By Corey Hinde – SEO Consultant
Getting onto Page 1 of Google, for your relevent search terms, should be of GREAT INTEREST to you.
Someone finds you on Google, clicks to your site, understands quickly that YOU are the answer to their problems: boom = customer for you.
Let’s take a quick look at page 1 of Google
If I search for a local mechanic, page 1 of Google has generally got 3 “areas”:
Up the very top you’ll see the Ads.
This is a “pay to play” part of Google search, and can be a very effective way to win new clients.
You’ll generally engage a Google Ads consultant, and they’ll do research about your business, your ideal clients, the keywords to target, and build a campaign for you.
The budget will be discussed, and you can generally be putting ads in front of the right people, pretty quickly. Many big businesses generate all of their leads, purely using this paid ad method.
If you move down the page a bit, you’ll see this section:
These are the Google My Business (now called Google Business Profile) listings, and are a fantastic way to generate free leads for your business.
We at Good Oil talk about Google My Business a lot, because we’ve seen some outrageous success for local businesses, just by focussing on that area. The top 3 that are shown on page 1 of Google search, are generally businesses that invest some time and thinking into how they manage that platform.
Our testing also shows that certainly here in New Zealand, the majority of people when shown both Google Ads and Google My Business results on page 1 of search, go for the Google My Business listings!
We can certainly help you with your Google My Business. I’ve built a crack team of marketing ninjas, and we can help pretty much anyone get into that top 3 position given some time and effort.
Moving further down the page, you’ll see this area:
This is what we call Organic Search results.
In the old days of Google, this is all you saw!
This is also a very important area, because people TRUST this area a lot.
Also, given nobody targetting ads at a certain phrase, or no Google My Business listings targetted at a certain phrase, you’ll just see these organic results, or maybe a featured snippet (a whole topic of it’s own).
Getting organic search success comes down to the skill called “Search Engine Optimisation” or SEO.
Big businesses, and this will surprise you, can invest as highly as $50K per month JUST on this activity! Yes, it’s a huge area of marketing because taking a business from page 2 of Google, to the top of page 1 for organic search, can result in millions of dollars in revenue.
So – what does this all mean?
We recommend for anyone, that you spend time and possibly money, on your “Google Game”.
Google Ads?
Google Business Profile?
These are, I think, critical parts of your marketing mix, and something that you simply cannot ignore.
Often, we’ll recommend people start by learning more about Google My Business. That can be a very efficient way to get onto page 1.
Then, if budget allows, get a Google Ads campaign going, directed at a good offer, so you can measure the effectiveness of the investment.
Finally… start your SEO journey. It’s a “forever” thing, not a one and done thing.