This is straight from the horse’s mouth…
…and the implications are far-reaching.
Let’s look at this in more detail:
- consumers – self-evidently – want the ‘best’ in any search – the ‘best’ restaurant or the ‘best’ lawyer, in fact ‘the ‘best’ of everything
- Google is actually pretty bad at delivering ‘best’ – so that uplift in the use of ‘best’ as a search term is not really delivering. Look at these examples…
‘Best’ hotel…
‘Best’ estate agent…
‘Best’ lawyer…
And our favourite… ‘best’ financial advisors…
But seriously…
What this illustrates is the conflict of interest that is at the core of Google’s business model – and they have the key to solving that conflict, the only question is: when will they decide to use that key.
The key?
Reviews, of course.
One day soon, hopefully for those using ‘best’ as a search term, Google will base the answer on review scores. It already has them – and if it does not it is up to the business concerned to remedy that situation – and it is certainly possible to deliver, from a technical point-of-view, by implementing a simple algorithm. After all, Google is already doing something very similar with its filter and ‘Top rated’ (more on that here).
What does your business need to do?
At the core of Google’s research is the – unsurprising – finding that their users want to find great businesses, not just businesses with massive advertising budgets, but businesses who deliver great products and services – so just take some of your PPC budget and apply it to getting great reviews.
Strive to ‘be the best’ reviewed business in your marketplace, so when Google get around to ranking businesses yours appears at – or at least somewhere near – the top of the list.
