often times the reason the ‘paid search’ isn’t as relevant is because the companies that show up there have nothing whatsoever to do with the search word criteria. They are simply buying words they know you will type so that they come up and might catch your interest.
There is organic search and paid search. Organic search I think you will find is usually much more relevant than paid search however it too has flaws. The main flaw is that many small businesses with small marketing budgets can’t get to the top of these lists even though they likely are the MOST relevant to what you are searching for. There are people and businesses now that literally specialize in SEO to ensure that the businesses they represent soar to the top of search engine results. This can be quite costly yet it is the new game in marketing. Small businesses that are very likely the most relavent to your search are usually buried on page 5 or deeper of the search results. Who goes that far? Nobody.
When people search the last thing they want to do is click on page 10 of the search results to find Mitchell Mechanical or any other business that might help them with what they are searching. At best they will go to page 2 to look at relevant search results. It is unfortunate that only the big companies with deep pockets can really play this game effectively. As a small company–we can’t compete on budget with the likes of Greenwood Heating, Blue Flame, Cardinal Heating, Evergreen Heating, Northwest Mechanical, Advanced Radiant Systems etc. These companies have a dedicated person or company working on their SEO. While I applaud them for being smart in this arena–it is a fact that they must pay for this marketing. How do they do it–I guess through volume and marking up their product to account for it. We too are considering the investment but we would be kidding you and ourselves if we said this investment didn’t need to be accounted for on the bottom line.
‘Search’ is extremely important to the life of service business and will almost surely be the lifeline of any service business that wishes to interest with everyday people. Mitchell Mechanical recognizes we have to play the game with the limited resources we have. This blog is free–and one of the resources to play this same game. We aren’t bashing these other companies–in fact we are jealous of their marketing budget because we would like nothing more than to be at the top of the organic listing of your search request when you type in “Seattle Radiant Heat Contractor, Seattle Geothermal Heating Contractor, Seattle Solar Thermal Contractor, Seattle HVAC Contractor…….etc.
Forgive me as I just used what resources I had to try and attract your attention. Actually I tried to first attract the attention of the Google, Yahoo, MSN etc bots that look for relevant information regarding your search. I’m hopeful that now that I have you get something ‘relevant’ to what you were looking for. If not I’m sorry!
Cheers and have a great night!
Geoff McBride
Director of Business Development
