A common view in the world of Kitchen marketing, is that Google is the ‘be all and end all’.
Get on Google and everything will be alright.
It’s not strictly true.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Google is important.
It’s replaced the Yellow Pages, and to a large extent, the local newspaper, as the ‘go to’ places for people searching for stuff.
And there are two predominant Search methodologies - Indirect Search and Direct Search - which I like to think of as the difference between looking for something … and looking for someone.
Indirect Search is when we're looking for 'something' - where we put in the broad category of a product or service that we’re interested in … and we get back hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of results.
Did you know that 90% of Search stops at the first page of results…? If you don’t show up on the first page, you may as well be invisible to 90% of the people who come looking for your products or services.
At Inspire KBB, we know that for business categories with a long sales cycle, like Kitchens, there's an essential principle you need to work to:
Become known, before you’re needed.
And when it comes to playing Google’s game, this is absolutely vital.
We’ve all done a Direct Search, meaning a search where you’re looking for 'someone'.
With a Direct Search, you put in the name of the company that you’re interested in … and more often than not, that company is then one of the top search results on the first page.
You see, if someone fires up Google and they’ve ALREADY heard of your business, they’ll be more inclined to enter your business name.
This type of search outperforms SEM, SEO, and even Paid Search, because it is by far more successful at making you the number one result! Of course, they’re then predisposed to click through to your website.
So, every time a potential customer came looking for Kitchens in your area … would you want that to happen, for your business?!
Familiarity breeds the opposite of contempt – it breeds Direct Search … followed by clicks.
By all means, play the Google game. But, if that’s the only thing you’re doing, your chances of 'being known before you’re needed', are drastically reduced.
