This blog will discuss why you shouldn’t Google your business if you are a business owner or marketing manager—and how not doing so could actually boost your online presence and ROI.
Google’s User Tailored Search Results
Five different people in your office could Google your company name and get 5 different results based on their location, device, Wi-Fi network, search history, and demographic information. The truth is, Google’s algorithms can provide a different result every time you search depending on these factors.
Google’s algorithms make calculations about what you are most likely to click on, which affects content shown in search results. Past online behavior informs each subsequent search: What have you clicked on in the past? What have you searched for recently? What type of device are you using, and where are you?
If I searched our company on Google three times a week for a whole month and never actually visited our site from the search results, Google would assume from my behavior pattern that I am not interested in visiting that website.
Over time, this negative behavior could change which pages are shown in the SERP results, yielding an inaccurate representation of our company’s keyword rankings in my area.
Search engines will also rank pages with the highest click-through rates when determining results for users. If a group of people at your company are always searching for the name of your company, it may be worth considering how this could negatively affect your own site’s click-through rate.
You Could Affect Your Advertising Efforts
If your company runs pay-per-click (PPC) ads, it’s very likely you are running branded PPC advertisements. These lower-cost ads appear when your company name is searched for, and are used to take as much of the organic search results page as possible to protect that space from other companies.
Google determines which PPC ad will be shown to a user at the time of search using several factors, one of them being click-through rate. Ads that are clicked on more frequently have an advantage in this algorithm.
If you regularly search for your business and click your ad, you not only risk affecting the click-through rate of your own ads, but you can also drive up the cost-per-click as well. Make sure to save these valuable clicks for potential customers.
What Should I Do Instead of Googling My Company Name?
Your business still needs ways to measure the success of your digital marketing effort. You want to know what your investment is getting you in terms of online visibility, especially when SEO work can’t always be seen by you and needs a third party instead.
Here are some examples of what data a successful digital marketing partner should be able to share with you:
- Aggregate data on keyword ranking to illustrate average position across multiple users for a more accurate representation of visibility
- Search impression and click data to see how your ranking is improving relative to other competitors
- Qualified traffic, leads, and conversion data – is your online presence attracting a relevant audience who is likely to convert?
- Return on investment (ROI) – what revenue can be directly attributed to your SEO and PPC campaigns?
At Brick House Web Design, our main objective is to grow the visibility of our clients online and increase their profitability. We provide our partners with data on a regular basis that shows how well they are doing in order to eliminate the need for frequent self-examination on Google Search Engine Pages (SERPs) as a measure of success.
Contact us today to learn more how we can help improve your business’s online presence on all of the major search engines or check out our article about frequently asked SEO questions.
