How To Use Google To Grow Your Small Business
Google is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, but few business owners know just how many easy and free tools Google has to promote your company.
Here’s a list of some Google tools you can start using today to help more customers find your business. (Believe us, we use all of these every day!)
SEO
Have a website? Then you can do SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the act of tweaking your website to make it rank better in Google. If you have access to edit your website, then you can adjust things like your text and images so that when a user searches for “dentists in Richfield” in Google, your dentistry website shows up.
When ranking websites, Google looks for things like:
- Keywords
- Alt text on images
- Website speed
- Security
- Internal and external links
You can even edit the preview listing to better explain what your website is about.
Google AdWords
You know those ads at the top of some Google searches? You can pay to put your website link there, and for relatively cheap. In fact, you can control everything about that ad, like what it says and how much you want to spend (you can set a limit at $10 if you want).
You can even control when it should be shown. For example, if you have a webpage for upscale shoe repair in Oakdale, you can tell Google to show the ad only when someone searches for “skilled shoemaker in Minnesota” instead of “how to repair a torn sneaker.”
Google My Business
On Google, you can have a profile page for your business, much like a Facebook or LinkedIn profile. This is called Google My Business. In this profile, which is free to set up, you can list your name and description, add photos, adjust where you are on Google Maps, and even post updates or events.
Google Analytics
Want to see how many people visit your website? How about how many of them are men versus women or how many use an iPhone 6S?
Google Analytics (another free tool) has a massive amount of info about your website visitors and without being invasive—the info doesn’t include names, emails or addresses, so you can’t tell who specifically is viewing your website.
Google Analytics is a great tool for a few reasons. It helps you see metrics like:
- which pages are visited most often
- what time of day most people are on your website
- how many users are new versus how many have visited before
With this data, you do things like add a “Buy Now” button to the top performing pages, or change the content on the worst performing pages to make users want to read more.
Checking the Competition
There’s never been more publicly available info on businesses than now. If you want to see what Joe’s Pizza down the street is offering compared to your own John’s Dough, check them out on Google.
Take a look at their website quality, their menu prices or how often they show up when you type in “pizza near me.”
More Tools and More Help
This is just a snapshot of some of the best tools Google has for business owners. Here’s a big list of more tools that you can use.
About Us
CG Marketing Group is a talented team of creatives and strategists who can make your business awesome. We like to have fun, but we’re very serious about digital marketing.
To sum us up in a single word — Scrappy. We’re always eager to branch out and apply new tactics to create successful campaigns. Our crew works hard to bring value, get results, and keep our clients happy.