Using Google Services to Grow Your Small Business / by Jaclyn DeJohn

When you go to search for answers to any logistical, theoretical, personal, or business question in 2018, you’re likely going right to Google. And you’re not alone — of all the people searching mobile in the United States, Google facilitates about 90% of website visits (Merkle Digital Marketing Report). So if you’re not linking arms with Google, you’re missing out on a lot of potential traffic and conversions. But Google has been evolving services for a while now, so it can be cumbersome to understand what brands and services are available and applicable to you. Here is an introduction to what Google offers your business.

Google My Business

No, it’s not a call-to-action, it’s the name of the service. This service allows you to apply for what is the internet equivalent of a phone book listing. Once your listing is verified, a personalized, dominating results box with your business info appears — as seen in the image on the right — instead of just a regular Google result. This catches the consumer's eye much better and renders trust between you and your potential audience, as Google is vouching for your legitimacy as a business. And verification is as simple as waiting a few days for a postcard at your business address.

Once you are verified, you can add store hours, your phone number, address, images, action links, wait times, posts, menus, and Q & A, all right in the Google search results page. The directness of this access seems to be having a large effect on the way consumers use search technology. Notably, click-through rates for first-ranked search results decreased by 37% last year (Wordstream Research). The Google My Business feature has replaced a consumer’s need to click all the way to the website: It is the new par for search results when looking for brick-and-mortar stores. And because the consumers generate and perceive this shift, they associate relevance and trust with the listing.

Google AdWords

AdWords is Google’s no-strings-attached advertising program. You select your business category, location, contact preferences, and a short description or call-to-action. Google then features your ad in the results of search terms that match your chosen keywords. The best part is you don’t pay unless your ad retrieves a click-through to the site or a phone call. You only pay for as much attention as your actually getting — and you can limit your daily and monthly spending up front.

To improve your results with AdWords and other facets of your marketing, you can make multiple versions of your ads to A/B test the effectiveness of different wording, calls-to-action, and offers. Google Analytics captures the differences for your observation, as well as other data points including search words used to find your business website, popular access days and times, content popularity rankings, and devices and platforms used to access the site. These analytics are important for making sound marketing and business decisions in the future and improving your overall cost-effectiveness.

G Suite

G Suite is the collection of Google software embedded into your business gmail accounts. It hosts a range of apps your business can use to connect better with your clients, including video conferencing, cloud storage, file sharing, and live group editing of documents. These features can help improve your clients’ perception of you, your operational efficiency, and decrease barriers to contributing to projects and bookkeeping as a team.

You can also link your domain name to your G Suite account (i.e., YourName@YourCompany.com) so your email looks more trustworthy in prospects’ inboxes. (Don’t have a personalized domain and email account for your company? Rapt Marketing can help.) And because of Gmail’s widespread popularity, your staff will require less training and transition time to be comfortable with G Suite over other email and document platforms.

G Suite may cost a little more than some other business email options, but you get what you pay for — and at a marginal amount. And if you made the mistake of signing up with a cheaper option, as I have in the past, Google offers some good migration software to sync your email settings and contacts over from your old account.

Keep in mind, you need to remain flexible and adaptable in whatever style of marketing consumer demand brings your way. But currently, Google is dictating standards in search results and impressions of business worthiness. Take advantage of the tools being offered to help your business be found, and use the data & analytics and exposure to propel your business further forward.