Digitally Divided: Search Engine Displacement Creates New Class Of Businesses

The term digital divide has been used to describe the people or communities who can make use of information and communication tools and those who can't.

Not only does a "digital divide" exist between consumers who have computers with Internet access and those disadvantaged who do not; it also exists between businesses that have a search engine presence through natural and paid search results and their competitors who don't.

Businesses displaced by search engines can now be considered among the disadvantaged.

The resulting displacement costs for businesses that have yet to establish their presence online in search engines compared with those who have although intangible at first, can become economically significant over time.

Whether a business has a web presence or not, it is competing to a varying degree with businesses that do have a presence depending on their serviceable market area. In the case where an industry is global, national or regional in scope, the business that isn't present in search engines unwittingly competes against and most likely loses customers to the businesses that are.

How can a business lose a battle it hasn't yet begun to fight? In the digital information age, out of sight means ought of mind. If a company's message isn't present at the top of a search page result at the instant it's being sought, another company's message will be. Top of page equals top of mind.

The unequal adoption of search engine marketing by enterprises of every size has inadvertently fueled the division of businesses into three classes.

1. The Positioned

These businesses are in the right place at the right time with the right message. They appear in search engine results on purpose. They understand top of page equals both mind and market share. Most large businesses have recognized the value of promoting and protecting their brands online in this manner and have taken the necessary steps to do so. A lot of smaller entrepreneurial companies have also identified search engine marketing as a means to compete for and gain market share, while many more haven't yet seized the opportunity.

2. The Present

These businesses are online while not necessarily actively executing a plan.

Typically they are small to medium size enterprises that established a web site then abandoned it. In the beginning they believed in the importance of having a site on the web, but before the web could catch up to them to produce measurable results they quit.

These businesses constitute the first group of digitally divided; they are online without a plan, which effectively yields the same results as being offline. Being online without a strategic plan and the right team to execute it is like not being online at all.

3. The Absent, Unaccounted For & Missing In Action

Due to a lack of planning or oversight these businesses have a web site that hasn¹t been submitted to and or indexed by the search engines. This group also includes businesses that don't have a web site because they didn't think having a web site was necessary or important. This group is the most disadvantaged of all the groups and coincidentally are also those who are least likely to think they are disadvantaged.

To determine which class your business falls under search for your business name in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. If your company name doesn¹t appear on the first page of results but does appear within the first three pages, your business is present. If your site appears on the first page, your business is semi-positioned. Next, search for the generic terms or phrases used most often to describe your firm's products, services or industry. Again if your site appears in the first three pages, your business has a presence. If your listing appears in the first page of results under a generic description of your firm's products, services or industry, congratulations your business is positioned. If your site appears in each of the four search media under both types of queries, you have an advantageous market position.

Obviously if your business can't be found through any of the previous search criteria, your business should be considered absent, unaccounted for or even worse; missing in action vis-à-vis the search engines.

Think of the search engines like your local phone book. The major difference is the search engines provide listings for every village, town and city in the wired world. They have already become the de facto yellow pages of global commerce. They are rapidly becoming the digital doorway through which buyers and sellers whom otherwise wouldn't have ever communicated now meet.

Unless yours is a pure online business, not have a listing for your business name let alone a listing under your business category in your local white and yellow pages directory has a cost. The cost being highly unlikely you will receive any phone calls via a phone book search. This same listing benefit holds true for the search engines as well.

Additionally, businesses that are aggressively positioned online are quietly taking market share from their competitors who are not.

More importantly, those already positioned online have left a barrier to entry in their wake. This knowledge slope will continue to grow steeper and taller for those businesses that continue to choose not to move forward with an online marketing plan. If much more time is allowed to pass, they will eventually reach the point of no return, a point where they won't be able to effectively compete because of the digital divide created by their lack of knowledge.

Business owners and managers can make the leap and save themselves time, effort and money by seeking counsel from service providers who have already successfully crossed the digital divide caused by search engine displacement.

Tim Cohn is President of Advanced Marketing Consultants, Inc.

He can be reached at tcohn@marketingprinciples.com