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Natural Search - The Great Equalizer
by Scott Buresh ©Copyright 2004

You scroll down past the banner ads and enter your search term. 
You pass the "sponsored results" without a glance. You ignore 
the shaded results to the right, as well as the additional 
"sponsored results" at bottom. Hiding somewhere in the middle of 
it all, you finally find the results you came for. 

Welcome to the world of natural search- a world where mom-and-pop 
shops compete with million dollar companies, where million dollar 
companies compete with billion dollar corporations. And, while 
many will argue to the contrary, the playing field is more or 
less level. Small companies can and do dominate their behemoth 
competitors in this world, for a variety of reasons. 

What Is Natural Search?

For those who aren't quite clear what the term means, "natural" 
or "organic" search describes the "editorial" search results on 
any particular engine. These results are purported to be 
completely non-biased - meaning that the engine will not accept 
any amount of money to influence the rankings of any individual 
sites. This is quite different than the paid advertising that 
appears in "sponsored" or "featured" results, in which higher 
positions are rewarded to the companies willing to pay the most 
per visitor.  

Why Is Natural Search Important?

Savvy searchers who understand the difference between paid and 
natural results are more likely to hold the natural results in a 
higher regard, much like a person reading a magazine would 
probably be more positively influenced by an article about a 
particular company than by a paid advertisement from the company. 
 
It is also likely that natural search will become more important 
in the coming months. Yahoo's new SiteMatch program, which mixes 
some paid results with natural results, is certain to get some 
close scrutiny from the FTC (even though the fees paid are not 
supposed to influence rankings). This type of public attention 
will no doubt educate some oblivious users as to what "sponsored 
results" actually are. More importantly, other search engines are 
likely to use this as a means of differentiation from Yahoo. It 
is no coincidence that AskJeeves announced that it was getting 
rid of its similar program the day after Yahoo's new program was 
unveiled, claiming that it was impossible to produce unbiased 
results using this methodology. Microsoft also recently claimed 
that they were taking steps to further differentiate paid results 
from natural results. No matter what the end result, one 
probable outcome of this new attention to paid search engine 
advertising is that more average searchers will learn the 
differences between paid and natural search results, and many 
will instinctively favor the latter. 

What Advantages Do Huge Corporations Have?

Certainly, large companies do have some specific advantages when 
it comes to natural search. 

a. Links - the primary advantage that large corporations have is 
their ability to obtain large amounts of inbound links, which can 
have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Often these links 
are given freely without the company asking (or being aware that 
it is happening). Many of the huge corporation's vendors, 
affiliates, partners, etc. are eager to show their association 
with the company and link to the corporate site readily and 
non-reciprocally. Large corporations can also facilitate huge 
increases in link popularity through a simple corporate policy 
requiring inbound links from any companies wishing to work with 
them. In addition, very large corporations may have several 
websites, which can sometimes be effectively linked together for 
additional link popularity.  

b. Budget - although history shows that a large percentage of 
major corporations do not spend wisely in this arena, larger 
corporations typically have larger marketing budgets then their 
smaller competitors. However, this does not necessarily mean that 
they will readily allocate a portion of that budget for search 
engine optimization, as discussed below. 

What Advantages Do Smaller Companies Have?

While the advantages of huge corporations, particularly in the 
area of link popularity, can be difficult to overcome, it is 
often unnecessary to try. A large percentage of such companies 
consistently seem to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes 
to natural search engine optimization, a primary reason why small 
companies can often outperform them. Specific advantages include: 

a. A willingness to pursue the channel- Smaller companies are 
typically more willing to devote resources to natural search than 
large corporations. Huge things have to happen for a major 
corporation to get involved in this "new" channel, a channel far 
removed from the traditional marketing methodologies used to 
build the giant. Few corporate underlings want to be the one to 
put their neck on the line and recommend something completely new 
and "unproven". Even when a large corporation looks into natural 
search engine optimization as a potential marketing tool, it can 
take many months, and sometimes years, for a final decision to be 
made. 

b. A willingness to change the company website- Huge corporations 
face similar problems when it comes to changing to the corporate 
website. Within such entities, a person can often not get so 
much as a comma removed from the text of a secondary page without 
holding several upper-level management meetings and, ultimately, 
making a board presentation. Smaller, leaner companies are able 
to approve necessary website changes more quickly, and are almost 
always more willing to quickly adapt to the needs of both 
visitors and search engines. 

c. The willingness to outsource- Larger companies have more 
internal resources at their disposal, and are less likely to 
outsource this specialized service to someone with proven 
experience. Often, search engine optimization is treated as an 
afterthought and dumped on an IT person, who typically has too 
much to do already and will approach the problem solely from a 
technical standpoint. Natural search engine optimization is by 
necessity a combination of marketing and technology. Newcomers to 
the field (especially those who treat the discipline as strictly 
a technical issue) often make fundamental mistakes that at best 
do not get results and at worst put sites at risk of 
penalization.  

d. A lack of technical hurdles- Huge corporations are more likely 
to have technical issues on their website that can prevent search 
engines from indexing all of their pages. Often the pages of 
corporate websites are generated "on the fly" from large 
databases, and such pages (without modification to the URLs) are 
sometimes never indexed. In addition, (although usability 
studies are making this happen less often), some huge 
corporations have their sites built entirely in flash or use 
other technologies that are virtually invisible to search 
engines. 

The Bottom Line

To most huge corporations, search engine optimization is often a 
very small piece of an enormous puzzle - and it is a piece they 
have been doing without for years. The necessary steps required 
to fully embrace the channel are often enough to stop any 
well-intentioned initiative in its tracks. As most search engine 
optimization experts will tell you, some of the most egregious 
search engine mistakes are consistently made by household name 
companies - leaving their smaller, leaner competitors the 
opportunity to take full advantage.  

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Scott Buresh is managing partner of Medium Blue Internet 
Marketing (http://www.mediumblue.com), an Atlanta search engine 
optimization company that works with clients all over North 
America. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, 
including SiteProNews, ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, 
DarwinMag, PromotionData, and Search Engine Guide.  
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