Google is the largest search engine in the world with over 3.5 billion searches per day. With that being said, every day is an opportunity for business owners to benefit from the search engine. A mass percent of consumers use Google for research before making purchases, so it goes without saying, Google is important. So how can business owners take advantage of Google? Here’s a few methods any business can do:
- Have a YouTube video for your business
- Create a Google + or Google my Business Page
- Optimize your business website for Google (more advanced tactic)
- Create OPTIMIZED social media for your business
- Create listings in various directories
Below I’ll explain how each one of these methods is beneficial and how they can gain revenue for your business.
YouTube
So for starters, having a YouTube video can do a lot for your business and your Google marketing campaign. There’s plenty of benefits to having a YouTube video: video gets more retention and clicks than webpages do, videos rank easier in Google, video can present your business in a professional looking manner, and best of all it’s free. So how do you get more revenue from a YouTube video?
Well, there’s a few ways that YouTube helps, but primarily it comes down to your video ranking in Google. YouTube videos rank easier for low competition keywords than a website with low authority will. So if you can find low competition keywords to target, YouTube videos are your best bet. So how do you find these low competition keywords? Well you quite simply use Google.
Go into Google and type your main keyword. After pulling the results go to the very bottom and find the suggested searches. These are where you will find what people actually type when searching, and these will serve as your long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are just keywords that use multiple words, are highly targeted, and usually mean low competition (so you’re gonna want them!).
Now that you have your keywords you need to make a video targeting them, and there is 2 routes you can go. Make a single video and shoot for as many keywords as you can, or make multiple videos targeting multiple keywords. I can’t say that one works better than the other, I am still testing this, but for the sake of laziness let’s choose the first.
Ok, so you have the video made (I’m not gonna go over this part, just go to Fiverr to have it done for you), now you want to target those keywords. The best way to do it is form a title that FLUIDLY uses your keywords and doesn’t stuff them. Also add a description of around 100-200 words that includes your keywords in the first 2 sentences. Then add tags that also use your keywords, but you can be less strict with these. Also add a geo tag to your video in your settings, and you’re done! You now have a video that is Google optimized. You should see a ranking for low competition keywords within a day, but if not on the first page your vid may need an SEO boost.
Google my Business
I don’t think its called Google my Business anymore, but for the sake of this article it is. Google my Business listings are essential to a business, and having one that ranks is almost more important than having a website that does. People are too lazy to scroll pass the 3 pack, so you want to be in it! If you don’t see how this will increase revenue for you then you’re reading the wrong article my friend.
It’s simple to make a Google my Business listing and have it optimized correctly. To make a listing that will rank you want to find your target keyword and structure your listing to be relevant with it. So if my target term is Ice Cream Los Angeles, I would wan’t my title to be Ice Cream Los Angeles and my description to include it as well. I advise against using your actual business name but instead use your keywords because Google seems to give privilege to exact match listings.
Also make sure you have NAP or Name, Address and Place consistent for your listing, website, and anywhere your business is posted online. This ensures that your site and your listing rank for local terms. If you follow this criteria you should see your listing in Google, but if its more competitive you may need an SEO boost just like the video.
Optimize Your Site
Now this strategy is a little more advanced. There is a lot more factors that go into ranking a website versus a listing or video. With a website you have 2 main factors: on site content and off site links.
Each are of equal importance, but links definitely have more weight than on site content.
To make a strong base for link building and almost ensuring that you rank, you want to have a good foundation of content. Make sure your landing page is optimized for the keywords you are targeting (both long tail and exact match). I recommend using YoastSEO to get an idea of your on site SEO and tweak accordingly. This will help a lot!
From here you can start link building. The more important links in Local SEO are citations, which are links that include NAP. These will be links from sites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc. These allow Google to determine that your business is indeed located in your target area and will make ranking much easier. In some niches these might be the only links you need, but in more competitive niches you’ll need to kick it up. In this case try to get as many backlinks from niche relevant and local sites. These can be in the form of profile pages, guest posts, publications, resource pages, news or press, sponsor links, directory links. Try to use a wide variety and get them from the most relevant sites you can. By doing so you will see your site slowly crawl up the rankings!
Optimized Social Media
So what does Optimized Social Media actually mean? Well just how you can rank other various websites you can rank social media as well. All you have to do is optimize the page for your long tail and exact match keywords, and feed off of the social websites authority.
To optimize your social media you are going to want a thorough about section that uses your keywords, but don’t stuff them. You also want to add NAP if possible. Then you also want to have a few posts that contain your target keywords. This should suffice for a well optimized social media page, but you can kick it up a notch and build some links to your pages. You can add it to your site as well as various other platforms that allow you to connect social media. Try to do as many of these as possible!
Listings in Various Directories
Now this method is less of a revenue generator, but the right directory could mean more business. There are literally thousands of directories for thousands of niches. In these directories users can find businesses for all kinds of needs and they might just find yours. Now I will be honest and say not all directories are worth your time but some are valuable and also double as a backlink.
When using directories try to use ones that appear less spammy, the ones that require email confirmation are best to use. Just like the other techniques you want to optimize your listing as much as possible for your target keywords. If possible, also add your NAP to be used as a citation too. (SEE directories are still useful) You could even add links to social media and YouTube!
Basically get as much links, citations, and listings as possible, not just for the sake of links but for the sake of free marketing.
So these are my five methods for increasing revenue with Google. Below I’ll expound on the revenue portion a bit
OK, so you got a bunch of optimized sites and ranked up in Google. So what good does that do? Well, I’ll tell you.
For every industry and every niche there is a consumer using Google to search for a business that can fill their need. By being the business that they lay eyes on first you are able to target customers that you can’t get from other sources. People who search in Google search because they are looking to buy, so it makes sense to try and get in front of them.
With SEO it all comes down to ROI. How much money can I put in versus how much I get out. Typically SEO will run you $1,000 a month if you go with an agency. In high end industries most customers have a life time value of well over $1,000, and most have an initial profit margin into the thousands of dollars. If you are able to acquire just 1 customer per month from a campaign, would it be worth it to you? I only work with businesses that can make a healthy ROI from my services, so if you’re in this category the answer would be yes. This is why Google is such a landmine! You can put in $1,000 a month to have someone manage your marketing, and make multiple times that in sells without the work.
Now SEO is a hard game, but with the right people handling your campaign it can be as easy as collecting more revenue on a monthly basis. If you found this article helpful be sure to let me know, and if you would like to learn more about my services be sure to visit my site at variantseo.com