As my Biznology colleague Chris Abraham recently pointed out, sometimes Google is a lying liar that lies. The search giant often adopts a “Do what I say, not what I do” approach to its business, telling you not to do the very thing it’s doing. And at some point, this approach is going to do the company far more harm than good, possibly hurting its preeminent position among search and mobile customers.
In this case, you actually should listen to Google and do what it says, not what it does. What is Google’s huge mistake, why is it so damaging, and how can you avoid doing the same thing? Read on, friends, read on…
Chasing Competitors vs. Helping Customers
In its “Steps to a Google-friendly site,” Google advises webmasters and business owners to “Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site.” [Emphasis mine]
Google tells you to create content that’s useful and helpful to your customers. Don’t worry about your competitors, they seem to say, just focus on customer needs.
And, yet, Google does precisely the opposite all the time.
For instance, what customer problem did Google+ actually solve at the time of its introduction? Though the social site has evolved into a useful network for various communities — the site has proved popular for picture-hosting and information-sharing among avid photographers, to provide one example — its initial release offered little more than an under-used Facebook imitator. And, as a result, Google+ has done little to dethrone Facebook as the go-to social network for most customers. Google is slowly recognizing its mistake, as its recent shift away from requiring customers to create a Google+ account when using key services suggests.
In another classic—though little-remembered—example, Google introduced its “Wikipedia-killer,” Knol, way back in July 2008. By October 2012, Knol was dead. Like, really, really dead. Google even went so far as to delete all the content its users created. So, yeah. That went well.
Now, Google appears ready to make the same mistake again, supposedly creating a WhatsApp clone to compete in emerging markets. Not because WhatsApp doesn’t work in emerging markets, mind you. But, it appears, because Facebook won the bidding war with Google for WhatsApp’s talent, tools, and customers. That’s not to suggest Google won’t build an effective alternative to WhatsApp. But their motivations here seem lacking.
What these examples of Google’s failed projects (and potential WhatsApp clone), share is a fundamental lack of attention to actual customer needs. The world didn’t need a Facebook replacement when Google introduced Google+ (or, if it did, Google missed the mark on exactly what problem that replacement should solve). The world didn’t need a replacement for Wikipedia. And the world doesn’t really need a replacement for WhatsApp. It certainly doesn’t need one whose whole reason for being stems from sour grapes.
Google should take its own advice. Mountain View needs to focus less on what its competitors are doing and more on what its customers need. To paraphrase Google, they should provide high-quality content and services. This is the single most important thing to do. When your pages contain useful information and functionality, they will attract many visitors and links.
When you focus on customer needs — whether in your products and services, in your content marketing, SEO, paid search, and promotional activities around those products and services, or ideally, all of the above — you help your customers solve their problems. You attract awareness, attention, and action. Maybe you’ll even “…attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site.”
For these reasons, this is definitely one of the times where you want to do what Google says, not what they do. As you may have heard, this is the single most important thing to do.
Do you want to learn more about how to improve sales, increase conversions, and reduce the costs from your search marketing? Then take a moment to check out our Biznology Jumpstart Workshop: On-site Search Marketing Training. Taught by three Biznology search marketing experts, you’ll learn how to make your search marketing work for your business. Interested in learning more? Check it out.
