Description

Getting found on Google is critical for business success today. But how are people TRULY searching for you?In this video, Eric Spellmann lists some fantastic free tools that show you EXACTLY what your customers are typing. In addition, he gives you step-by-step instructions on how to put this information into your overall online marketing strategy.
So, what are you waiting for! Climb inside your customers’ minds by watching this video!

Transcript

Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice! Hi. I am Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates. And today’s topic is How Are People Searching for You on Google. You know, before you start trying to SEO your site (optimize your website for Google), you’ve got to know exactly how people are looking for you on Google.
The first step is to ask yourself but you have to ask yourself the right question. Do not think about keywords. Don’t talk about “I want to be found on these keywords”, don’t think in terms of that. Google doesn’t look at keywords anymore. Google looks at topics. Google is trying to figure out what your website is about. So in trying to figure out how people are searching for you or how they will search for you if you don’t have a website, you need to ask questions like this.

“What question on Google are you the answer to?” Because people, basically that’s what Google is trying to do. Google is trying to get to the point where they’re not giving people results, they’re giving people answers! And there’s a really important distinction there. You know in the old days you would go on the internet and type in “what is the temperature in Los Angeles?” And you would get a list of websites that might have the answer.

Today if you typed that in, Google would actually return you the answer. And that’s would Google is trying to do. So you need to sit back and once again say “What question on Google are you, or your service or product the answer to?”

Next, you need to ask your customers. Because keep in mind you’re inside the box, you’re the business owner, you’ve been doing this for a while and so you may not be the biggest expert on how they are looking for you. The way you view your business is not how they view your business in many cases. Sometimes we as owners, tend to think of our business in terms of terminology that is too complicated.

Whereas a customer will ask a simple question, things that we might assume they already know the answer to. Well they don’t! So, ask your customers, and heres what you ask. “If you needed my service or product but didn’t know my name, what would you type in Google to find me?” And I recommend you ask 5 or 6 of your good customers who wouldn’t mind answering that question for you. And trust me, the answer they give you will probably blow you away! And in some cases, what they type into Google may be completely incorrect! And it’s because of what they assume about you.

Avoid analytical ways to handle way to handle however, is to use something called Google Trends. And as just about everything I recommend, it’s totally free. You can find it at google.com/trends. And when you go there, you’ll see the ability to type something in, but this isn’t a search engine. Basically what you’re doing is you’re checking the popularity of a search over time.

Once again, you’re not gonna see how many times people are typing this in, you’re gonna see how popular the search has been. The cool thing about this is you can put one search against other. So if you’re wondering “I wonder if people are typing in this or this.” Go to Google Trends and it will tell you.

It is a great predictor also of what is coming down the pike. Many times people will start searching Google for things that currently don’t exist! So if you know what to type in, sometimes Google Trends can help you find a product or service that people are demanding and yet no one is providing!

Finally if you don’t already have it installed on your website, you need to go ahead and get Google Webmasters Tools. It’s an account, costs you nothing. You have to have a Gmail account. You go set it up and then you get a little bit of code you put on your website.

You can get to it by going to google.com/webmaster. And once again, it’s completely and totally free. It basically shows you two things. First, it shows all the Google searches you were found on. In other words, when someone went to Google, typed something in and then they clicked on you. Second, it allows you to talk to Google.

And what I mean by that is once you’ve made changes to your website and you want Google to know about those changes so that maybe you’re ranked better, you can go here and tell Google to come back and look at you. I highly recommend Webmaster Tools.

As always if you have any questions, just go to my website and go to the Contact Us form and ask me. Or you can find me on Facebook. I’m Eric Spellmann, I’ll see you in cyberspace.