Ep. 14 How to get your Business Found Online

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SAF 14

[00:00:00] Torie: To make some qualified, really smart decisions on where to spend money when you are ready to spend money.

Hey, welcome to Smart AF I’m your host Torie Mathis. We’ve got a great show for you today. So let’s get started with every business when they come to us, they want to be found online. That’s like the biggest thing. That’s what everybody wants is to be found online because that’s where customers go to find their clients. Especially these days. 

[00:00:36] Sean: They want to be found online. 

[00:00:38] Torie: Or do you think they want to be found? 

[00:00:39] Sean: That seems like some people are still there. 

[00:00:43] Torie: They’re fighting it. They fight it. Why are you guys fighting? It just, just go along. There are so many free assets out there that you can take advantage of to get your business found online.

Not only are they free, but some of these will get you up to the top of Google searches. Some of these things will definitely help your search engine optimization in general. And if you want people to find you, you have to go where they’re looking. And a lot of these places are free. So let’s talk about some of these free places that your business can be found online.

As long as you go in, fill everything out correctly, and this isn’t something that’s hard. This is not some crazy technical thing that I’m asking people to do. It’s simple. It’s like a form. You fill it out. They ask you questions, you answer them and then you have to keep it updated. First one, Google Business.

[00:01:49] Sean: Probably the most important one, I would agree. And it’s 106. 

[00:01:57] Torie: So you mean Google’s not going to call and be like, okay, so, okay. So that’s a good point. So Google might call, but you don’t have to do any paid advertising. That is all. 

[00:02:12] Sean: It was to connect to Google AdSense, and then pay for ads and all that kind of stuff.

But as far as what we’re asking, just as far as filling out your Google Business information, Completely free that they’ll even give you a website. If you don’t have that, you just fill out the information as complete as you possibly can and publish that’s it.

[00:02:33] Torie: So for all of our clients, when we bring them on board, whether it’s for their website or it’s for more online visibility, something that we always look at is, for example, their Google business.

And you don’t think that people are filling this outright? 

[00:02:45] Sean: Most have not done it. Or it’s incomplete, completely incomplete. We just had one that needed it was, it was there, but we didn’t have access to it. And it was missing crucial information. I mean we’re talking services that they offer that they want to be found for, and they’re not.

Cause they didn’t say that they offer those services. 

[00:03:10] Torie: So if you have a Google business listing, so you’ve gone to Google, you said, and you’ve claimed the business as your own. That gives you the rights to that business. You can actually make people admins and give people access to that, which is actually good, because if you lose your access, People keep doing this.

If you no longer have access, it’s good to have a couple people that have access to it. So somebody, you know, you give it to Shirley that works in the office and Shirley gets hit by a truck or Shirley quit Shirley runs off to China. You need to make sure that you can go in there. So I think people are scared to give other people access to things like this, where I think it is 150000%.

You need to give more than one person access to. So you were able to finally get access to the clients, Google my business, and able to fill it out properly, which means that now there’ll be listed on Google for all of their services. What other things do you think people aren’t filling out? Cause I know there’s a lot. 

[00:04:09] Sean: Descriptions. They’re not, they’re not filling out the description of the day. So if it’s a. 

[00:04:15] Torie: This doesn’t mean put 45 years in business because nobody’s searching for that to say. 

[00:04:20] Sean: No, but like say it’s a dentist and they’re in there for dentist and they’ve got their hours and there, their location as far as their physical address, so that they’re showing up on the map, but they don’t have location served.

They don’t have all the other dental services they’re offering. They’re not getting found in. And the top parts of Google and the map and all that kind of stuff. When, when somebody searches for something specific that that office does offer, but they didn’t put it down. You know, it’s not going to get there.

[00:04:56] Torie: Somebody has filled these things out at one time. That doesn’t mean it’s filled out properly now. All of these things, such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, all these things. They’re constantly trying to improve their services, which means they’re adding things or changing things or trying to make things better. So just because you’ve filled it out once does not mean it is okay right now.

I think that thing, these my guess would be 2, 3, 4 times a year. At least you need to go in there and make sure things are still filled out. Still filled out accurately. 

[00:05:28] Sean: Well, I mean to go back to one of the other videos we talked about how important reviews are, you should be asking for those reviews in Google quite a bit.

And so. You should be getting reviews, which means you should be going in there quite often and replying to those reviews. So you should be able to assist us through 

[00:05:46] Torie: Google. My business is where you would actually access. Cause I know a lot of people are like, I don’t even know where to go for reviews. That’s where you would go to answer these reviews, which again is, is super important. You can watch any of our videos on reviews. What else do you think people aren’t filling out or taking advantage of? Just talking about Google. 

[00:06:04] Sean: The services, the locations. 

[00:06:07] Torie: You know, now they have COVID restrictions where you can actually go in there. And I know a lot of people are looking to see if businesses are open. And I know a lot of things are saying if you do have some type of special hours or special requirements or whatever these are the types of things that they’re adding on there. So that you can add those to your listings as well.

[00:06:24] Sean: You can do that. And then once you have all the information complete, Google has got to set up, so you can literally click a button and they’ll build you a website. So if you don’t have a website, you’ll have a Google based one. Which is just again, something. Makes you searchable, you can get found online with that kind of stuff.

And then there’s posts. They have the ability for you to add posts and events. So if you’re having any kind of event, you can add that event to your Google business. So if anybody’s searching for something like that, that event will pop up. 

[00:06:56] Torie: I don’t see a lot of stuff for events, but I do see things for posts and pictures because I get the email notifications for I get it for the museum for Miles Through Time. And for a lot of our clients, I get it. And they’ll actually weekly email you and tell you, Hey, your posts got this many views. Your pictures got this many views. So you can go in there and see, or you can at least get notified that, that things are working, things are happening and people are actually seeing it.

Google wants to show people these things. And the more information, the more photos, the more things that you have out there, the more their service looks good. So it’s helping them. So you might as well take advantage of it. So in talking about Google, Google owns YouTube and YouTube is another free service that you can use to put your business out there.

Now, the best thing about that is that you know, Google is Google owns YouTube. Google wants to show their assets as top ones for searches. So if your business has really good, I don’t want to say really good. This does not mean highly produced. This means good information in them. If you have videos that are showing good information Google will show your videos as top searches to answer questions or to respond to people’s searches totally free.

And in no time ever, has there been a company like you can just put stuff on TV for free, like you can go and put whatever you want on there. Pretty much to advertise your business, your services, to tell testimonials to whatever you want on YouTube to advertise your business. Easy to set up again, like most things, they have a very thorough way, of explaining everything, how to set it up, how to upload a video.

It is not hard at all. And the cool thing is, is most of your clients probably, or a competition, probably isn’t doing it. So by you jumping in front of them and getting some videos up there, it can definitely increase your visibility online. 

[00:08:50] Sean: We don’t use Bain, but being is a whole nother. And I get just, it’s just like Google in that aspect.

As far as they have a, a business section where you just fill out your business information and gets. Categorized and listed on being. So if anybody’s using that kind of stuff and you don’t even have to use it, just have 

[00:09:08] Torie: it filled out. And again, it doesn’t cost 

[00:09:10] Sean: anything. And I believe now, like, I think it connects to your Google just because it’s Google is so much more popular.

Like you don’t even have to fill it out again. You just connect to the accounts and it’s automatically forwarded over. So super simple. 

[00:09:27] Torie: So then you have all of these different review sites. Now some of these review sites might try to charge you something and most of them do have a free option. So definitely take advantage of all the free options.

That might be a little bit different depending on what kind of business you have, whether it’s a brick and mortar business, or whether you’re serving business clients or not. For example, Miles Through Time, Sean’s museum utilizes TripAdvisor quite a bit. TripAdvisor’s free. You can put pictures on there. You can put descriptions on there. And they’re pretty good at working with you to help you get a little bit more people on your listing. And it’s a nice place 

[00:09:59] Sean: for recalls, TripAdvisor to is w they, they rank you for your area and whatever categories. And if anybody is utilizing TripAdvisor and they’re searching for a given area TripAdvisor sends out their own emails to that person and goes, Hey, you know, are you still interested in this area? You should go to these, these top six places, your businesses listed, that’s free advertising for you that you don’t have that list, but TripAdvisor does it and you’re on it. So you might as well utilize it. 

[00:10:29] Torie: So any type recreation or restaurants, things like that. What else would you say should be on TripAdvisor and take advantage hotels? 

[00:10:42] Sean: Things like, yeah, anything that can be utilized by the general public. If you’re going to be able to go, go visit or do something there, you should be on. 

[00:10:53] Torie: So we have a lot of clients that are dentists.

So for dentists, that’s going to be a little bit different. What other places do you think? Like something like a dentist. yelp Okay. So Yelp, Yelp is notorious for not showing their reviews. However, people still do use it. So even if you have a thing against yelp your clients might not have a thing against Yelp. And so my suggestion would be to definitely go on there and utilize it to the best of your ability, make sure that it’s filled out properly. 

[00:11:17] Sean: Yelp has their own list as well. You know, going back to the dentist, they’ll Dell have, you know, the top 10 dentists in whatever area. And if your stuff is on there, you’re going to be one of them. And it’s just because you’re there. It doesn’t actually mean anything as far as, you know, are you a top 10? It’s not relevant to you’re just on the list. 

[00:11:40] Torie: And if you’re not sure what other sites are available out there, what you could do is go in and like, let’s say you’re in Atlanta, you type in dentist Atlanta.

And usually, the top slots after the sponsored ones will be these types of websites that you can get like listing type websites that you can get on for free. So whether that’s, you know, museums, Georgia, or, you know, graphic design, Sacramento, or whatever it is, that’s a good way for you to go and see what other things are available that you might not have even known about.

And if they’re coming up on top searches and you might as well get your free listing for them, another place that is free, that I think every business should be on is Facebook. 

[00:12:20] Sean: Yeah whether you hate Facebook. The business listing is free and it’s searchable. We’ll have a filled out. 

[00:12:29] Torie: Absolutely. And it’s a really easy place for people to go, just to see if a business is open if it’s available. If people are utilizing it how active you are. And like Sean said, it’s, it’s searchable. So it’s a really great way to just be out there a little bit more. And then there’s like all kinds of advertising things or different things that you can go and do on Facebook, which, which you can on all of these things, but we’re saying just at least utilize the free part of it so that you are getting noticed and being on these platforms that other people, your, your customers are using to find businesses that they love.

[00:13:03] Sean: One of the issues is that all these places that we’ve described. If you don’t fill out the information with your correct information. 

[00:13:13] Torie: They’re going to fill it out 

[00:13:13] Sean: for you. It’s going to get filled out one way or another, and it’s going to be an unclaimed listing. And you don’t know if it’s accurate or not. The negative reviews are gonna start coming in. And it’s, it’s going to go downhill on you because you’re not managing it. 

[00:13:29] Torie: And especially when, during these times that things might be shut down, things might be open. Things might not, or seasonal type businesses. This is a really great time for you to make sure that you’re active on there.

I looked up something yesterday. I wasn’t sure if they’re going to be active or if they were, if they were there, if the listing was going to be, it was a Halloween store, but I saw that somebody left a review for them the day before. So I knew that they were open and there and that people were going there.

So that was a free list. On Google that I was able to see that the company was, was open and people enjoyed it. And you know, now we’re going to go today. So you guys that’s real listings, any other places. 

[00:14:09] Sean: Really no reason to not do it. I mean, if anything too, like you’re putting your email address in there and all these places, if anybody’s trying to contact your business if they’re not utilizing the phone number or whatever the case maybe you’re, you’re going to be able to be contacted and be able to address whatever issues come up.

[00:14:29] Torie: I thought of something else for these that people may not realize is that all of these different businesses also have their own analytics. In fact, last week I went over a Google business listing with a client and they didn’t realize because they use tracking numbers for a lot of their different things on their Google listing.

It’s just their basic number. So they didn’t know how many calls were coming in from Google if they were getting any at all. But Google actually keeps track of every single time someone does that click to call and calls directly from the Google listing. And you can see exactly how many people called your business. How many people asked for directions? How many people hit that listing? How many people viewed your photos and whether it’s Yelp or TripAdvisor, all of these things Facebook, they have analytics in there, so you can even see if it’s working. So not only are you getting those notifications if someone’s trying to contact you, but you’re also getting notifications to say that this listing is actually working and people are actually contacting you or finding your business through it.

[00:15:22] Sean: With that information and you can try to focus on whatever that’s working. 

[00:15:27] Torie: And so that gives you some really good data to figure out where you want to spend money. Maybe you weren’t sure before, maybe you were thinking of buying a billboard or a newspaper ad, but those things you can’t track, you have no idea.

Whether that you’re getting calls from there, but from all these things online. And because that’s where people are looking and people are using their phone to find all these things, there is so much data that you can get from these that you can make some qualified, really smart decisions on where to spend money. When you are ready to spend money, to advertise your business more. 

[00:16:01] Sean: There’s obviously more social media platforms, Instagram, Twitter, all those you can fill them all out. But you don’t actually have to do a whole lot with them unless you get that, those numbers back and go oh Instagram is where all my traffic’s coming from.

Well, maybe you should spend a little bit more time on Instagram, but it’s really gonna, it’s going to depend on what your business is. We’ve got one client where, you know, a lot of their interaction is on Instagram, but they actually have a whole nother separate business. And all theirs is on Facebook and nothing it’s your Instagram. So I mean, it really just, it all depends. So knowing that we can focus on what works for that specific business, 

[00:16:48] Torie: but in less, you start off by filling out and utilizing these free assets. You’re not going to have that data. Like you’re really missing out on so much information. 

[00:16:58] Sean: Why not fill out as much as you possibly can for free. 

[00:17:01] Torie: And again, not difficult to do. It’s just like filling out a form or an email it’s pretty simple. And just make sure that more than just you has access to it would be like one of those things I would suggest just in case it’s easy.