Understanding Google Search Engine

Thanks a lot for your wonderful response to my previous blog “An attempt to explore the Digital World”. It was heartening to see the number of views and comments. The offline feedback was also very encouraging. So here is the second post which talks about Google as a search engine. 

A re-iteration that the information here will be of very basic nature.Keeping this in mind, let's try to answer some very basic questions - How does a lay man understand the result page which is displayed? How does this help Digital Marketers to promote their product, and what is in it for Google? 

Google has become an integral part of our lives. It has become a genie for us, who fulfills all our wishes. Any information we need; the first thing we turn towards is the Google search engine and type in our query. To our surprise most of the times the search results are apt. Have we ever wondered how does this search engine give the desired output. Well, this is possible because of a complex algorithm in the back end which helps to generate search results. This algorithm decides on the results that are shown to the end users, and has multiple steps involved to decide the page rank too. This algorithm is not that easy to understand even by the experienced in the field. However one thing that is easy to understand is how this benefits the digital marketers, and in turn Google.

Let’s take an example to understand this further. When I enter Digital Marketing as the search term, I get the following result page:

So if you see the above screenshot, the result page can be divided into two types:

1. One where you can see “Ad” mentioned, and highlighted in the red box; also called as inorganic search results.
2. While the other in the center is more general in nature and related to the search term (in this case “Digital Marketing”). This is also called as Organic search results.

The area highlighted in red is the place where google places ads depending on your search term. In this case as my search term was Digital Marketing, the ads displayed are related to the same. So this is the area eyed by Digital Marketers to place ads for their products. As one can see in this example, most of the ads feature the courses offered by various institutes related to Digital Marketing. If I go and click on any of these ads, the company placing the same will be charged an amount. Hence it has a monetary significance for Google. Google earns revenue from these advertisements. These ads are placed by using Google Adwords. So next time when you click on any of these ads, it means Google has earned an amount based on the action you performed. Imagine the revenue that you have generated for Google so far J

I hope you found this simple concept interesting. In the next post I will talk a little more about Google Adwords and how it works.

An attempt to explore the Digital World

This first blog of mine is more about my induction into “Digital Marketing”. It all started with some reviews which I read about regarding the potential of this field in India. I remember reading in one of the newspapers about the possibility of 1.5 Lakh Jobs which will be created in next two years & India’s emergence as a digital outsourcing hub for services like online advertising, social media and website design etc. So definitely a huge demand; but the downside is the availability of trained people to handle the same. So with some background of Sales, marketing and Advertisement, I thought of taking a deep dive to understand it in detail. While I was reading about all this and thinking of a way to get started, I came across an ad in one of the social media platforms (so see the benefit of Digital Marketing) from an institution claiming to prepare you as a digital marketer in few months. The ad made me feel as if I was waiting for it to come. I had a discussion with few of my friends and guides, and decided to go for it. Thus the journey in exploring the Digital World began. It was a great experience attending the classes and meeting new friends, some of whom were already professionals in this field. The first thing that struck me was that Google was much more than just a search engine, with so much happening in the background. Next few months were really productive with lots of learnings and discussions. Lessons learnt during the classes and further reading provided a lot of insight into way the industry works. I did not take long to understand that there is so much to explore. I began to understand how one of the day to day activities which we perform on search engines and social platforms dictates the marketing strategies for various products, services & organizations, which as a lay person, probably I would have never understood.
 Exploring this field further and being in touch with the latest updates has become a regular thing now. This has also become a new topic of discussion with friends around. During one such discussion, I was suggested to start a blog for starters in Digital Marketing, or say Digital Maketing for new comers. The idea was good so thought of validating it further from you all. I am planning to write few articles which will detail out Digital Marketing and the components involved, like Google Adwords, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing and many more.
 So friends let me know if this sounds exciting to understand more about Digital Marketing. This will be definitely very basic knowledge of how this field operates. Based on the response from you all, I will plan for my next article. I am sure I will also be able to share some of the practical experience which I will get as a digital marketer in coming posts. Signing off for now and waiting to hear from you all.