It was breathtakingly clear that the secret to success was blatant black hat spamming techniques. This wasn’t some kind of borderline “it depends on how you interpret it” situation. No, BigCo was being assisted by companies paying for links and even posting references of other companies it had “helped” right on its website. At this point, I knew what I had to do.

My client, who worked in the TinyProduct Division of BigCo, listened impassively as I recited all the problem areas that I had found and made sure that the impact on BigCo’s search marketing was understood. I expected my client to spring into action, but instead, the response was closer to, “That’s a shame. It really seems like that stuff is working for them.”

Clearly I had my work cut out for me here. I tried again to explain the dangers of spam—how the moment the search engines detect any spam techniques, BigCo runs the risk of losing everything it has worked so hard to achieve in its search program. Not to mention the embarrassment that the bad publicity could cause (anyone remember the big headlines when BMW was banned by Google?)

My arguments seemed to be working. My client realized that there was too much risk here to pursue these kinds of tactics. So, I asked how I could be of help in working with the BigCo’s offending division, and was told that no help was needed. “So, you can get this stopped on your own?” I asked.

“It’s really none of my business,” my client replied.

Uh oh. I was running into one of the biggest problems in large companies today, the “not my job” syndrome. It’s natural, actually. I mean, human beings really weren’t built for organizations as large as a Fortune 500 company. Our tribal instincts force us to identify with a smaller group than that.

The problem is that we are challenged by these large organizations to outstrip what our instincts have prepared us for. I know it’s hard. I know that it doesn’t feel natural. Or normal. But we have to help our entire company, no matter how big it is, to succeed.

It feels overwhelming at times. I mean, how can any one person make the difference in an organization of thousands of people. It’s understandable—no, it’s inevitable—that we retreat from that kind of awesome responsibility. Unfortunately, that retreat is what all of the other employees in BigCo are doing, too. And when they do, we end up in this difficult situation where someone knows what’s wrong, but is actively deciding not to do anything about it. And no one else does anything about it, either.

The problem with all of this, to bring us back to our original problem, is that Google will do something about it. No, maybe not today, but someday. Someday, Google will figure out what’s going on. Someday Google will identify exactly what kind of trickery is afoot here. And when they do, it won’t be pretty.

Because, you see, Google doesn’t really care which division of BigCo was the offender. Google really isn’t interested in whether your division was at fault or not. BigCo gets penalized, across the board. So, one dopey decision by one person at BigCo can bring down the whole company. And, though it seems collegial to allow freedom of action on the part of your fellow employees, what they do affects you and your little tribe, not just some abstract corporation.

And if this was only about spam, maybe it wouldn’t be that important. I mean, even the cautionary tale of BMW’s spamming ended happily. They weren’t banned very long. It really didn’t turn out to be that big a deal.

No, the bigger problem is the way that we all perform this kind of mental gymnastics in our big companies every day, not just when it comes to search, but when it comes to our customers. We look the other way when BigProduct Division screws our customers, because we are not responsible for what they do—we can only control what we do in TinyProducts.

But, in the end, it doesn’t work out that way. Because everything anyone does at BigCo reflects on BigCo. And everyone outside of BigCo looks at the whole company through one lens, whether it is Google or our customers. Until we decide that it is up to us to confront our fellow employees on bad behavior, we shouldn’t expect our corporate ethics to be any better than they’ve been.

And just how do you let your customers come to you? Search marketing is a good place to start. Some of the most successful search marketers know how to focus on the customer’s problem to allow customers to come to them.

Consider an example. You’ve just been named the product manager for a new line of organic lawn care products, to be branded “Green Can Be Green.” Beneficent Chemicals is branching out from its current brand image and its research scientists have given you an exciting new product as the first foray into the new line—Chinch Away. It’s totally organic, but it rids your lawn of those nasty chinch bugs that eat it to death. And your product does it in half the time as the old methods.

But it’s not that easy. Beneficent wants to start out selling totally online so that the new brand doesn’t get mixed in with its older brand image. You’ll get a Green Can Be Green Web site and you’ll ship all your products direct to consumers. Your job: Get them to find you and buy from you.

Immediately, you know that search marketing will be a critical part of your marketing mix. So, you start thinking about the keywords you’ll want to optimize for. “Chinch bugs,” of course. Maybe even “chinch” by itself. “Organic lawn care” and “organic insecticide”? Maybe. You start to look through all of your product materials and find some more words and phrases. Then you design a nice web site, filled with information about your product. About how fast Chinch Away works, how easy to apply, and, most of all, how green it is.

And it works. You’re attracting customers, you’re selling online, and you even start buying paid search ads for a few of the keywords. But you’ve missed a big chunk of potential buyers. You’ve missed the ones that don’t know they need you.

Think about the problem from your customer’s point of view. A homeowner’s lawn suddenly develops circular patches of yellow, wilted grass. That’s a problem. And the bigger problem is that the homeowner doesn’t know why. He turns to his favorite search engine, starting with “problem words,” such as “circles yellow grass.” If he knew what would solve his problem, he’d search for that, but he doesn’t. If that doesn’t work, he might try “yellow wilted grass” or just “yellow grass.” He’ll keep looking for information about the symptoms until he finds some ideas about what to do.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that anyone would diagnose chinch bugs from what they find. They’re finding random questions on message boards about “yellow grass” and there are myriad causes of a yellowed lawn. Chinch bugs are rarely mentioned first. When confronted with this kind of information, people typically head to the store—a store that does not carry Chinch Away (because you sell only online).

What can you do about this? Well, you can provide the information that is needed. You can set out to provide the absolute best resources for diagnosing the cause of “yellow grass” that the Web has ever seen. You can walk the customer through each step they can take to determine what the causes could be. You can use photos, videos, whatever is required to make it as easy as possible.

Write it like a magazine article—as objective as possible. But (oh yeah), when you get to the part about diagnosing chinch bugs, it’s OK to link to your Chinch Away page to persuade them that yours is the best solution. But the rest of the article should focus totally on the customer’s problem. And each possible cause should get the same attention as chinch bugs do. It helps establish the credibility of the article, and you’ll be happy later as you expand your Green Can Be Green product line to handle other problems.

Why would you go to all that trouble? Because writing articles that are truly helpful to your customers (rather than sales pitches) benefit your search marketing in big ways:

You attract people searching for different keywords. If you can attract people searching for “yellow grass” when none of your competitors do, you have the first chance to sell them. These folks may never search for “chinch bugs” if you give them what they want. Many of them want to die ignorant of the array of chinch bug products out there—they just want the problem gone as quickly as possible. What’s more, this target segment might prove to be more loyal than the others—if their problem returns in a few years, they might head straight for your product because it worked.

You attract search engines looking for different content. Google’s Universal Search (as well as similar approaches with other search engines) puts more of a premium on non-text content than ever before. Your photos, your videos, and other forms now appear in the main search results pages and give you new ways of reaching your audience.

Your article is tasty link bait. Think about what kinds of information is linked to from other sites. It’s not your sales brochures or your product spec pages—it’s information that really helps readers. Information that solves their problems.

Searchers will pass your information to others. People pass on things they think will help other people, not sales pitches. Take advantage of the social media explosion to tap into “word of mouse.” Problem-solving content is more likely to be passed on than most of what sits on your web site.

Is anyone actually doing this? Absolutely—maybe the most famous example comes from longtime marketing innovator Procter & Gamble. “Problem marketing” is a key part of P&G’s approach. Check out their Home Made Simple site. Or try searching for “remove bbq sauce stain from cotton” and see if P&G’s Tide site still comes up #1. Maybe you didn’t expect a detergent manufacturer to be found for this search, but that is what problem marketing does for you. Tide’s site contains hundreds of combinations of stains and fabrics so they can be found for exactly what their customers are struggling with.

This kind of approach won’t work for all businesses—no one is thinking about solving a problem when they drink a Coke. But lots of businesses really are solving customer problems, and using “problem marketing” techniques gives you a new way to connect with customers that few of your competitors take advantage of.

Mike Moran is an IBM Distinguished Engineer for IBM’s OmniFind search and analytics products. He can be reached through his Web site mikemoran.com.