Google Local Business Listing: Why Get On It?
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The number one benefit of your business or company getting on a Google Local Business Listing is of course the ability to put your service or product right in front of your prospect when they need or want it.
A lot of people advertise their businesses in many different ways but somehow these often do not convert as highly as expected, simply because when you tell them about your product or service, they might not have a need for it at the time. But when your website is visible when people search on Google for products or services that they already need, you are able to put your brand right in front of a hot lead; someone who is already looking for what you have to offer. They know what they want, it is just now a matter of finding it and choosing the right person to buy from. Your business or website will get listed along with other similar businesses or websites within a specific radius or area where you are located, Google looks at your specific location, identifying your area code, and gives you list of suggestions based on proximity.
When you are properly listed on Google’s Local Business Listing, your product or service will show up on the first page of search results for product/service specific keywords and a location or area.
In the video below I used the example… dim sum san jose; because I was looking for a dim sum restaurant to eat at.
In the video I mention that, a Local Business Listing on Google is especially beneficial to a business that relies largely on customers who are within a certain area around the location of their business.
Watch the video to see specific examples.
Note that when I did a search for dim sum milpitas, the restaurant Mayflower Seafood Restaurant DID not pop up in the results, which means they are not listed on Google’s Local Business Center, and that means dim sum restaurants can grab this opportunity to get that exposure for themselves.
If you have questions or comments about the Google Local Business Listing, please post them in the comment section below. You can also send me questions through the Contact Form.
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Pay Per Click Advertising for Beginners
If you would like to learn more about Pay Per Click Advertising and get a grasp on the concept without getting confused, please do continue reading. I will try to explain PPC as simply as I can, laying it out to a grade schooler, and even provide a rather crude image to help… an image looking like it was actually drawn by a grade schooler with a spelling error which was actually not done on purpose. My spelling skills are apparently not as good as my marketing abilities.
There is this interesting story I need to tell about PPC and a newbie’s dilemma, or so I thought at the time.
It was Valentine’s day, February 14, 2007.. a Wednesday and single friends of mine thought of getting together at a local restaurant. As far as I remember the first people to get there were myself and a friend of mine Bing Torre, who is also a colleague in the marketing and events world. Bing then began to tell me about Pay Per Click advertising, how she had to run some ads on Google on a very limited budget for a client. At the time I had very recently crossed over into the online marketing space, leaving behind the marketing/advertising industry that I had been a part of for over 15 years. I was managing PPC accounts that was spending up to $1,000 a day. Yes a DAY!
I then went on to tell her about how AdWords worked, which is pretty much the same way I will describe to you in this post.
Incidentally here is picture taken of some us, the “un-valentiners.”
So about Pay Per Click Advertising.
PPC is simply a method of advertising on search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN/Bing, where your ads get shown to people who are looking for what you have to sell. It is targeted advertising in the sense that, you target people who are already looking for what you have to offer them, your ad only appears when specified keywords are being used on the search engine. You make a bid for a certain keyword and when that keyword gets searched, your ad appears.. typically on the upper or right section of the results page, and usually appears boxed.
The bid is an amount you are willing to pay the search engine if your ad gets clicked. For instance if someone searches for Nike running shoes and you are bidding $0.50 on that keyword phrase, your ad will appear only when that phrase is searched for, and you will only get billed 50 cents if your ad gets clicked. Of course when an ad gets clicked the clicker gets sent to a website or webpage which has more information about what you are offering.
So there are 3 key elements that you need to pay attention to.
Keyword or Keywords
- these are words you bid on that will trigger your ads if searched
- your keywords have to be very specific to what you are selling or offering
- group together very similar keywords in a cluster called an Ad Group
- for instance a cluster of related keywords can be… Nike running shoes, Nike running shoes for men, Nike running shoes for women, men’s Nike running shoes, Nike running shoes kids..
The Ad
- this is the text that search engine users read on the search engine results page
- ad text needs to be related to the keywords you are bidding upon
- ad text needs to be very specific to the specific cluster of keywords or Ad Group
- for instance your ad text can say “Nike Running shoes at amazing discounts, Free overnight delivery”
- the ad must tell the visitor what you are selling, and tell them why they should buy from you, as an added motivating reason to get them to click your ad
The Landing Page
- this is the page where a clicker of an ad lands on
- this page should also have exactly what the ad offers, so if your keyword was for Nike running shoes, and your ad text tells the reader that you have Nike running shoes at great discounts and that you deliver overnight for free, then your landing page must have all that information on the page PLUS..
- the landing page makes it easier for the viewer to find more information and to get exactly what they want, for instance the page shows not only Nike running shoes, but the viewer can choose a specific size, color, model, check out reviews from other buyers about the product or about your service, and an easy and secure system to make a purchase
Here is that grader level illustration I told you about… click the image to enlarge.
Website Traffic Sources…
I stood for about a couple of minutes staring that the title of this post and not typing anything else.. I knew I had to make the title a little more compelling, but for the life of me just could not think of something anything better to add to “Website Traffic Sources….”
One of the things I had to do, or still need to continue doing is check on all my other sites and get rid of those which are no longer relevant, or not profitable. There is one site whose income vanished as quickly as its rankings did.
Some years ago, I used to do marketing for a very successful Bar/Club. As you may know, a large part of a bar’s income comes from the mark up made on drinks, whether they be sold bottled like beers for instance, or mixed drinks. When you have a problem with a supplier for items that happen to be your most profitable, you see a huge dent in your bottom line. We solved that problem by not depending merely on one supplier and gave other people the opportunity to sell as that inventory. I am being purposely vague so as not to identify the bar nor the supplier or product.
A website survives mainly on revenue that its visitors generate, regardless of the means. You could be selling your own product or service, or someone else’s as an affiliate, or simply putting banners on your site. Regardless how the money is made, your money is made through your website traffic.
When you depend solely on one source of traffic, if that traffic source dries up or disappears, so will your revenue. Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket, I am sure you have heard that before.
Incidentally, about that bar I was talking about earlier, we had several different advertising avenues and not just depended on one. For instance we were heavy on radio advertising and social networking; but eventually realizing that networking was more effective and cost efficient we dropped radio advertising. It was also only at the point where we had come to realize that the brand had achieved the desired perception among its audience, the brand and the value it offered had already been established.
Going back, what I was doing wrong with this one website was, I was only getting traffic from one traffic source, Google. It was getting ranked for a keyword on Google. But since I had not been doing anything more to promote the site, no one new was finding the site, and no one new was linking to it or talking about it, Google thought… this site is not getting promoted by the owner, why should we rank it at all and send it visitors… there are other websites that are more deserving. So Google, dropped the site… from top of the charts to no where to be found.
Now, other people who have had this happen to them make a big hoopla out of it, but hey, your rankings disappeared because you did not do what you need to do to keep them up there. Google does not owe you anything. You want Google to keep you and rank you well, you need to have other traffic sources.
Maybe I confused you a bit there… but it’s simple.
If you want Google to rank you well, you have to not depend on them for rankings, but promote your site and get your website traffic from other sources, like other websites through links, through networking and even paid ads like banners or Google AdWords.
So that if Google does change its mind about how it ranks sites (its ranking algorithm) which it often does, and if you lose your rankings because of it, you still have a steady flow of visitors coming from other sources. Funny thing is, when Google notices you do have this steady flow of visitors from other sources and those sources keep growing, it ranks you even better and sends you even more visitors.
How to Use the Google Search Engine Effectively in 2010
I thought of putting together this brief video and show you how you can use the Google Search Engine effectively. If you spend a lot of time researching online or searching the internet for something you want to learn more about, you probably are familiar with Google and how it can sometimes be frustrating not to be able to find what you are looking for, instead you get overloaded with related or even non related listings, which are probably not exactly what you are looking for.
Google actually has the most advanced system in place that tries to give you a list of websites or web pages that might have what you are looking for, based on the keywords you type in to the engine. A few months ago Google rolled out with a new feature called “Search Options” which helps you find exactly what you might be looking for.
In this brief Google search tutorial video I will give you some tips and tricks on how to do searches and I will also run you through the new Search Options feature.
Here is a quick summary of what you find in the video.
- put keywords that you are using in quotes ” “, that way you get a list of web pages with your searched phrase in their exact order
- use Search Options to specifically find the kind of content you are looking for, whether these are images, videos, news, blogs, updates, books and forums; and even sort them further by freshness
- this tip is not mentioned on the video… if you want to search a specific website for a specific phrase or content you think they might have, type the following site:websitedomain.com “keyword phrase”, for instance on a recipe site like allrecipes.com, if you want to find meatloaf recipes, just go to Google and type site:allrecipes.com “meatloaf recipes” and the resulting page will be a list of pages only from allrecipes.com that have that phrase “meatloaf recipes” in it
Matt Cutts on How to do Better on Google
When Matt Cutts speaks, I listen. Nuff Said. If you want your websites to do better on Google, you have to listen to the head of Google’s anti web spam team. If you want to know how you can get your WordPress blogs to do better on Google, watch this video and listen to Matt reveal a lot of valuable tips.
Google Caffeine Update Kicks In On January 2010 Says Matt Cutts
In a recent interview with Web Pro News, Matt Cutts (Google) talks about Google Caffeine, the impending Google algorithm update which is set to be fully in place in January of next year, but will actually already be working on one data center before the holidays. He also mentioned that load speed will become a factor in the algorithm… meaning you get plus points if your page loads fast and that can help the ranking for that page. I believe that to have been a factor a long time ago though.
They don’t want to get webmaster up in arms again with an update right before holiday season where webmasters found their rankings disappear, and visitor and sales stats plummet. That happened already some years ago with the Florida update.
Watch the interview with Web Pro News below.
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