No, this is not a typo. I was not referring to Google. I was indeed referring to Facebook as a search engine.

What is a “search engine”? From a users perspective it is a platform where I can quickly get relevant results for whatever I am looking for. Five years back if were looking for, say a recruitment agency, I would go to Google, type “recruitment agency in Mumbai” in the search box and then in 0.182 seconds a set of results would be displayed on my computer screen. I would faithfully click on most of the links on the first page and perhaps one or two on the second page. I would look at each website and based on the communication and aesthetics of the site, perhaps shortlist 2-3 people to talk to. Chances that I would succeed in finding a suitable agency or perhaps my efforts would yield zilch result and I would be forced to continue with my existing agency.

Now in the Facebook era, my search works differently. I go to my Facebook page and type “Looking for recruitment agency in Mumbai. Referrals welcome”. In the next 24 hours I have some 5 suggestions from people I know on Facebook. Since these suggestions are coming from people whom I already know, a prima facie faith in the prospective agency has already been established. I touch based with these 5 suggestions and zero in on one of them.

Alternately, I go and make a posting in LinkedIn forum regarding my requirement for a recruitment agency. In the next 2-3 days half a dozen prospective agencies have made their presence felt in my mailbox. I look up the CEOs profile, see how he is linked to me (do I know someone who also knows him, if yes, do a quick reference check) and then zero in on the agency I want to work with.

Social Media is changing the way we are looking for information. If Web 1.0 (and Google) gave us information at our fingertips (everything and more was available at the click of the enter key), Web 2.0 (and the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn) are giving us access to experience at our finger tips. If I have 200 friends on my Facebook, in effect what I am having is access to their collective experience at the tip of my finger.

Few weeks back, we considered the option to outsource some routine, simple web development work. With that in mind, we started interacting with web development companies, all of whom had some stature, viz. they were at least 50-100 person teams, and they had a client list that was at least in 3 figures.

In my meetings with them, I would ask them to name their best website work, which I could review. Just so as to understand how good are the sites which they consider to be their best. And as I saw those “best” sites of theirs, all of them ‘looked good’ (typical flash work, great graphics, etc.), but none – repeat none – were SEO friendly. When I queried them about this fact, they defensively claimed that “oh, these clients just wanted a web presence and were not concerned about SEO”.

What is the meaning of “just wanted a web presence”?? And ALL of them had the same defense??

So I went to the next step – asked them to show me their OWN websites. The company website of the web development business. Disaster! None of them would ever get a lead from being found on a search engine!!

That sadly is the story of the day. When web development companies and their clients are in such deep mess, think about what can be the status of a typical new business, going out and putting up its website?!

Indeed, this is a phase of the ‘invisible website‘.

Let me drive home the point. Say you are in the business of diamond jewelry, and spurred by all the noise on going digital, you decide to put your business online, and create a website. Now you would need to get your target customers to visit this site, right? And you would expect search engines to drive traffic to your new website, right?

Well, that’s not going to happen!! WHY?

Try searching for ‘diamond jewelry‘ on Google. You get nearly 20 million matches.

Okay, so you are in India. So you say that you don’t care for the entire world to find you. If someone is searching for ‘diamond jewerly India’ and if you can get found that is good enough for you. Well, ‘diamond jewlery India‘ returns around 800,000 matches!

Compromise time. “Let me get Mumbai at least”, you feel. Next stop ‘diamond jewelry mumbai‘. About 335,000 matches!! Yeah, you would wonder about it, no? I am sure there are not so many jewelers selling diamond jewelry in Mumbai, but the search matches are surely there!!

Is there ANY hope at all? Let’s try ‘diamond ring 0.2 ct mumbai‘. Finally – a smaller number of search results! But still around 18,500.

Now you get the concept of “the invisible website”?

So how do you STILL make an impact with a website. Here is where Social Media comes to the rescue. Whether you reach the entire world or not, you certainly want to reach a far higher number of people beyond those that get your business card and who want to then, check your site out.

So the subject of my next post will be (and leave your thoughts about this in the comments): “So how exactly can Social Media make the invisible site visible??”