Marketing, or as we like to refer to it as, “the profit plan” has drastically changed over the last decade. To no surprise, the rise of mobile technology has made conducting research on businesses more convenient/on-demand, and the days of picking up your newspaper to find a restaurant or activity for the evening are long gone.

The evolution of Google started in 1998 by two guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and their goal was to revolutionize how people conduct research and explore the world through the internet. Well, I think it’s safe to say the duo achieved exactly that, especially for how businesses market online.

There are two ways you can market your business to the 105 billion people who search on Google every month worldwide, Google Ads (A service offered directly from Google) and Google Local SEO (A service achieved through third-party companies that work alongside Google).

There are, of course, benefits to each service depending on what your business needs most and the time frame you’re looking at. Here’s a list on how either service can help achieve profitability.

Google Ads

Google Ads is a fantastic tool to drive and create instant traffic for your business. Using the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) structure, Google will place your business on one of the top pages of search results depending on your company’s budget and competitiveness of your industry. If you put in more money, there’s a better chance you’ll be on the forefront pages (Pages 1-3), less money you’ll be placed on pages beyond that. Google will place a little “Ad” logo in the top left of the listing and you’ll be given an allotted amount of customer clicks based upon how much budget you put in. More money, more clicks – less money, less clicks. The benefit? Your business gets to be showcased within a twenty-four to seventy-two hour window, which is great to get traffic to your business instantly.

Google Local SEO

Local SEO is the new kid on the block. It was implemented when Google launched their “Local 3-Pack” in August 2015, changing over from what was normally known as the “Local 7-Pack.” The feature showcases the top three organic listings for certain keywords. A completely different form to website SEO, this version has to do with building your web presence locally through your Google My Business listing. The benefit to being a top three business on Google naturally is massive for long-term growth and exposure, as 61.5 per cent of people choose from the top 3 when searching for a product or service, according to a study conducted by Chitika Insights. Unlike Google Ads, being placed in the Local 3-Pack is an organic position, which means this is your businesses natural ranking without any paid ads, but it will take a lot more time to reach the top, as you can imagine, because it’s a permanent position. Generally speaking the businesses that appear in the top three positions are more active on a wide-range of local, national and international directories and have fresh content almost daily (photos, live updates, reviews) compared to a non-top-three business.

So to conclude, there are benefits to both campaigns with Google, but as you can see it all depends on what your business needs. Our advice? We recommend a combination of both because the more a consumer sees a company name, the more prone they are to click and explore that business.

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Citations

http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/04/21/adwords-ads

https://www.seattlewebdesign.com/blog/seattle-web-design-online-marketing-blog/post/new-google-local-3-pack-narrows-the-local-keyword-research-playing-field

https://www.iprospect.com/en/us/our-blog/the-impact-of-local-3-pack-on-google-mobile-search-experiences/

https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2276184/no-1-position-in-google-gets-33-of-search-traffic-study