You scroll down past the banner ads and enter your search term. You pass the “sponsored results” without a glance. You ignore the shaded results to the right, as well as the additional “sponsored results” at bottom. Hiding somewhere in the middle of it all, you finally find the results you came for.
Welcome to the world of natural search- a world where mom-and-pop shops compete with million dollar companies, where million dollar companies compete with billion dollar corporations. And, while many will argue to the contrary, the playing field is more or less level. Small companies can and do dominate their behemoth competitors in this world, for a variety of reasons.
What Is Natural Search?
For those who aren’t quite clear what the term means, “natural” or “organic” search describes the “editorial” search results on any particular engine. These results are purported to be completely non-biased – meaning that the engine will not accept any amount of money to influence the rankings of any individual sites. This is quite different than the paid advertising that appears in...