Google has been on a steady march towards complete digital domination, acquiring companies that allow Google to burrow itself into pretty much everything and carving out a lucrative and inescapable Googleverse.
But what is the connection between all of these seemingly disparate elements? Clearly, it’s the holy grail of the Internet: Ye Olde Small Business.
Travel lifecycle
Google’s self-proclaimed five stages of travel provide plenty of insight into how the company sees their role at the center of travel.
By integrating services at the Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing stages, Google can easily set itself up to move beyond travel aggregation and compete directly with companies dominating any one or more of these stages.
- Dreaming: Google now has Frommer’s and Zagat, which can provide plenty of fresh content to hook users. Social sharing services such as Google+ also offer plenty of avenues to encourage dreaming.
- Booking: Google’s purchase of ITA Software, alongside the launch of Hotel Finder and Flight Search, allows the company to compete directly in the booking stream. This has not yet become a significant business, and remains an aggregation model rather than some sort of direct competition with the OTAs.
- Experiencing and Sharing: Google+ provides the place for users to experience and share their experiences with their networks. YouTube is the place to share the video component of the experience. All of these things together provide a full-loop travel cycle, feeding back into the Dreaming stage.
The main question remains: will Google jump in and directly compete, or will they preserve good will – and the search profits that propel the core business – by remaining agnostic as far as organic searches go.
Some, including Yelp’s Jeremy Stoppelman, claim that Google is verging on evil business practices by unfairly ranking their results higher than paid results.
However, as a result of such pressure, Google dropped screen scraping tactics, and re-focused their Google Places product as Google+ Local. This means that, rather than playing nice with Google, companies like Yelp and TripAdvisor forced them to compete directly with them instead – jeopardizing their own traffic, which some estimates peg as derived 75% from search engines.
The opportunity for Google is enormous on this front, and one that is a natural fit: As eMarketer highlights in their recent report on Google Travel, Google Maps is the #1 travel site for US Internet users.
This factor is one of the most important indicators of how meaningful Google’s push into the local and travel spaces. As the fulcrum of local discovery, Google is perhaps best poised out of all companies to successful bite off a chunk of the local search and discovery industries.
Review from Zagat, content from Frommer’s, videos from YouTube, reviews from Google+, recommendations from Google +1, and paid search all come together to create one monster of a small business ecosystem.
So…is Google the ultimate small business tool?
This realization came to me this weekend, as I was setting up various components of our new website and online strategy for my New Orleans restaurant:Â Google is positioning itself as the ultimate small business tool.
While I don’t think this is a groundbreaking realization, it was a sea-change as far as understanding the magnitude of the Googleverse being constructed:
- Business registers Google+ Local page
- Business appears on Google Maps page, on Web and mobile
- Business appears higher in search results with more rich content and Google +1s, encouraging owners to: add +1 button, be active on Google+, and create/share dynamic content.
- Business uploads video to YouTube to increase SEO, and to seed to social networks such as Google+.
- Business experiments with live Hangouts to increase engagement and provide more evergreen content on their social networks.
- Business blog encourages Google +1′s in order to rank higher in search rankings due to recommended content.
- Business content begins appearing on Google Now as Google tracks user interaction with business-specific published content.
- Business gets more reviews via Google+ and begins showing up next to map in city-targeted searches.
- Business encouraged by Google Maps penetration to purchase targeted mobile ads.
- Business encouraged by YouTube to purchase video ads relevant to their demographic.
- Business creates Google Offer to promote to the community
- Business begins using Google Apps for email, Google Drive for collaboration and document sharing and others.
- Business deploys Google Wallet to make it easier for customers to pay, and integrate payment options into the ecosystem.
- Business points to Google+ as the center of its social media identity, creating a full ecosystem in support of the business: local search, SEO, social, video.
The business can basically create a full digitally marketing suite planted firmly in the Googleverse – which then prevents other companies from penetrating said universe given the ease and completeness of the ecosystem.
As the Wall Street Journal describes the vision, it’s a cohesive strategy to become the grease of the world’s small business cogs:
When shoppers visit these businesses, Google wants them to use their Internet-connected phones like a digital wallet, earning loyalty points and making payments at stores that sign up for Google’s new services. In turn, Google is hoping stores and other businesses will use their new Google+ pages to communicate with customers, such as by showing them special offers. And it hopes to persuade them to sign up for other Google products.
Now if it can only start to understand even the most basic tenets of a concept called “customer service,” the company could truly reverse the trend towards anonymous services that are frustratingly obtuse to get help using.
This is an essential point: Everyone is running after the local business loose ball, and Google’s grand play for small business will fail – and fail miserably – if they do not begin to truly think about customer service and what it means to the businesses they hope to woo from competitors.
Even Facebook, who is also running hard for the local/mobile business, doesn’t seem to grasp the basic tenets of customer service. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, doesn’t even seem to grasp the need to help small businesses with more than just advertising:
In a recent earnings call with investors, the Facebook executive pointed out the inherent challenge of working with small businesses:
“The problem is local businesses are not very tech savvy. Something like 40% don’t have any Web presence.”
So rather than help these businesses succeed – beyond just setting up a Facebook page and then buying some ads – even Facebook is at a general loss at how to serve the mammoth local business market.
Neither Google nor Facebook have a shred of customer service – try getting in touch with either company as a general user and prepare for endless frustration. As a small business owner myself with limited time and resources, why would I do business with a company that has such terrible customer service?
1. I have to, and 2. It works.
Google has clearly been playing the long game here, and overall can be much more useful as a full-on marketing assault than Facebook’s limited scope, especially when it comes to local search and discovery.
Facebook facilitates engagement and Google facilitates conversion – which one do you think will win?
Facilitator vs. Competitor
Google claims that it exists to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Of course, this becomes problematic when there are conflicts of interest when it comes to ownership of said information. Facilitating discovery of information becomes murky when said information is owned wholly by the company tasked to deliver information to users.
Note that there is no mention of “relevant” in the mission statement. Relevancy is in the eye of the beholder, and in this case, relevant will be determined 100% by the many Google algorithms ranking, sorting and delivering information to users. Surely the profit equation plays into this determination, in regards to how the company can most effectively monetize each individual search given search history, intent and other factors.
This relevancy issue is where the facilitator versus competitor conversation really heats up. Small businesses want Google to facilitate customer discovery, and eventually conversion. Small businesses also want Google to compete with Yelp and TripAdvisor as a go-to resource for customers, as this releases some pressure on specific channels and provides more opportunity to engage on their own terms.
In addition, small businesses enjoy the ease-of-access to a mobile presence, given the ubiquity of Google Maps. So as far as facilitator vs competitor, most small businesses are fine with Google’s balance  of competitor vs. facilitator. Their behemoth status actually somehow evens the playing field for the time-starved and revenue-challenged small business.
Small business wants both a facilitator and a competitor, because as long as Google keeps bringing people through the doors, they will keep using it.
Search for lifeÂ
Of course, the mission to organize the world’s information is simply a more approachable way of saying that the company exists to aggregate information in a useful way so they can sell ads against it.
Let’s be clear here: search advertising is Google’s bread-and-butter and none of these developments will change anything. The focus on information aggregation means that:
- The company has access to millions of words to sell ads against.
- The company has access to billions of behavioral data points to sell ads against.
- The company doesn’t sell access to information, it sells access to those users.
All of those caveats are important considerations when determining just how likely it is for Google to cannibalize their existing search business in favor of the ecosystem they are slowly building.
First, let’s look at the actual revenues derived from the travel trade. The top 5 travel/tourism companies spent a bit over $130 million on AdWords in 2011.
And yet, this is only a minuscule part of the overall search spending.
The trends over the past 5 years show that search spending is also actually increasing, alongside both mobile and video – two areas that Google has also made significant plays for with the Android, Motorola and YouTube acquisitions.
IAB reports on these advertising format share trends over the past years (report here):
But what companies and industry categories are driving this spending?
Retail is at the top, spending around $3.4 billion in the first half of 2012. This category includes many of the businesses that will most greatly benefit from Google’s consolidated marketing tools: apparel, restaurants/fast food, drugstores, retail stores, cosmetics stores, pet food/supplies and home furnishings, textiles and apparel.
So the thinking is as follows:
–> The retail trade is already the driver of internet ad revenues, so developing a centralized local product that empowers small businesses to attract more customers is not going to cannabilize the lion’s share of revenues. In fact, by increasing conversions by leveraging these new interconnected platforms of Google+, Google+ Local, Google Maps and metasearch, Google may actually be able to increase perceived value and extract more cash from these businesses – especially if there’s a monetization plan for local search on mobile in Google Maps.
–> The travel trade is only 8% of revenue. While still substantial, Google can offset losses in search revenue due to competition conflicts with increased value for the retail trade in addition to the value created by these new products. So revenue here would be merely translated to the full cohesive Google product rather than be cannibalized. This revenue can then be grown organically from that point as the full Googleverse begins to coalesce more explicitly.
–> By integrating itself into all 5 stages of the travel lifecycle, Google can also offset some of lost search revenue due to perceived competition by offering new ways of engaging with customers. And, of course, by using Google+ as another ranking element in SERPs, brands are indirectly incentivized to invest back into the Googleverse. Companies will then purchase ads on Google+ (or whatever monetization product will be rolled out there)
–> Google has cleared all anti-trust inquiries, so how will they continue to coalesce around their small business strategy? The integrations are much more clear now, and the path much less obstructed. The main hurdle to the complete takeover is social: Google must increase engagement across their platforms and chip away at Facebook’s stranglehold on Internet time spent.
Conclusion
As a small business owner, I’m still trying to wrap my head around what this all means for me from both a business and technology perspective.
Time is always elusive, and resources equally tight. With these limitations, where do I place my bets? Facebook delivers engagement and a long-term audience while Google delivers butts-in-seats, increased prominence in search and a crystal-clear mobile advantage.
Google’s push into the small business sphere is nearly complete, with education and implementation the clear hurdles for widespread adoption and understanding of these tools.
Google has a firm grasp on where they’re headed, and while some have trouble seeing how it all fits together, the play is quickly unfolding into a complete game changer on all fronts.
NB: Celebration, Chess images courtesy Shutterstock (Celebration, Chess)
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About Nick Vivion
Hi Nick
Thanks for this , you have put into words what my muddled brain has been trying to pull together. G+ is the last bit of our social web we need to pull together and it has been confusing the living daylights out of me. Even paying for advice on it which is not something I do lightly!
Still a confusing journey though which you would have thought google would have made easier with their resources.
Pete
This is the biggest beef I have with Google: their shameful lack of a shred of dignified customer service. It makes you, the user, feel ridiculous and angry with them,
Especially given the fact that the user is what Google is selling to advertisers and other businesses. Perhaps Google realizes that the average user doesn’t have other options given their dominance, which is where the “Google is evil” meme comes into full view.
Google, if you are listening, please double down on your customer service and give us something to make use of as small businesses! You made tens of billions of dollars last year – use some of it to help the user!
Offering help to small businesses is also a great way to source quality info from experts. Offer that info direct to consumers through search etc and the user benefits. Great for small businesses. Great for consumers. Just don’t get stuck in the middle
I really like that idea – Google has done a bit of it with Think With Google, but they could be doing so much more to help small business navigate the insane amount of details among the various services. I think they would see a solid ROI on this customer service investment, as it would help make sense of things to small businesses – and give them more understanding about why they should spend even more money with Google.
There are a number of brands in North America that fell into the hands of Sears Roebuck many decades ago. From about the turn of the last Century, Sears was the fastest growing Mail-order Catalog and Retail operator that eventually became a retail Giant (long before Walmart). Their inability to innovate, and/or huge investment in legacy infrastructure (stores, but could be computer systems in today´s age) is a story for another day.
In any case, with this remarkable growth, Sears started to consume all the production that various successful companies could produce – companies such as Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard, Toughskins, etc. So one day, an executive at Sears said ¨lets not pay these suppliers for a while and see what happens.¨
Because each of these companies (now dependent on Sears) needed the cashflow from Sears to pay their bills (suppliers, EMPLOYEES, etc.), they had to ¨beg¨ Sears for help. Sears´ reply was to offer to buy theses companies for pennies on the dollar and assume responsibility for making payroll.
Sears effectively bought these extremely successful companies for a fraction of the money Sears (itself) owed them in Accounts Payable – because they could not make the next payroll.
humm . . . .
At this point, most small businesses don’t have any AP accounts with Google – are you saying they are going to absorb some of the companies that rely most on either AdWords or Google Search traffic?
Nick,
This comment is more to make people think about what companies with excessive market power can do. Managing working capital (including Accounts Payable/Receivable) is just one example of something that can get a company in trouble if business risks are not understood and proactively managed.
What if Google froze the placement that travel companies could achieve in Search, or they decided to place their own information above that of other relevant (or even more relevant) suppliers. Do these sound familiar?
Google knows more about individuals than their own mothers.
The concentration of such market power in the hands of only a few people is concerning.
Having said that, I am a capitalist who believes in market forces. Google has earned their current position through a lot of hard work, wise investments, excellent HR programs, etc. – and therefore, in my opinion they have the right to exploit this market power however they see fit.
The message is simply that while most travel companies must engage with Google if they customers to find them, they have to be cognizant of the business risks. I doubt Google is going to go around buying a bunch of travel companies (although Frommers and Zagat are clearly associated with travel and ITA is smack in the middle of it), and therefore, few companies should consider what would happen if they were approached by Google. Rather, they should consider for a few minutes (or frequently), how their business would change if Google bought a direct competitor or a significant supplier/distributor. What actions should they be prepared to take?
What if Google bought Priceline? I´m not an antitrust lawyer, but I suspect that they could get this through a market concentration test with the US and EU.
I think Google’s strength is that they have automated customer service through forums and help websites.
Nobody really likes calling customer service anyway. I have setup google checkout on a small ecomerce site and got it all working for years with only a few emails to google customer service.
Everything you could ever need to know is explained online. You just have to go look for it.
Why should they spend millions to have a call center to deal with the least intelligent people that are to lazy to read and figure shit out for themselves. Google just refers them to endless help pages until they figure it out. Its efficient. Survival of the fittest and they save tons of money..
I think that self-help works in some instances, but it’s just not going to be a good differentiator going forward. It’s like Southwest Airlines vs Spirit Air (See Chris Elliott’s latest column in Nat Geo Traveler) – do you want to pay more to be treated with respect or pay less and have no expectation of any service?
I’m firmly in the “pay more for better service” camp. One example: My other company was removed from Google for violating vague ToS (we report on LGBT news, and we were reporting on some of the terrible violence happening in Africa at the time, of which the truth of the story apparently violates their ToS), and I have been unable to find any way or any person to talk to to fix the situation. We removed all the content, and tried in vain to contact someone at Google to make this right. It resulted in an 80% drop in revenues, and almost made us go out of business.
That’s just one occasion with someone who is very digitally savvy. Now imagine a less-than-tech-savvy small business – the very small business that Google’s local strategy is aiming for – who needs help doing more basic things. How are they going to feel nosing through forums for 5 hours trying to find exactly what they need? You call the desire to not have to do this “lazy,” I call this “smart time management.” I don’t have time to poke around on forums to fix it myself – I’d rather pay someone to fix it for me!
Small business has two precious commodities: time and money. And time is usually much more precious, as wasting time means wasting opportunities to grow the business. Increased revenue, not reducing costs, is always the most effective cure to all business ails, and spending 5 hours on a DIY project that could be resolved in a 5 minute phone call is generally not smart business.
Google is going after small businesses – and they can’t just let “survival of the fittest” drive their strategy. Failing small businesses are not good clients!
Of course, this is just my opinion and I’m happy to hear yours!
Best,
N
Hmm,
All your points are valid. Sounds like your other site was a victim of automation..
Google changing from free product listings on Google Shopping to Paid online listings hurt one of my businesses too. The new system was too expensive and time consuming for us to deal with the process of converting/learning/formatting and then also paying per click. But I’m sure google does a cost benefit analysis and figure out that they raise revenue so much more than the few little guys that miss out.
Oh well, we decided we would rather do other things than run an online store anyway.
But it doesn’t seem right that a news site with explicit language would be dropped from search. Doesn’t fit their “Don’t Be Evil” ethos.
Definitely a victim of automation – but what happens when the robots are wrong? That is my issue here – there needs to be recourse to right the wrong with an actual human being. I know that sounds audacious in this automated world, but I know that I’m not the only one – this is a sea change that will see the return of customer service in a Big Way across industries.
N
Hi Nick
What a great and thoughtful article.
It’s almost like Google is saying you don’t need a site. You’ve got us.
Cept apart from search not sure i’d trust the big G. Remind me a bit of an amalgam of Joe Pesci/Robert De Niro in Goodfellas ie F U pay me, you fink I’m funny?
Anyway good luck with the new resto in NOLA. Got a link?
Cheers Stu
It’s similar in many ways to what Facebook is trying to do – make your Facebook social page the hub of all your online engagement. By owning that relationship, they can then sell ads against that content. I still think brands and businesses should use their own site as the hub of interaction, so they can at least own that relationship directly. Ah, the brave new world!
Booty’s Street Food can be found online at http://bootysnola.com!
Thanks Stu,
N
Off topic…
But, since you own a restaurant. This month’s (March) Outside magazine is all about food.
This awesome article kept me up late as I couldn’t put it down.. Amazing..
Eating the Island
People are flocking to Washington’s remote Willows Inn, where 26-year-old chef Blaine Wetzel creates feverishly creative tasting menus fished, farmed, and foraged out his back door. By Rowan Jacobsen
I’ve read about Blaine for awhile now – I’m hoping to make my own trek out that way soon as well! What a fantastic things he has done for himself – super congrats are in order.
N
Here’s the centre of where I think the Googleverse is right now … http://goo.gl/1uFqT
That link puts you into a virtual tour on Google maps in high res – you’ll be poolside at a 5 star resort in Palm Cove, tropical north Queensland.
Here’s another centre of Googleverse ….http://goo.gl/maps/0qvf7
That link also has you poolside in a different resort – Castaways Resort & Spa Mission Beach also in tropical north Queensland.
If decent quality photos help ‘sell’ a hotel, imagine what these virtual tours on Google will do!
And add into that all kinds of other businesses, such as restaurants (order online), retail shops (tagged items in the tours to purchase online) and tourism-based businesses (book the tour after checking out the virtual component).
I think this is one of the primary reasons TourWrist has been such a hit with investors and the like.
Best,
N
Wow, Google “See Inside” on Maps… Very cool..
more info
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57515495-93/how-to-see-inside-businesses-using-google-maps/
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2012/09/an-easier-way-to-find-panoramic.html
Alas, as far as I can tell you have to pay a Google “Trusted Photographer” to get a Google Business Photo “see inside” image onto google..
I am doing panoramas of our lodge this year for my own website with photoAF android app.
I’ve been approached for my restaurant by one of the photogs – $400 a pop! Given the fact that Google Maps shows our building from nearly 2 years ago when it was not renovated, this might be worth it. At this point, the map makes it seem like the restaurant is in a dumpy building.
Disadvantage is to have to pay someone for that service.
I don’t know a single person that is in love with Google. We are all forced to use them in one way or another because they are simply a monstrous dominator of the online space. True, they’ve made a huge contribution to making information accessible but they just don’t play nice. I totally agree with you Nick, that customer service is horrible and we, the normal users and even as business customers who pay them, often feel used and abused. I prefer a hundred times to call customer service if there is such an option rather than to search in forums for hours. Recently I had a problem with buying from Istockphoto. I called customer service and it was a great experience! A super helpful and sweet agent solved my problem right away and I was more than happy and now keen to buy from them again.
To Google we are selling our souls, forced to surrender more and more of our privacy, and time. I wonder if that’s a sustainable business model, if many users feel kind of enslaved and not cared after.
As users, we just need to take our feeling of abuse and move our services. That’s the hard part – I use Google Apps, and I could move over to a paid email provider, but at what time expense? It’s crazy when you realize how much fo your existence lives with the Big 4: Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. By moving to support startups, we might start to rebalance the scales.
I remember the first time I heard about Google over a decade ago – I was indeed enamored, and had a great feeling with the company that has gradually eroded since. Now, it’s just a necessary evil that encourages me to look for alternatives wherever possible.
There’s an opportunity here for startups to realize that the increased desire for human interaction and good customer service is not going away – this is the new normal as people increasingly become fatigued with the “tech for everything” panacea.
N
Okay, while I agree with what you guys are saying, the sheer amount of users using google who would take advantage of a free call line would be immense. I’m thinking of 1000′s of people needed to answer the email/call load.
Google always seems to have links to send suggestions though. I think whenever enough complaints come in they probably make changes or fix things.
The problem with moving away from google is that the basic things we use from them are free. So they won’t really notice if you leave. I mean, I almost never click on ads in Gmail and I can’t even tell you if there are ads in drive.google.com services that I use.
Remember, this is far bigger than just serving ads in Gmail or Drive. This is about learning deep-deep-deep about their customers. The knowledge Google gleans from their free product is immense, and allows them to better target ads across all platforms – especially mobile and social, which are growing in importance.
Google+ is a giant opportunity, as is Google Glass. By aggregating the most important pieces of our online digital lives into one place, the company accumulates vast wealth of information that drives a more efficient business.
N
Hi Nick
Thanks for that exhaustive analysis. I met Google last week and they are emphatic about not actually being part of the booking process. Having read your piece, why would they – as that would definitely involve customer service.
One question: do you see foursquare playing any part in your restaurant promotion, or is it Google all the way?
Google will probably come to terms with this “no booking” thing, and simply purchase a company known for customer service to make that happen. That’s one way that Google can stem this negative slide into the “apathetic behemoth” category.
We do use Foursquare, however it’s much less in use here in New Orleans (as are most tech solutions). We enjoy their service, as it ties actual physical presence in the restaurant to the promotion. That means we have a clear indication of increased revenues.
At the moment, we offer 3 promotions: a Newbie special, a Loyalty special, and a Friend special (if 3+ friends check-in at once). It has been popular, but the Yelp check-in reward still wins as far as redemptions.
We need to consider more how we can interact with the Foursquare community and leverage that in-person experience.
There really are an endless number of considerations on the marketing front – and then of course, consistency of food and service is something that must be strived for every single day! It’s a tough business, and each guest is a potential critic. And some are actual critics, making the whole operation very fragile as far as one experience being magnified to larger-than-life proportions.
By using things like Twitter, FB check-ins and 4square check-ins, however, we can monitor who is in the restaurant and ensure they are having a good experience. This is tough to do everyday, and we’re thinking more about using an online reputation monitoring software to ensure we catch any problems as they happen.
We’re always willing to test new services as well, so keep following here to learn more about some of the other more travel-tech related implementations!
Best,
N
Really liked this article Nick, as an avid personal and business Google user and fan, I find their tools functionality, sheer innovation and spectrum inspiring, BUT I feel really let down and disillusioned with the lack of customer service on the business side at least, as you say, better to pay a little more for a better customer service experience, but very importantly it should be scaled according to how much you use it,
i.e if you call CS 10 times a day, compared to the average 1 time a day you pay 10 times more.
I love this idea! Love love love it! I would gladly pay for a customer service call – and I know I’m not the only one. Which makes Google the only company on the planet that would charge people to talk to them – but given the inherent overhead costs being transferred to the consumer via price hikes, it makes complete sense to put the burden squarely on the folks who use it.