Google Ads are somehow still mysterious to many small business owners so I thought it might be useful to give a top level mini-overview via my oh so awesome blog. 

On a very basic level, running ads on Google means that when someone searches for something on the internet, an Ad you create appears. It's noted with the word 'Ad' in front of it and is typically at the top of the page. Ads appear when the keywords we choose match a person's search online. So, if you're a Chiropractor, we add that word (and dozens of others) to a list of words or phrases people might type into Google when looking for a healthcare practice like yours. 

There are many ways to advertise using Google's Ad platform and the search method mentioned above is just one of them. Google also has partnerships with many websites that also show their ads. So, after someone does an online search, these ads will begin to appear on other websites that person/computer visits. A third way that ads are delivered to people is by matching the Advertiser's keywords with a news article or blog post's keywords. So, a person could be reading an article about back pain, for example, and Google would be showing ads for local Chiropractors on that page even though the reader might not have conducted a search yet for one.

Negative Keywords
In addition to creating keywords, I also recommend adding negative keywords. For example, if you're a Psychotherapist, we would add the keyword 'therapist' to your ad campaign. Meanwhile we would also add the word 'massage' as a negative keyword so that anytime a search term includes massage (i.e. massage therapist), the ads would not appear.

Eight days into the new year and many are just returning to work and wondering what 2018 will bring for their small business. As a small business consultant, Lamb Consulting sees a wide range of people running their own company but a few things cross all industries as ways nearly everyone can work to begin their new year on a better note. 

1. Update Your Email Lists
For many small business owners, this one falls by the wayside because they feel they are the only ones who know all their clients and industry colleagues. If that sounds familiar, there's no better time than January in a new year to get your email contact lists updated and organized. Referrals will always be your top driver of new business so why put this one off any longer? If using a mail service like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, make it easy on yourself and simply begin by making sure all your contacts there have a first name so you can personalize your emails. Once that's done, work on segmenting your lists into Groups so you can further customize messages. One group could be labeled clients, customers or patients while another could be sectioned off as friends/family. Trust me on this one - it's worth the time.

2. Backup Everything
If you remember Y2K, this is a no-brainer. Every New Year's is an opportunity to remember to backup your files, photos, data, email lists and your website. Dropbox is a great tool (free for the first 2 gigs of space) backing up on the cloud so you can access data from other devices but I'd also suggest a physical, external backup device. For my clients, I download and backup their websites every year - easy to do if you're using Weebly or another web service that doesn't charge extra for such services.

For years I have told my own clients to start a blog.

That old saying for Physicians to take their own advice? I guess that's me now.

So, here we go - Blog post numero uno.

And what to write about? Blogs of course!

Here's why I tell small businesses and healthcare practitioners to start a blog: do it for google. Very few folks may ever read your blog but the purpose isn't actually for your clients or potential clients, although that's a nice benefit. The purpose is to get more words in front of google and other search engines. Google loves text! The more text on your website, the better. And most small organizations don't have a lot of text on their site. Google ranks sites on the number of applicable words from any given search. The more words, the more potential matches - or the better chance of your site appearing higher in a search.

That's it - it's not brain surgery - it's blogging 101. Or, Googling 101?

And why Google?
Because they receive about 65% to 75% of all online searches in the United States right now, depending on which source you're viewing. The next closest search engine gets about half that amount max (Bing or Yahoo). 

Start writing your own blog with anything applicable to your business or your client's business. Don't think of it as giving away free advice as much as it is helping folks to find your website and therefore find you!

Happy blogging to us all.

Need some help? Well, post a comment here in my blog of course! Or, old school, just buzz me! Thanks for reading.