In the search world, it’s no secret that Google is the market-share leader. It rolls out updates almost daily which change the game for search marketers. As a digital marketer, I’ve seen the direction that Google is trending.
In case you’re looking to be left behind by the world’s largest, free-traffic provider, you’re in luck! Here’s how to fail at Google:
Don’t act like a real company.
Google has started becoming more and more biased towards bigger brands. It makes sense, because bigger brands can usually afford to offer the better customer experience. Sending traffic to Target.com is a much safer bet than sending it to cheap-discount-housewares-anytime-viagra.com. That means higher search rankings are achieved easier by bigger brands. That means to avoid all this free exposure can be avoided by simply acting like a small company.
If, however, you’re looking to get more exposure, do what real companies do.
What Real Companies Do
Among many other activities, real brands tend to engage in the following activities:
• Press releases
• Sponsorships
• Ads
• Social
• Blog
Press Releases
Real companies tend to have news and announcements. You should have innovations and announcements to be proud of. This is huge for branding and PR, but Google will also see this. Recent announcements aside, real brands make press and Google knows this. For this to have the desired action on your website rankings, it has to be seen by Google, which most press release services do.
Sponsorships
Real companies are involved in their community. They sponsor activities, events, and causes. As long as the sponsorship has some sort of online aspect, sponsorships are a great way to show the search engines that you’re a real company. An online aspect could mean a link from the event website, a press release, or your logo (properly tagged with an “img alt” attribute).
Ads
Real companies advertise. Even if you advertise on other networks besides Google’s, Google sees those ads as it crawls the pages of the Internet. As long as your advertising is producing an ROI on its own, this can be just an added benefit.
Social
Real companies communicate. They have customers to please, and potential customers to attract. This creates a social presence that is next to impossible to fake. Be active and true to your brand, and you’ll create a social following.
Blog
Real companies have something to say. Their employees are experts in their respective fields, and exhibit thought leadership. They have experiences that are valuable to share. Keep your blog releasing new content. Create a schedule if you need to, but real companies blog.
You’ll want to stay up on all of these marketing initiatives, because that’s what real companies do. Although it’s difficult to act like a company larger than you are, there’s something to “fakin’ it ‘til you make it” when it comes to attracting free search engine traffic.
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