My Dad lives on 160 acres in the middle of Oklahoma. He raises a few head of cattle.
His cattle make a natural path to one of the ponds on the property, their favorite watering hole. The cows won’t let the grass grow on the trail. They keep the path well worn.
People do the same thing….
“When they first built the University of California at Irvine they just put the buildings in. They did not put any sidewalks, they just planted grass. The next year, they came back and put the sidewalks where the trails were in the grass.” – Larry Wall, Computer Programmer, Creator of the Perl programming language and the Usenet client
Some smart people call these “desire paths.”
“A desire path (formally referred to as desire line in transportation planning, also known as a game trail, social trail, herd path, cow path, goat track, pig trail or bootleg trail) can be a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic.” – Wikipedia
The internet is a huge network of “desire paths.” People following trails on Google and Facebook to fulfill their desires.
On my Dad’s property, you can’t see the cow’s watering hole from the main highway. You can’t see the cattle trail either. A “local” needs to give you directions with some landmarks, otherwise you probably wouldn’t find the pond.
Your website is like Dad’s pond. Google and Facebook are the main roads. If you don’t have some “locals” giving directions to your place or if you don’t have some signs on the local landmarks, no one will find you (even if you have the best watering hole in the county).