Google’s $27 billion in annual revenue leaves little doubt about its success as an Internet company. Interestingly, the huge amount of sales through which Google acquired this revenue comes from relatively few advertisers, numbering only about 1.2 to 2 million. There are more than 25 million firms in the United States alone, which means that currently Google has a huge market which it can capitalise on. Hence, there exists lots of potential for Google to expand its digital marketing reach, and target more businesses.

In the past, Google’s attempts to capitalize on local businesses have resulted in undesirable results. Many local businesses that signed-on for Google Adwords, abandoned the digital marketing programme soon after, for a variety of reasons. In September 2010, Google rolled out new transparency requirements for Adwords, emphasizing that they wanted to ensure that advertisers are fully aware of how AdWords is performing for them. Through this, Google attempted to control the sales channels that represent AdWords to local companies.

Later, Google developed Google Boost in an effort to penetrate the local market further, with an enhanced focus on the product/service being offered.

Filling Needs

Google eventually learnt that to attract more local businesses, it needed to make its offerings simpler. Small local companies generally have a lot of tasks to complete per day, such as servicing customers, meeting payroll, and placing advertisements. As they have their hands full, it is very tough for them to try and develop specialised knowledge in a certain field of business. They do not have the staff or the time to conduct research for selecting digital marketing keywords. Nor do they have the time to monitor results, analyse their performance, and change their digital marketing strategy accordingly.

This is where a tool like ‘Google Place Search’ comes in handy. Released in October 2010, Google Place Search offers digital marketing professionals more localised content, enabling local companies to provide more business information to prospective customers. Many digital marketing experts believe that Google Place Search is the first step of Google’s plan to use its vast resources to enter the local search market.

Google Place Search is based on a simple digital marketing concept – the location of the user. Together with website content, reviews and ratings, it is one of the main things users wishing to buy a product consider before making a purchase. If a company provides complete content about their business on their Places Page, Google is believed to reward them with better positions in the search engines. Digital marketing professionals who wish to leverage these changes need to apply contemporary search engine optimisation techniques, and work dedicatedly to build ratings and reviews.

Qudos Digital is a leading digital marketing agency, and can be contacted on 0845 388 5583 or info@qudosdigital.co.uk.