How Google is Good for Small Business
Love Google or loathe it, the search engine juggernaut is where many potential customers or clients turn to find goods or services. By working with Google, a business can boost it’s profile on the search page, and boost the chances of snagging some of that search business. A small effort goes a long way here, and it doesn’t have to cost anything. The initial basic moves are free, but they can have a big impact on your bottom line.
Four tips:
*Set up Google alerts. Who has time to search the Web every day just to track yourself? Set up an alert to email you any mentions of yourself or your firm. This will allow you to flag any negative reviews or praise. That will also help you share your successes: with so many online articles and posts including social media buttons, it’s easy to note the write-ups across your social media. Being on top of alerts meaning flagging potentially problematic issues before they explode, and bragging about things going right — you could potentially see good news and share it across your professional networks in no more than five minutes, at most. Either way, you’ll have a finger on the pulse of what’s being said about your firm.
*Apply for a badge. With so many searches for local businesses, Google wants to award stellar proprietors with a badge of approval. There’s an application process, but doing so means you can post the badge on your site, alerting to people to the fact that you’ve been vetted. And as with everything Google, it can boost your searchability as well. http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/technology-web/2013/09/25/growing-your-business-google-tips-for-business-growth/
*Check keywords. Keywords are the words people type into Google search to find Web sites. If you track the common words that pertain to your business, you can then add those words to your site in order to increase the likelihood that some of those searchers will find you — in other words, boosting your search presence. How do you find those keywords? You can look for free. Sign up for Google Adsense — this is how Google handles ads, but you don’t have to pay just to sign up. The free part of Adsense allows you to check out the words that users search for most often on Google. A blog for the online accounting service Freshbooks has pretty easy-to-follow directions. It’s tricky, in that Google tries to find — and penalize — sites that stack the keywords, especially those that forsake basic English usage to do so. But it’s not hard to add an extra phrase here or there, on a page or two or three, that could maybe result in a extra few sales or clients.
Do you Google yourself, or have you claimed your business? Has it helped? Tell us your stories.
Originally published on Stats & Strats.
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