GOOGLING

Gareth asked, "Is that what your website is really about?" A thought provoking question indeed. After a pause I replied "We judge wines alongside appropriate food to be able to offer information that encourages people to think about choosing wines that will expand and amplify the enjoyment of their dining experience." Gareth replied "Well, shouldn't you be aiming the website to attract people searching for information about food and wine pairing and variations of those search words?"

A new verb has snuck into our vocabulary - to google it - now seems to be in common usage. Search engines offer infinite information spontaneously available with just a few keystrokes. Googling has become a vital part of the information highway. From the time it takes the quizmaster to ask the $64,000 question, until the 30 seconds of metronome sound have expired, you have the answer. You haven't studied ancient Greek mythology? Want to know why I sometimes feel like Sisyphus? Want to know everything about anything? Google it!

To increase site traffic, website proprietors all want to attract those googled searches that are relevant to their website. High site traffic is important to the Competition's Award winners. Unlike most other media, exposure on the Competition's website introduces them to a very focused, self-selecting international audience of winelovers.

Here's a very current example. Even as I was writing this piece, Larry, from California, via the site's Contact Request Form writes: "My granddaughter's name is Hanah Rose. I would like to purchase your Hannah Rosé 2007 for her upcoming birthday. I found it on your website. Do you have an outlet in California?

Our reply: Larry, Click here and you will find the Hannah Rosé Winery's Customer Relations Officer's name, including her email address.  She is the best person to answer your enquiry. If you offered to pay the airfreight and landing costs, I wouldn't be surprised if she offered to give you a bottle.  If they did, and your granddaughter's family learnt of the trouble you had gone to to find and acquire that wine, dare say they would remember and retell your story at family reunions for the rest of their lives.

We received an email offer from WebCentral, our Internet Service Provider (ISP), promoting their ability to increase the site's presence in the Google, Yahoo and MSN Search Engines. All website proprietors' receive many such offers, usually via junk mail, to improve the priority of their listing on the major search engines. But this one was from our well regarded ISP. I spoke with the email's sender and pointed out the Competition's website was already doing rather well when search words like "top 100 wines", "fuller bodied dry red wines" and "sydney international" were entered. Out of thousands of sites listed, our site was mostly ranked in the top 1-5 listings for those search words. Then Gareth (the WebCentral guy) asked a rather simple question. He said "Is that what your website is really about?"

A thought provoking question indeed. After a pause I replied "We judge wines alongside appropriate food to be able to offer information that encourages people to think about choosing wines that will expand and amplify the enjoyment of their dining experience." Gareth replied "Well, shouldn't you be aiming the website to attract people searching for information about food and wine pairing."

Pretty profound? Our proposition is that wines are best judged around the dining table, not standing on a concrete floor beside a 150-wine-long judging table of, say, shiraz. We seek to create a judging environment, including appropriate food, which closely resembles the environment in which a diner is likely to encounter that wine.

Our website currently receives over half a million visitors a year. If information our website offers is relevant to that which the Googler is seeking, you can't just leave it to chance; there are specialised skills involved in aiming the site to attract a search engine's priority site listings. We aim to attract Googlers using search words like "Food Wine Pairing", "Matching Food and Wine". That's what we are working on right now. Don't try it yet. We've only just begun! It will be good for all concerned – Entrants, Winemakers, Distributors, Retailers and those Consumers – when we reach those thousands of Googlers, across the world, literally every day, seeking ideas on food and wine pairing.