So why do you want to show up on Google anyway?
This seems like an obvious question, but showing up on Google matters. With such immense power and influence that google has, getting your website on the first page can make a monumental difference to your website traffic. Research says that the clickthrough rate of Google’s first page is a woppin’ 36,4%. More people landing on your site (granted it is designed strategically to convert your ideal target audience) = more leads = more clients/sales.
Putting in some graft to get onto Google’s first page can be arguably 10 times more effective than your never-ending social media strategy.
Fantastic, now how do we do it exactly? There are 3 different ways you can make this happen:
- Paid Google Search advertising
- Google My Business
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
1. Paid Google Search Advertising
Most of Google’s top few search results on the first page are ads; you can differentiate them with a little ‘Ad’ next to the listing. Google Ads uses a bidding system in which users bid on certain keywords in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google’s search results.
So, for example, if you’re an occupational therapist for kids you may want to bid for keywords such as “sensory development”, “gross-motor skills”or “learning difficulties”. Optimal keywords are the phrases or words your potential clients would be searching for to solve their problem and therefore see your business as their potential problem solver. There are tons of tools out there that can take the guesswork out of keyword identification with real life data on what your ideal client searches for.
Google Ads can be really great for your business granted it is set up right and monitored regularly. You have the ability to set your own budget and narrow down your audience by location, age, income bracket and much more (yes, Google is Big Brother and knows all about you, but that creepiness is for another blog post).
Carina’s Tip: Google has made it pretty easy for any Tamara, Danielle and Hannah to set up their own Google Ads campaign. My biggest tip would be to NOT attempt to set up your own campaign unless you are actually experienced in this stuff. Google Adwords is fiercely complex and it’s some people’s full-time job to do it. If you set it up yourself you may get the wrong people clicking on your ads and waste all of your precious ads budget.
If you’re interested in hiring someone to do this for you please contact me and I’ll redirect you to some highly-valued and trusted colleagues of mine.
P.S. Before setting up your Google Ads, make sure that your website is actually built strategically to convert your audience; it would be a total waste of money and resources to bring someone to your site for them to just bounce right off it.
2. Google My Business
With Google My Business you can use the power of location to list your site and show up on the first page. This is EPIC for brick and mortar businesses. Even online businesses can benefit from this by attracting local customers. Registering for Google My Business is completely FREE. My beautician down the road receives most of her new clients through her map listing and this is how you can do this too:
- Create your Google My Business Listing by following these easy steps.
- Optimise your listing by adding as much information as possible, images, attributing, trading hours, etc.
There’s also an option to bump-up your geographic listing by paying for specific keywords to favor your business. This could be useful for brick and mortar businesses in super competitive locations, such as in the city where there are many people doing the same thing as you. The concept of Paid Ads on Google My Business is similar to Google Ads – but again, this only attracts a local audience through Geographic listing.
Carina’s tip: Still confused about Google My Business? Check out this article https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-my-business
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Lastly the ultimate marketing buzzword: ‘SEO’. We all know this is important – but does anyone actually know what this is? How do businesses manage to rank on Google’s first page organically without paying ad money or using location based-data?
SEO is a vital building block of your online presence and the sooner you know about it and weave it into your word-domination plan – the better.
So stay tuned for the next blog post, where I’ve managed to score an SEO specialist to write a guest blog post to flesh this out a bit more for you. You’ll learn about why it’s important to start your SEO before you begin to build your website, plus pearls of wisdom to help you plan your attack.
