Very relevant Friday evening title right? But have you tried searching for a local pizza shop lately? This is relevant to your B2B business, I promise.

Let’s say your friend let you in on this great new pizza joint not far from your neighborhood. It’s Friday, really, who wants to cook? And it’s “cheat day” for the diet anyway.  Now, what was the name of that place?

It’s Google to the rescue. Punching “new pizza place” into your trusty laptop doesn’t help much. Sure you got results near your house but which one is the new one? Hey, an article from the local paper on the Google Related bar. “New pizza shop opens…” but no phone number. Uh-oh, got to run if you are going to pick up the kids in time. Your smartphone is a master of search since those blue places icons were added to the mobile Google site.  Location detection. You don’t need a pizza shop by the office. Cool trick Google, but not making me any less hungry. Does this place even have a website? Was it Vinnie’s? Vito’s? Vincent’s!!! Vincent’s? There are two Vincent’s….

Still with me? This is where we draw the line back to your business. Everything that goes into searching for our hypothetical pizza place is exactly what your customers and potential leads go through to find your website. Keywords, related content, the method with which the user is searching… Untold variables could influence a potential customer’s path to your digital front door. Maybe they’ve seen your ad in a trade publication. Maybe they caught a glimpse of your booth at the tradeshow or even shook your hand at a recent event. Now they need to find your site. Are they on a train with their iPad or Smartphone? Are they searching for you by name or did one of your products blow them away? What happens when your competition comes up in their search results?

If you are testing your search potency by Googling your company’s name you are making about a dozen assumptions as to how a customer is trying to find you. There are a million ways to order a pizza. How do your customers do it?