The bottom line of any marketing campaign is increased revenue and happy clients.

As per Pareto’s principle,  20% of the efforts will give 80% results and how this underutilized  FREE tool that can give you up to 80% results

I’ll share my research backed by DATA and STATS, and why GMB is even more important in 2020.

Google My Business: Your Secret weapon

If you are a big corporation with millions in marketing budget, then you have the luxury to spend your marketing budgets in 100’s of different ways, but if you are a Medium or a Small business and especially a Local business, you simply can’t ignore this underutilized FREE Tool.

For certain businesses, I would even say that your Google My Business (GMB) listing is even more important than your website. 

What we will cover here:
  • Why Social Media may be a wrong horse to put your money on?
  • Where can you find majority of your paying clients?
  • What is Google up to and why it is doing so? —-> [STATS]
  • Why is GMB so important?  —-> [DATA]
  • How you can take Advantage of this FREE Tool?
  • Who is Ravi Kainth?

Why Social Media may be a wrong horse to put your money on?

Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities.

Should social media marketing be a focus area for your marketing strategy in 2020? The answer depends on who your customers is. 

If you are an online shop selling items less than $50 and/or catering to an impulse buyer then Social media is a good place to invest your time and resources. If someone sees an Ad for a fancy looking earrings that costs $15, they might not think a lot about it to buy the same.

BUT if you are serving a local area or getting most of your paying clients from search/ someone searching, then don’t put all your bets on the wrong horse.

Let us first understand how the sales cycle in any business works and especially in service-oriented businesses.

If Someone is already aware of the problem and the solution and has the intent to buy (means a buyer ready to buy with a credit card in his hand) then you do not need to spend your time and resources majorly in the upper stages of the funnel. 

This is the stage where a prospective buyer is looking for someone to solve their problem. It can be someone looking for a lawn moving company to help them with the maintenance of their lawn or a patient looking for a dentist for dental Implant.

FOCUS ON THE INTENT SECTION OF THE FUNNEL, WHEN A BUYER IS READY FOR PURCHASE

For this, you need to understand where you can get the most traffic, and if you can get with a FREE and super powerful tool.

Where can you find majority of your paying clients?

In this age when almost everyone is carrying a smartphone and internet has become an indispensable part of our lives, Every search starts with the internet.

Search Market Share
Search Engine Market Share Q1 2019 - Ref: Sparktoro

As in the above chart (Ref: Sparktoro), Google clearly rules the web search. They have over 90% of the search market share in the US and over 95% globally.

 

Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average (Ref: InternetLiveStats), which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day

Around one-third of these searches are local queries.

Approximately half of those consumers who performed a local search visited the store within 24 hours.

Click here,  If you already know the importance of Google My Business and want to Skip directly to the Implementation Plan on the next page.

What is Google up to and why it is doing so?

Google knows it has got the traffic. But it is trying to keep the users on its platform and not send it to your website unless it don’t need to!!

The data, provided by marketing analytics firm Jumpshot, prove that zero-click searches on Google have gone up over the past three years. During the first quarter of 2019, 48.96% of all Google searches in the U.S. Google ended without a click ( Data Ref: Jumpshot)

Where user Click on Google

Zero-click searches mean a user remains on Google-owned platforms such as Google.com, Google Images, Google Maps, and YouTube rather than going to a third-party website from an organic search result.

Did you noticed, what you see in the search when you look for weather, flights, hotels etc in Google. You Do not need to leave Google as see the information you need right there.

weather_miami_Google_Search
To Check the weather, Google doesn't send you to top weather websites
toronto_to_nyc_Google_Search
To Check the flights, Google doesn't send you to top travel websites
hotel_san_francisco_Google_Search
To Check the Hotels, Google doesn't send you to top Hotel websites

“If you’re in a field Google has decided to enter, like travel, hotels, flights, lyrics, etc., the search giant is almost certainly cannibalizing your market and removing a ton of opportunity” – Rand Fishkin CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz

In the fields that Google is not competing, it wants you to pay for Ads for you to appear on the top of the search results. 

Big corporations like Dell have to pay for ads to Google to show up on the top of search results ( search results will differ where you are searching for and whether dell wants to show pay and show ads in that area) but you get the point.

Dell Monitor search
Dell needs to pay Google to show on Top when Dell product is searched, If not they are not on the top results

Organic searches are going down and from all the data gathered, Jumpshot estimated that the browser-based search clicks from Google have dropped from 75.6 Billion organic searches in Q1 2016 to 61.5 Billion Organic searches in Q1 2019, which is a drop of approx 20%.

Google organic search data (1)
Google Organic search data (Ref: Sparktoro)

Big corporations like Dell, Apple can pay millions in Ads to stay on the top of the search results but small and medium businesses often rely on the “Hope” to show on the first page of Google search results. 

SEO was a great way but slowly it is also slipping away from the hands of an average business user.

Apple Iphone 11 search on mobile
If Apple Corp. does not pay for Ads to Google for iPhone, its organic listing is pushed to the bottom of third page on a mobile

This illustration above shows how Google is trying to keep the user away from sending it to your site, unless you choose to pay for Google Ads or it need to. 

Especially on mobiles, the users do not see the SEO search results till the third page and you know well that normally the users do not scroll that much.

So even if you have a fancy website that cost over 5 figures, your potential clients are not able to find you as they were earlier through Google Search results.

As a business owner, either you love Google or hate it, but we can't ignore it.

The best way is to pivot based on the Data and get the maximum benefit for our business.

Click here,  If you already know the importance of Google My Business and want to Skip directly to the Implementation Plan on the next page.

Why is GMB so important?

Google is the market leader and wants to remain on the top and it can only remain it it gives its users what they want. 

 

After the release of Google Local in 2004, Google Maps in 2005, (which were merged later), Google Place Pages for Maps in 2009, and Google + in 2011 which was a complete failure, Google Came up with Google my Business (GMB) in 2014. 

 

it replaced Google Places for Business and Google+ Local dashboards, and things finally started making sense.

 

GMB is a free tool that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. That includes adding your business name, location, and hours; monitoring and replying to customer reviews; adding photos; learning where and how people are searching for you, and more

 

GMB made it so that users could control their business information in one place, instead of, you know, 52 different places. It gave businesses the power to be more consistent online and get a better grasp of how they appear in the search engine and Maps.

 

But Why is GMB so important especially to your local business?

 

I will let you decide by presenting some Data Research from Think with Google 

  • A 500% increase in “near me” mobile searches that also have “can I buy” or “to buy” variants.
  • 150+% growth in mobile searches for “___ near me now” (e.g., “food near me now,” “gas station near me now,” and “delivery near me open now“.)
  • 900+% growth in mobile searches for “___ near me today/tonight” (e.g., “five-star hotels near me tonight,” “open houses near me today.”)
  • 200+% growth in mobile searches for “Open” + “now” + “near me” (i.e., “restaurants near me open now,“)
  • Search interest in “open now” has tripled in the past two years.
  • Search volume for local places, without the qualifier “near me,” has grown by 150%.
  • 8.6% of searcher clicks go to featured snippets. Another 19.6% goes to the first organic search results.
  • 35% of product searches begin on Google.
  • 3 in 4 smartphone owners turn to search first to address their immediate needs.
  • 150% growth on mobile, travel-related searches for “tonight” and “today.“
  • Mobile search queries related to “same-day shipping” have grown over 120% since 2015.
Your digital marketing requires a website, some social media, and even more important than social media is your Google My Business listing

Click here,  If you already know the importance of Google My Business and want to Skip directly to the Implementation Plan on the next page.

How you can take Advantage of this FREE Tool?

Needless to say here, the first thing is to claim your GMB listing. 

GMB has proven to be an impact full tool to:

  • Find you address or to Call you
  • Get directions to your location
  • Send message to you
  • Send people to your website/business.
  • Manage your online reputation.
  • Ask Questions
  • Learn how people are finding you online.
  • Communicate with customers and potential customers.
  • Create Posts 
  • Create offers, updates, and events.

Most businesses do not go beyond just filling their basic profile and are leaving this GOLD MINE untouched for those who are taking the advantage of this powerful tool.  

The only thing that is constant is Change... 

To get the best out of Google My Business, you need to stop treating it like Yellow Pages where you just make a listing and forget it. And you know what results you get from Yellow pages in this Digital world.

Give your attention to your GMB listing and reap the benefits of this underutilized Tool to 

  • Be more visible to prospective clients
  • Get more reviews and social proof
  • Get more paying clients.
  • Increase your revenue and profits.

 

On the next page, I will walk you through what is needed to get the most of this Useful tool and can increase your revenue with this super useful tool

Next Page

 Go to the next page for the Implementation Plan.

Who is Ravi Kainth?

I’m a business owner and a digital marketer. I started my business in 2007 and It couldn’t be the worst year to start a business. In about 18 months, as we were just starting to get our feet to the ground, then there was the recession of 2009 and the markets collapsed. It was a very tough period for us and I came across my friend (and a mentor) who taught me how I can regain the lost market share with the help of Digital Marketing. Over a period of a few years, I managed to take my business to 8 Figures annually. Again, I tried 100’s of different things in marketing but as in Pareto’s Principle, we got 80% results from 20% of the things we were doing. The money we lost in our campaigns taught us what to focus on and what to stay away from.

I started consultancy by helping a friend in 2015 and since then have worked with hundreds of clients. My team is now helping Dental practices get to 7-8 figures.  

Covid-19 has shattered the markets once again and this is my bit to help any business owner if I can.

You can check more about me at my LinkedIn Profile