The search industry is a term to describe the industry of knowledge and data gathering systems which function to rank and sort information and present that information based on relevancy. The primary medium in which the information is presented is called a search engine. The core purpose of a search engine is to create relevant matches for the things people search for via keywords and/or previously viewed content.
Here’s a big list of search engines.
Search engines are the ocean, and knowledge and data are the fish.
How fish, or “products” — whether it be knowledge or a tangible product — make it into your net, largely depends on how well you describe the thing in search terms and how well those terms are represented online. Think about the vast combinations of things we could search for. Now think of all the knowledge and businesses around the world that aren’t represented (or mis-represented already!). The gap is enormous, and we’ve already come a long way!
We are just scratching the surface of the full potential of search. More information is becoming available everyday — whether that is good or bad is up for debate. The search engine industry has become an enornous marketing and advertising channel.
Benefits of This New World of Search
Advertisers and business owners have so much more information available at their fingertips to target their customers, find out where they hang out online, and how they research for your products and services and it can all be tracked (if you setup your marketing funnel correctly). Accurately measuring ROI, optimizing and automating your funnel will lead to ore sales, and better judgments. This is a big step up from the TV and Radio advertising days, though there are still opportunities to optimize those.
Bigger Picture
Your world is at our fingertips. Never before have humans been able to so accurately gather the knowledge they need just by exploring through their fingertips. We’re all different, yet we’re all learning the rules and playing by the norms in the age of search. We’re still early, and that creates a huge opportunity to on-board those businesses that get it, and they have the opportunity to stand out among noise — sure there’s still a lot of noise for the heavy markets, but in the age of search there are always new avenues popping up.
Here are a few search industry stats…
Google Stats: Numbers courtesy of DMR Stats and Gadgets
Monthly Google Searches: 100 Billion
Number of Monthly Unique Google Searchers: 1.17 Billion
Total Monthly Desktop Google Searches: 11.095 Billion
Number of pages indexed n Google: 60 Trillion
And More Stat on SEO…from imFORZA
93% of online experiences begin with a search engine
70% of links users click are organic
Search is #1 source of traffic to content sites.
So what does this mean to you?
It means there are a ton of opportunities out there to put good quality information on the Internet. And if you’re a business there are many organic and paid ways to bring people to your business. Get clear with your product offering. Think about how people might search for you. What does the customer need to know to make a buying decision? What are their fears and concerns? Answer these questions in ascetically pleasing, mobile friendly, fast loading, well connected juicy content websites and you’ll be well on your way to mastering the search industry!
