LEVERAGING SEARCH TECHNOLOGIES
ONLINE SEARCH TECHNOLOGY OF COCA COLA COMPANY
In business field, search technology companies have come up with different online search engines that enable them to advertise their products and services, gather data and information regarding the market, keep them informed regularly on business trends while helping them keep track on the competition. One of such organizations which have embraced the use of online search engines is the coca cola company. The coca cola company is one of the American manufacturers, retailers and supplier of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. Since its establishment in 1886, the coca cola company has grown to be one of the world’s largest nonalcoholic company globally due to its product sales in over 200 countries worldwide. The company offers over 350 brands in those 200 countries such as coca cola brand, Fanta, Sprite, Dasani bottled water, diet coke, and cola juices among other brands. As of the financial year ended 2017, coca cola had its total revenue of $35.410 billion, net income of $1.248 billion, and a total asset worth $87.896 billion with an estimated 61,800 number of employees (Ciafone, 2019). Therefore, this study will evaluate and analyze how the coca cola company used Google search engines to engage its customers and other stakeholders, stay up-to-date on new business trends, gather data and information and track market competition.
Online Search Technology Used At Coca Cola
Coca-Cola uses an on-site search engine optimization (SEO) which assist a landing page positioned in Google SERP. Search engine optimization uses tactics, procedures, and methods to expand the measure of visitors to the website to achieve a high ranking placement in the search results page in a Google search engine (Coca-Cola, 2019). For instance, by searching for the keyword coca cola in a Google search, an entire page of landing pages which are linked to the company are shown on the first page of the Google SERP. In this way, it is not a must for the company to use Google ads to place its rankings on top since the brand itself is well known globally. During the search for coca cola, the first search result contained in the Google SERP redirects the visitors to coca cola landing pages; thus it is vital to key in the keyword coca cola. Moreover, each search result on the first page will then redirect the visitor towards their associated websites. For instance, when you are looking for any drink such as soft drinks, you will just have to key in the word soft drink, and the variety of such drinks will be displayed (Singh, 2014).
Benefits of the Search Technology to Coca Cola
Since its establishment, the coca cola company has been the leader in the soft drink selling globally, but the stiff and increasing competition in the industry has forced the company to think outside the box. Moreover, with the increasing habit of consumers to search for brand contents online through various search engines, the company’s decision to come up with SEO to be used in the Google search engine is a wiser decision to make (Coca-Cola, 2019). The primary aim of the use of this technology was to create visibility in coca cola’s over 200 marketplaces worldwide. Consequently, the company wanted to have engagement with its clients where those customers can connect to their brands of choice and related contents worldwide. In a bid to achieve those needs, coca cola sought the help of iCrossing consultants and made them their search agency partner to ensure that the strategy is successful. The move enabled the organization to earn reputation while coming up as one of the most potent sources of consumer traffic, engagement and media impression (Singh, 2014).
One primary way in which the coca cola company has benefited from using the SEO in its Google search engine is through advertisement. The search engine advertisement describes a direct form of advertisement which usually manifests as a text or image ads which run alongside the search results. The strategy reduces the cost of advertisement since there is a variance in the cost of less popular keywords than the popular keywords or phrases (Kooser, 2019). Moreover, such advertisements can enable the company to increase their sales since the advertisements will reach all the potential customers worldwide provided they search the company name coca cola. Moreover, the search engines enable the company to conduct various business reaches by checking online what the rival firm is doing such as the rival’s new advertisement methods, its latest financial news, consumer traffic and what the social media users are saying about that company (Zhang & Cabage, 2017).
Online searches act like a better starting point when strategizing for a new business project since it enables the business to learn whether other similar projects have been launched before, how the competitors have addressed the company’s specific issues while analyzing past studies, surveys and other searches related to the project in question. On the other hand, during employment and recruitment, search engine offers a useful platform on potential employee’s background checks to ensure that only the qualified workforce is recruited (Kooser, 2019).
Metrics for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Search Engine
The percentage of traffic from search engines is one of the parameters the company can use to measure the effectiveness of its online search engine. The traffic from search engines is collected from the server logs which is a benchmark which can be used to determine the success of the search campaign. For instance, if the company placed a new advertisement, the percentage of traffic measure will enable it to understand whether the campaign reached the targeted group or not (Sponder, 2004). Moreover, this metric can also measure the effectiveness of customer engagement by measuring how many of them liked or commented on the information provided. The formula for this metric is Traffic from search engines in visits divided by total traffic to site in visits multiplied by 100. Another parameter is conducting site stickiness which is usually derived from the main page of the site which is the primary trafficked page of the website. The metric can be used in measuring whether visitors have found whatever they were expecting as soon as they click on the site. The formula for this measure equals to the number of visits to the main page of the website minus the number of exits from the main site page (Ali & Gul, 2016). It will help the firm to ascertain whether all the information and news regarding the company suits the visitor. Measuring the number of visits is also another metric the company can use to measure the online search engine effectiveness to ensure that the intended purpose of the information given is achieved.
Areas to Expand or Improve
The coca cola company needs to improve in making their search engine more user-friendly since its current search technology can only apply to people who have extensive knowledge of the use of the internet but not beginners. In other words, it is quite difficult to know to reach the site or what to do next after entering the first page. Therefore, the company should provide an elaborate instructions guide for all visitors for easy access. However, in conclusion, the use of onsite SEO through its Google search engine has made more accessible for visitors to find what they want easily while enabling the firm to acquire more knowledge on the market trends, research and existing completion and to make decisions based on what is gathered from its search engines.
References
Ali, S., & Gul, S. (2016). Search engine effectiveness using query classification: a study. Online Information Review, 40(4), 515-528. doi: 10.1108/oir-07-2015-0243
Coca-Cola. (2019). On-Site Search Engine Optimization – COCA COLA. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/lesliegjl97/seo
Ciafone, A. (2019). Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation. University of California Press.
Kooser, A. (2019). Why Businesses Use Search Engines. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/businesses-use-search-engines-3277.html
Singh, V. (2014). Coca-Cola Set New Record Of 4M Visits Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Retrieved from https://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/coca-cola-set-new-record-of-4m-visits-through-search-engine-optimization-seo/
Sponder, M. (2004). Search engine effectiveness metrics and scorecarding. Scorecarding, 9-25.
Zhang, S., & Cabage, N. (2017). Search engine optimization: comparison of link building and social sharing. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 57(2), 148-159.
