Google is the New Word of Mouth
When designing websites and talking marketing with certain clients or prospects, often they will mention “Word of mouth is the only advertising we do.” This may be in response to the question, “Are you interested in search engine marketing”, “Do rankings matter to you” or “What is your general business marketing strategy”.
We all know that word of mouth works and a referral is much more beneficial than someone finding you in the Yellow Pages (any one use that anymore?). Word of mouth converts because it is a direct referral and someone saying, “This company is good”. So, what if you can only grow your business to a certain point on word of mouth referrals? This strategy may hit a pinnacle at some point and you’ll need to look into other advertising methods to continue on-going growth. What we need to think is “Who else could refer potential customers to me?” At this point you may think, “Let’s hire another salesman”… and guess what, I’ve got the best salesman you could ever ask for.
His (maybe her?) name is Google. If someone is looking for a Home Builder, for example, they may go to Google and search “Home Builder Cleveland Ohio”. You’ll get results on the left hand side (Google picks these) and results on the right, called “Sponsored Listings”. What we’re focusing on are the listings on the left hand side, and we should focus on them considering nearly 80% of people visit those listings only.
The websites that appear on the left hand side of Google are the sites that Google feels are best. You cannot pay to be there and you cannot beg to be there (I’ve seen people try). The only way for Google to list your website is for your website to have the qualities that Google is looking for. These qualities, from a basic standpoint include:
- Content relevant to your business and the keywords related to your business
- A decent amount of content (1 paragraph or a few pages usually won’t cut it)
- Other websites linking to yours
- A website that is built properly and coded correctly
Of course there is more that goes into search engine optimization, but right now we’re dealing with why it’s important, not how to make it happen.
OK. Why does this matter?
If you haven’t put together the title of this post yet and figured out why ranking in Google is important, let me tell you. Google is your new salesman. The new guy saying, “You need someone? I know the perfect person!”. All Google does is refer new potential customers and clients to your website, 24 hours a day. We’ve built our business on it and it works. We have clients all the time saying, “We found you at the top of the search engines” and they trust us because Google has referred them. No one wants to work with a company that is not trusted and this is why PPC (pay-per-click) and sponsored listings can only take you so far. Not everyone wants to chose a company based on an ad. They want a referral and Google will provide it.
Google has a big mouth and is screaming from the rooftop. Is it yelling your name?
