Is Search the New Homepage?

It is no secret that most web visits begin with search. Think about it.

Do you have the tendency to paste a URL into the search bar, or go straight to Google or another search engine instead?

Because of the fact that most of us go to directly to a search engine when looking for reliable information, it could be argued that search engines are indeed the new homepage of the web. As a result, sites such as Google and Yahoo! have developed aggressive visibility strategies that ensure the company or link you might be looking for comes up on the first page of your search engine, the first time you search for it.

An article Edleman Public Relations has published explores this new phenomena that has developed over the last 10 that "search, without question, is the most dominant online activity". The article speaks to two types of primary visibility tactics: paid search and optimized search. Both of these types of search tactics are a more widely known type of search engine marketing, where the process of buying keywords is an expensive and technical process.

More recently, however, two other types of search tactics have emerged: reputational search and social search. Both of these tactics sit in the hands of public relations practices, utilizing social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to create links to their sites and set up the world wide web for the next upcoming phenomena: search and social networking. What happens when we begin to find all our information from social sites? Could another medium replace the power of Google?

As a result of these new search tactics and the increasing importance of search visibility, how we write has drastically changed. Not only do we continue to write for our audience, we must write for the searchers, and more importantly, the search engines. Learning how to incorporate key words into the text and strategizing where these words are placed on the page suddenly takes precedence over how much content we provide. The dangerous pitfall that can result from this, however, is bad writing. It is important to remember that the English and grammar rules aren't breaking just because the way we search the web is changing. The challenge becomes how to incorporate good, clear writing with the strategic ability to have your article or webpage found.

The power of search has quickly linked with the even more powerful social networking sites. Social search, as the Edleman article outlines, is quickly rising to the top of all search tactics. More search queries are rising from inside communities than directly from Google or other search engines. Understanding this convergence could be one of the best tactics to master.