|
Google has changed dramatically in the last two years in an attempt to become the most relevant search engine on the planet. Two of these changes, Google+ and Panda, a radical change to Google’s algorithm, dramatically impact very small businesses and their rankings in Google search for phrases that are related to their business. Google+ originally was rolled out to compete with Facebook as a social network. Since then though it is apparent that Google’s strategy is to dominate local search, on the web and mobile devices, by giving local businesses that leverage Google+ an advantage in search. Google did this by merging Google Places and Google Maps with Google+. Companies that setup verified Google+ pages for their address will show up on Google’s first page in the local box. The first 3 results on the search engine results page are advertisers. The next 3 are the top 3 national results followed by a block of results that are local. Google knows where you are searching from so, these results will show the local businesses relative to your search term in that vicinity that have Google+ verified pages. Most small business websites were built in the last decade using HTML. Google’s Panda algorithm change has placed a significant emphasis on “fresh” and relative content. The only real way to cost effectively present fresh new content on your website is by using WordPress as a platform. In addition,WordPress has grown dramatically and there are now two plugins that have been developed for SEO optimization. One – “All In One SEO” has 16 million downloads, the other “Yoast” has 11 million. So, to begin, small businesses should 1) establish a Google+ presence (no cost) and 2) transition to a SEO optimized WordPress site ($1,500 - $2,000) and post new pages and videos regularly. They will crush their competitors just by doing this. A recent survey by SMB Digitalscape found that 60% of small business websites cannot generate telephone calls, because the businesses phone number is nowhere to be found. So, the third thing small businesses can do is to make sure their phone number is prominently featured on every page of their website and is on their Google+ listing. Forbes estimates 80% of callers that are sent to voicemail – hang up. Engaging a small business answering service is the last component of what should be every small businesses strategy to attract new business leads. New cloud-based answering services built on the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) that have emerged in the last three years, like US Answer and Main Virtual Office, now give these small businesses an affordable and efficient solution to make sure all of their calls are answered live. About Jim Plunkett Formerly a lead engineer on the cleanup of the nations worst hazardous waste sites, Jim entered the dot com world in 1999, Co-founding Vacation Harbor (think Air B&B 1.0). Jim is presently Co-founder of US Answer a cloud-based answering service and mobile app for small businesses.
Related Articles -
US Answer, small business answering service, answering services,
| 
