Business owners looking at their website as another piece of literature — like a Direct Mail piece — need to stop for a moment and pay attention to what Google is doing.
Like it or not all businesses are reliant on Google to some degree.
Some businesses operate ‘digitally’ on their own to directly generate leads and have ‘lapped’ the competition. Think of this as ‘white hat.’
Other businesses simply write a check for a ‘warm lead’ phone number, email or click. Think of this as ‘gray hat.’
Still others stick to traditional routes of leads — what they have always done — and that is working just fine. Think of this as ‘no hat.’
The reason I’m writing this post is to provide help to any of the above because Google is undergoing fundamental changes in how it manages data.
This has ramifications across all business because digital is integral to how business is done one way or another.
Take note:
- Apple updated OS14 a couple years ago
- Those reverberations are why Facebook’s stock price keeps dropping
- Facebook saw it coming
- Those reverberations have spurred years-long change at Google that will continue for another 18 or more months
- Including a recent algorithm change targeting gray hat advertisers
- And tighter control over ad content and click destination using manual checks on ads
- Also removing remarketing and ‘similar to’ audiences
- These Google changes provide all business owners risk and opportunity
I took a deeper dive in a recent post aimed toward ‘white hats’ who want to keep improving, so I won’t go into detail here.
Instead, here, I’m writing to those ‘gray’ and ‘no’ hat business owners.
For the Gray Hats
What is happening to Facebook will happen to third-party lead generating agencies that operate online.
These are agencies or consultants who provide ‘lead generating’ services — email addresses or phone numbers — while not working on the business’ website at all.
Removing data mining from Apple phones severely under cut Facebook’s ‘ad targeting’ ability.
They generated fewer leads.
Same with third party ‘lead generating’ businesses who use data collected by third-party sources (including Facebook) to run ‘sales funnels’ to develop warm leads that are turned around and sold.
Two problems arising:
- This model doesn’t help the customer in the long run … it’s a digital lease not a digital investment
- Google’s next major change is going to be the ‘final blow’ for Facebook and the third-party lead generating industry
- That change is Google dropping third-party cookies from Google’s Chrome browser
Just like Apple dominates the smartphone market in the U.S. Google dominates the browser market with Chrome.
Chrome allows ‘third-party cookies’ — including third-party cookies from Facebook and other gray hat targeting companies — to track search and browser histories.
Those are key data feeds to targeting ads to get prospects ‘into the funnel’ that eventually turn into a saleable lead.
For The No Hats
This is the last in a long line of Google changes, and if you’ve read to the end here is the advice part:
- Modernize your website to WordPress Gutenberg editor and Astra Theme
- This ensures your website loads fast on phones … something Google loves
- Modernize your website tracking to Google Tag Manager and G4
- Even if you never look at the data this will help Google ‘index your site’
- Indexed sites regularly converting leads over time becomes a bookable asset you can sell as part of a business
- Identify ‘conversions’ on your website … a phone number click, form submit, directions request, etc.
- Feed that conversion data — who made the converting click — back to AdWords, even if you don’t advertise
- This tells Google’s index the type of website visitor that finds your website ‘helpful’
That is the minimum a business should have in place to come out of these Google changes in strong shape.
To get even stronger:
- Run a Paid Search campaign on your business name
- This ‘Brand Search’ is recognized by Google Ads and the clicks are cheaper
- Your competitors may be targeting your business name right now … try a search
- Consider a Display Ad campaign targeting the zip codes that make sense
- This ‘raises awareness’ of your business among your prospects which generating ‘qualified clicks’ to your site
- The person clicking wouldn’t click if they weren’t interested
- These clicks are a ‘good signal’ to Google while also helping generate your own leads
That’s enough for the moment, but there are certainly even more investments to ‘deepen Google’s indexing’ of your site.
That notion — getting your website ‘deeply indexed’ by Google — should be a business goal, to be honest.