KEY TAKEAWAY – Showing up – and showing up well – on these 3 key web properties is crucial to any company’s online marketing program.
3 of the most important places to build a company’s online presence are in these main areas of Google’s global domain – its Google Places business directory, its YouTube video sharing site, and in a paid Google AdWords PPC campaign.
Since we now know 2 of 3 people use Google for their search engine, this is where you’re likely to get most of your new visitor traffic. To make the most of it, here’s how you should establish your business presence in these 3 key areas of Google:
First, on the free business listing Google gives you in their online directory Google Places – it’s your Google+ Local Business Page. Open a free Google account, then either claim an existing page for your business or set up a new one.
This page is frequently the very first thing Google searchers will see about your business in their search results, so it is extremely valuable online real estate…essentially, it’s a free website for your business!
When you develop your own Google page, be sure to add:
• Product / service info
• Pictures and videos
• Your business hours
• Types of payment accepted
• Special offers and coupons
• 5-star customer reviews
Second, your business needs to be visible in YouTube, the world’s largest video sharing site. (Google owns YouTube, so naturally they’re more powerful when you put them to work together.)
With over 1 billion users, YouTube is the world’s 2nd-largest internet search engine, second only in search volume to Google itself.
New prospects are also using YouTube as a convenient way to search for your type of local business every day, so you need to be very visible there.
You’ll want to publish as many promotional videos of your company as possible on your free YouTube business channel. Your video content doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, particularly if you have a good quality camera or late-model smartphone.
Videos also tend to rank highly in organic search results because Google “awards” video with extra authority and credibility, 2 of their most powerful ranking factors.
Use videos to tell your personal and professional stories to new prospects, giving them a peek behind the curtain and helping them get to know you and your business better. (More on video marketing later.)
Client video testimonials are very powerful and should be used across all your online marketing assets. Keep them short – about 90 seconds or so – & upload them yourself. The hard part is not actually doing it, but remembering to do it when the opportunities present themselves.
Third – and this can be a strategy you adopt later – you can run a Google AdWords PPC campaign to instantly drive even more visitor traffic to your website. (PPC means Pay-Per-Click.)
Based on keywords you bid on, you’ll write small AdWords ads to drive new prospects to your website where, again, you continue the sales conversion process.
When an ad is clicked, the visitor is taken to the page on your website that relates to the product or service the ad was written about.
Your AdWords campaign gets charged for each click. So establish a daily budget…write targeted ads……and use Google AdWords to boost your company’s online visibility and website traffic even more.
Google provides some amazing online marketing resources for no cost to local advertisers, so take advantage of them and leverage the full power of those tools to help your company grow.
NEXT UP – I’m going to show you where else you should “weave your online web” in order to catch the most prospects.
(Download this article to print or listen to)
