During the submitted Question and Answer segment of a John Mueller hangout, an SEO professional asked John about Google Shopping Ads, although the question was more about competition.
Their question was: In some industries, is it unfair to run Google Shopping Ads alongside ads displayed on the top of the search results?
This pushes the organic search results in smaller organizations further and further down the page.
Do smaller organizations even have a chance at competing with larger companies?
John explained that he believes this is more of a philosophical question. From Google’s perspective, it’s definitely not the case that they are trying to focus on big websites or anything.
From a purely practical perspective, obviously, if you’re a small company and you’re trying to compete with larger ones, then it’s always going to be difficult.
Especially on the web, one of the things that he has noticed over time is that in the beginning, many large companies were incompetent regarding the web, and they made terrible websites.
Their visibility in the search results was really bad.
And it was easier for smaller sites to get in and say “Well, here’s my small website or bookstore,” and suddenly your content is visible to many users.
And you can kind of have that success moment early on.
However, over time – as more large companies also see the value of search and the web overall, they have grown their sites, they have really competent teams, and they work hard at creating a great web experience for users.
This means that for smaller companies, it’s a lot harder to gain a competitive foothold, especially if there’s a very competitive existing market.
And it’s less about large companies or small companies. It’s more about the competitive environment in general.
It’s something where you, as a smaller company, should focus more on your strengths and the weaknesses of the competition.
And then you try and find an angle where you shine and where other people don’t have the ability to shine also, which could be specific types of content, or specific audiences, or anything along those lines.
The virtual business landscape is similar to the physical one, with regards to competition.
This happens at approximately the 38:17 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John (Submitted Question) 38:17
Within some industries, would it be unfair for Google Shopping ads to run alongside the ads displayed on the top of the search, as it pushes organic search results in smaller organizations further and further down the page? Do smaller organizations have a chance in competing with larger companies?
John (Answer) 38:33
I don’t know. I think this is almost like a philosophical question. From our point of view, it’s definitely not the case that we’re trying to kind of focus on big websites or anything like that. But from a purely practical point of view, obviously, if you’re a small company, and you’re trying to compete with larger companies, then it’s always going to be hard.
And especially on the web, one of the things that I’ve noticed over time, is that in the beginning, a lot of large companies were essentially incompetent with regards to the web, and they made terrible websites.
And their visibility in the search results was really bad. And it was easy for small websites to get in and kind of like, say, Well, I was like, here’s my small website or my small bookstore, and suddenly your content is visible to a large amount of users.
And you can kind of have that success moment, early on. But over time, as large companies also see the value of search and of the web overall, they’ve kind of grown their websites, they have really competent teams, they work really hard on making a fantastic web web experience.
And that kind of means, for smaller companies, that it’s a lot harder to kind of gain a foothold there, especially if there’s a very competitive existing market out there. And it’s less about large companies or small companies.
It’s really more about the competitive environment in general. And that’s something where you, kind of as a small company, you should probably focus more on your strengths and the weaknesses of the competitors.
And try to find an angle where you can shine, where other people kind of don’t have the ability to shine as well. Which could be specific kinds of content or specific audiences or anything along those lines, kind of like how you would do that with a normal physical business as well.
