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The Ineluctable Organic Moment
February 06, 2006
Gord Hotchkiss, along with having a really cool name, recently and brilliantly captured in words what has heretofore remained known but unspoken in our odd little industry: the genesis of organic interest within a company, or what we'll coin The Ineluctable Organic Moment:
Here's the typical scenario: marketing has been convinced to try sponsored search. They're generally happy with the results, but then they read an article or attend a conference where someone (and I happen to be a prime culprit) tells them that 70 percent of the clicks actually happen in the organic results. "Wait a minute," they say. "I'm spending $4.28 a click and I could get more traffic with a free listing?" They immediately run to the nearest computer and see how they rank for the terms they're currently buying. Nothing on the first page, or the second, or the third. Ah, there they are! Number 48 for their term--stuck in no-man's land.
I quote at length but for me it was a Popean what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed epiphany. Moreover, an adverb used expertly but almost to extremity by Al Gore in a recent speech and one which I will attempt to employ for the first time in a published fashion at risk of dangling a modifier, it hearkened me back to what I believe was the first public sharing of The Ineluctable Organic Moment, although again, ne'er so well expressed as Gord's accomplishment and, certainly, as yet unlabeled.
The Scene was Auditing Paid Listings at SES Chicago 2003, and going off-topic we began to approach this elusive, unnamed entity. Danny Sullivan, being Danny Sullivan, pursued it as a subject to be pursued and was able to coax out the 85% number that became part of SEO Mythos for a good while.
Whether we have fallen since to the 70% quoted above or none of us knew what we were talking about at the time remains open to discovery, yet it is still quite a tilt in the favor of Organic. And quite a moment, ineluctable.
see all posts by John Lustina
posted by John Lustina at February 6, 2006 09:07 PM
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