Is a Business’ Relationship With Google Like a Marriage?

If you own a business, chances are your relationship with Google is one that’s constantly changing. In several ways, it could be compared to a marriage. Think that’s a bit of a stretch? Think again. Check out these few ways that your business’ relationship with Google is similar to that of a married couple.

1) You’ve lived without it, but felt like your life was missing something.

When you’re married, your spouse is an integral part of your life. You go to them with your triumphs and failures, your good times and bad. You ask them for advice and rely on them for support, and vice versa.

The same can be said for a business and Google – you rely on Google to support your business via ranking your site, you work with them all the time to continually grow, and they’re an important part of your every day life.

Google is integrated into so many parts of marketing and every day life—from advertising on local search results, to showcasing your business, providing your email service (if you use Gmail, that is), and plenty of other parts. Much like your spouse is practically a constant presence, so is Google.

2) You’ve been together a long time, but are always learning more.

You’ve been with your spouse for (presumably) a long time—first as friends, then dating, then engaged and/or living together, then married. The same can be said for your company’s ties to Google. Since your website’s creation, you’ve probably been working hard to keep its relationship with search engines positive and flourishing.

Over the years, you’ve likely picked up new information and tricks regarding search engine optimization and how to keep your page relevant and high quality. Similarly, with your spouse, as you grew to get to know them for longer and longer, you’ve learned new things about them—stories from their childhood, things about their family, their hopes and dreams, etc.

Likewise, you’ve learned that Google likes different things when it comes to posting your site on search results pages, and you’ve learned that these things change from time to time.

3) Communication can be difficult sometimes

Most marriages are not exactly how Disney movies portray them to be. A marriage can be a great marriage, but that doesn’t mean that sometimes communication is difficult or that things are perfect all the time.

You might have an argument that lasts several days, and regardless of the seriousness of the argument, it’s still frustrating. When Google changes its algorithm or your site suddenly drops in rank, you may see your site’s traffic drop off.

Online marketers scramble to figure out what happened when this is the situation—they’ll contact Google to find out what’s going on, they’ll update their site to fix the problems, etc. In your relationship, you’ll talk things through, you’ll change your behavior to fix an issue, etc.