When it comes to online business, there is no greater tool than the search engine. These are the hub of the internet for many and will direct them to wherever they want to go. There’s no question that the internet wouldn’t be as interactive or as helpful if it weren’t for these simple yet hugely beneficial websites. There has been a battle for the top spot in this industry for years and I think we can all agree who has emerged the winner, and they have done so by implementing things that 20 years ago we could have only dreamed of.
Let’s take a look at the reasons why search engines are so important to our daily lives, in and out of business.
The Public
First of all, it’s important that we recognize what search engines have done for the average joe when it comes to using the internet. Without search engines, it would take a consumer a number of hours to find the relevant information they are looking for. The benefit of search engines is that you can put in one word and have millions of websites come up relating to that word, and if you want a more detailed search then you can ask questions or search specific phrases that are related to your information goal. You can find more information here about how search engine optimization works.
Moreover, if you want a really detailed search then you have the ability to perform advanced searches which will eliminate everything you don’t want to see and highlight tiny details that are important to you and your search. Without the use of search engines, we can comfortably say that the way in which we use the internet would be completely different and it wouldn’t be such a large part of our lives today.
Business
Small businesses once relied on advertising in the form of print media, television, and door to door sales, and in some cases, this is still a successful form of advertising. However, with the introduction of the internet – and more importantly search engines – the world opened up to an enormous number of consumers that were previously unreachable. Your business no longer has to be local but instead can evolve into an international company that’s able to survive in the worldwide market. Once an exclusive club for multi-billion dollar companies, the door to the international market has been swung open and put on a latch, ready for anyone with a vision and a decent plan to walk through and prosper. This was all thanks to the internet search powerhouses and their modern approach to business.
Search Engine Optimisation
Otherwise, known as SEO, search engine optimization provides the ability to be able to rank your business higher than competitors. It’s an ongoing task that requires a lot of effort but can produce benefits beyond your imagination. Simply put, SEO is an online process that will maximize the traffic to your website by ensuring the placement of it is higher when certain phrases or words are searched for. We already know that search engines have been an incredible help to small businesses in exposure, but this takes it that much further and allows them to compete with the large corporate companies if executed well.
There are many strategies that are pre-written and available for any company to apply to their business model. However, in some cases, it won’t work, especially if you’re operating in a niche corner of the market. It’s in this situation where getting professional help will be beneficial. The SEO specialist Matthew Woodward states that it’s best to create custom SEO strategies, to maximize the amount of traffic coming through your site. Being able to implement a strategy that will gain visitors looking specifically for your product or service will dramatically increase your conversion rate and eventually raise your profit margins.
Ecommerce
When it comes to selling your wares, e-commerce was one of the biggest developments in the modern business era. Being able to sell your product online and ship it out to them reduced a huge number of costs including renting, running, and staffing your shop. If you’re a small business then you may have the ability to run an online shop by yourself, therefore reducing your outgoings dramatically and allowing you to invest further into your business. Being able to save money and invest in the right areas has allowed many companies to thrive in the current market whilst keeping their overheads down.
When we look at what search engines have done for online shops it’s much the same as what they have done for all businesses but here we are talking about selling physical goods. Due to the diversity of what all search engines offer small businesses have now been able to ship worldwide and expand their reach. We can also connect to SEO as there is a specialist area of search engine optimization exclusively for e-commerce which makes products from self-employed, small businesses available to all.
Information Management
Take our first point made in this article and multiply it to a professional level, search engines have brought the ability to manage the information we read. Some of the younger generations will grow up not knowing what it was like searching for some information in an encyclopedia or subject-specific book but that’s how it was for many years. Now we have the ability to find what we are looking for in a matter of seconds. We’ve been given the ability to increase the speed at which we are able to work and increase our productivity. With the ability to complete projects faster we are able to earn more money in a smaller period of time.
Jobs
Many won’t understand the sheer amount of work it takes to keep a search engine up and running. Not only that but because of the introduction of search engines, the technology around it has also developed meaning people are needed to complete tasks that weren’t available before. Search engines have literally provided the world with millions of jobs. To think that Google was started by two teenagers in their parent’s basement is pretty impressive considering where the company is now.
It’s for these 6 reasons that search engines are hugely important to our modern lives, things would be awfully different in the year 2021 if they weren’t around. Things might have evolved in a different way and we could find ourselves in a similar situation, but there’s nothing quite as simple and easy as the process of being able to use a search engine.