A Love Letter to Google

I was approximately thirteen years old when the internet first began to be used by preteens and teenagers across America. Yes, I was a child of the America Online email, browser, message boards, and keywords. The internet was my playground. So I suppose that it is no surprise that everything about the internet has intrigued me. Google, you could say, is my unofficial best friend. Whatever I need from an online search has always been best addressed through Google.

And I am okay with that! Google is a fantastic company in my opinion. Do you doubt me? The lawns at their company headquarters are kept neat and trim by goats. The goats are rented from a company which provides these goats specifically for grazing. As far as search engines go there is not a single one out there that is cooler or more accurate than Google.

Their recent Google doodle of the Roswell incident was adorable, and I am not ashamed to admit that I was playing the little alien game attached to the doodle for a good fifteen minutes at work. Did you know that the first “doodle” they did was back in 1998 and it was essentially an out of office message that the co founders used to let people know that they were at a famous festival in Nevada? Did you guess it? Burning Man! These internet marketing geniuses were taking a holiday at Burning Man!

Google is so much more than a search engine, though. They are the brains behind online marketing as we know it and how it is utilized by companies all over the world. The secret is that more than half of all prospective consumers will research a product or service before they make a decision via search engines. Visiting company websites or using a social media platform to inquire about a product or service is not nearly as widely used as the search engines.

Online marketing has been largely shaped by these realities. Approximately 42 percent of people sorting through search engine rankings will only click on the top ranked result. Google rankings rule the roost in this regard. I always find what I am looking for when I use Google.

And now any company interested in internet marketing must account for the mobile audience. Mobile device users, almost half of them in fact, claim that they use their devices to research products, reviews, and look for promotions. Ever heard of Android? Google is on top of that online marketing audience, too.

I could go on and on, but I have a bit of Googling to do. I need to go look into that Burning Man “doodle.”