Commentary

If Search Marketers Ruled The World

Over the past couple months, I've been on a crusade to bring sexy back to search. I started off with some search haiku to set the mood. Then I turned up the heat with 10 reasons search marketers are positioned well to come out, er, on top. And, in my last column, I compared search to Groupon, one of the hottest companies around.

Today, I'm ready to go all the way and imagine what it would be like if search marketers ruled the world. Shout out to Nasty Nas for providing the soundtrack for today's column.

1.    Global warming wouldn't exist. We wouldn't need to keep chopping down trees and killing rain forests. In a world run by search marketers, everything would be digitized. And I mean everything.

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2.    We'd all be the same religion. You know how obsessed search marketers are about conversions?!?

3.    We wouldn't need "Freakonomics." One of the reasons this book became so popular is because it shed light on causes and effects we didn't know existed. If SEM'ers ran the show, everything would have clear attribution so we wouldn't need fancy economists to explain them away.

4.    Our finances would be auto-optimized. In an SEM-led world, we'd all have tools to automatically adjust our spend to heavy up on the items that deliver the greatest return. The challenge here, of course, would be setting key performance indicators. Hmm, what am I going for today... happiness or health?

5.    We'd be able to concatenate meals. Fruit + Salad. Shake + Bake. Apple + pie. Dinner is served!

6.    There'd be no babies named Isabella or Jacob. In 2009, the most popular baby names were Isabella and Jacob. (Geez, there are a lot of "Twilight " fans out there!) If search marketers were in charge, every baby would be given a unique identifier to allow for disambiguation -- not to mention top organic search rankings. After all, that's why I named my daughter Eliara.

7.    Everything could be 301 redirected. Moving? 301 your address. Get a new phone? 301 your number. Change jobs? 301 your email. Get dumped? 301 your heart.

8.    You'd never lose your car keys. In a world run by SEM'ers, everything would be searchable and, of course, ambiently findable.

9.    You'd never close your curtains or blinds. Privacy schmivacy. If search marketers ruled the roost, everything would be personalized to meet your preferences. Your clothes. Your meals. Your kids. But alas, the only way to reap the full benefits of personalization is to allow yourself to be fully tracked.

10.  There would be no casualties of war. If search marketers ruled the world, any and all conflicts would be settled just like a paid search campaign. Set up a test and let the data decide who wins. There would be no room for argument. No hostile takeovers. No covert operations. Of course, there'd be a lot of fighting. Daily battles -- sometimes hourly. However, the only casualties would be the egos of the guys and gals who got the hypotheses wrong.

How do you think the world would be different if search marketers were running it? Leave your two cents on the Search Insider blog and let's see if, together, we can make change.

2 comments about "If Search Marketers Ruled The World".
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  1. David Carlick from Carlick, September 8, 2010 at 11:02 a.m.

    I am trying to imagine the opposite world, where it was ruled by brand marketers. Wait, maybe it already is.

  2. Jana Williams from Edge Communications, September 8, 2010 at 2:27 p.m.

    Really fun, Aaron. I love your light-hearted way with search. For a 20-sec, fun take on "Happy Face"--aka FaceBook--click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THZBv3g2bhc

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