This week I was approached for my first post for the Business Coach Diaries, I am truly honored to be asked what my biggest take away from our business coaches meetings were this week! First and foremost I would like to take the opportunity to thank Jonathan Kelly and Clay Clark for all of the opportunities that have been afforded to me in this position. I am grateful for all the personal business coaching you both have given me! As the longest shadow in business coaching history, there is so much I take away from all the meetings.
This week though something really hit home with me, my “AHA” moment, if you will. Getting to the top of Google isn’t just about having more reviews than everyone else or having more content. Getting to the top of Google and staying there, is a combination of so many things! Now I do not know everything about search engines if you want to hear from the true experts I suggest reading “Search Engine Domination” by Jonathan Kelly and Clay Clark, but some of what I have learned follows.
If you ever stop adding content you will drop in ranking.
You as a business owner have a responsibility to make sure you completely fill out your Google My Business profile. This has to be complete down to a full list of the services you provide. You also need to constantly be getting google reviews, yes even when a few disappear! Getting reviews is difficult, as a former manager at Elephant in the Room, I completely understand. Asking every client every time for an objective review is what’s required, the key is to take the rejection and turn it into more insistence and drive for the next client! Not every client or customer is going to leave you a review and not every review is going to be a good one, but you have to ask every single one!
Storytime:
Recently there was a mistake at Google and the Downtown location I worked at for almost 2 years lost more than 1200 reviews, I personally was responsible for getting at least 400 of them over the years I was there. So I am in a unique position to understand how you feel when your reviews disappear but in perspective, it could always be worse, you could be Downtown Elephant in the Room starting over.
You also have to always be adding content to your website, whether you choose to write your own content, you choose to do a podcast, or have our world-class search engine content writers do it for you, you have to keep adding content to your page to keep it current. If you ever stop adding content you will drop in ranking. Now with the addition of the Favicon (a new icon Google has added) to the website, and Google maps is now linked to search results it is now more important than ever that we do EVERYTHING, Google requires to get and keep our clients at the top. This may occasionally mean more work for the clients but getting to the top isn’t easy and staying ahead of your competition requires diligence. Diligence is hard! Making sure you follow all of Google’s rules, adding new content and reviews constantly, keeping your maps updated, it’s a lot of work, but the leads you get and seeing yourself at the top of Google should be the reward! As Google continues to evolve into the world’s top search engine, so does the strategy we use to keep our business coaching clients at the top of Google.
