Unholy Juxtaposition and Paid Search

With our online video site, EarthSayers.tv, we have been making headway on the organic search front, gaining higher rankings on key terms such as sustainability advocate, sustainability awareness, voices of sustainability, and Portland sustainability leaders. For the term, sustainability, we haven't made it to top rankings yet. This is key to increasing traffic to our site, so we continue to fight our way to the top, as the saying goes.

Meanwhile, paid search according to MAGNAGLOBAL, a division of IPG's Mediabrands, "has quickly become the most important component of online advertising, and in 2010 this segment will account for $29.8 billion, up by 16.5% over 2009 totals on a constant currency basis, and about 49% of total revenues.

Other online advertising is much more diffused, with a handful of global portals, such as Yahoo and Microsoft, and many regionally strong publishers (often associated with print publications) capturing most of that sector's revenue. Social networking sites such as Facebook capture a large and growing share of audience time."

While the report does credit Google with being the global leader in paid search their property, YouTube, is starting to pop with paid search tied to key terms and presenting some interesting juxtapositions. This week it was this ad for friending BP atop a video featuring the author and environmentalist David Helvarg on the U.S. Coast Guard Channel. His book, Rescue Warriors is about the Coast Guard and this video promotes his book.
Most of the non-profit sector and certainly authors can't afford paid search. Actually, I'm finding the battleground for gaining top rankings on key terms is something the activists and authors don't even know or care about. This despite the fact that the Web has become the primary way adults and children search for information - environmental, social, economic. I find it irresponsible of sustainability leaders to remain ignorant about and distant from the Web and have said as much.

My challenge is to convince the "early adopters" to take advantage of coming together on EarthSayers and get top rankings for them, their partners and us and not spend an inordinate amount of time doing missionary work on why the Web is an critical tool for the sustainability movement.

Maybe BP's heavy online advertising campaign will make all of this clearer, my message more
timely, and help get EarthSayers.tv in the top rankings on sustainability, along with Wikipedia, before Walmart, large Corporations such as SAP and SAS, and the big media companies dominate the search landscape for sustainability. Then maybe, like the oil spill itself, it won't be a wake up call. On the oil spill, David says: "I'm deeply tired of wake up calls that don't seem to wake us up to our intimate and essential connections to the everlasting sea."

The Web needs to be put squarely in the service of waking us up to our intimate and essential connections to people, our planet, and prosperity. We join with others of like minds.