If you think your brand is what you say it is, you are sorely mistaken. Your brand is what Google says it is. That should show you the impact that Google has on the world as a whole. Released in 2006, Google quickly became the end all be all of search engines. They garner the majority of the market shares when it comes to search engines. They have become a household name in much the same way Kleenex has. If you need to blow your nose, you ask someone for a Kleenex, regardless of brand. Well, the same can be said about Google. When someone has a question about something, you will often overhear someone telling them to Google it. They may not be using Google, but it is a way of telling them to search the internet.
That being said, you need to realize the importance of Google when it comes to your business. We are going to present to you a non-exhaustive list of reasons that Google is important for your company. By the end of the article, you should be more than convinced of its importance and why you need to make certain that you have a squeaky-clean reputation on Google if you expect to last long in the business world.
Dominance
As we mentioned above, Google has the majority of the market shares when it comes to search engines. To make things a little clearer, we are going to provide you with some statistics. Over 80% of people use Google on a regular basis. Of that 80%, 46% of them are looking for a product or service. That means, if you do not have a web presence or negative comments about you, then you are hurting your business.
Google enables people to find out anything they ever wanted to know about your company. This can be anything from products and services that you provide, to what your CEO had for lunch. Ok, that last part may have been a little bit of an exaggeration. However, if it has ever been posted as to what they had for lunch, then you can bet your bottom dollar that someone can find it on Google.
This, in and of itself, should be enough to convince you that Google is important to your reputation. However, we know our customers and from that, we can discern that you are going to want even further proof.
Business Card
Think of Google’s first page as your business card. Since not many people look further than the first page of a Google search, you need to make sure this is the stuff that you want people to see. You don’t only want to have your company webpage on the first page, you also want all of your other pages there as well. This will include any social media, articles, press releases, reviews, and opinion pieces. Anything that you feel that your potential customers might want to see.
Much like the business card that you hand to someone contains the information that they need to know about you, so should the front page of Google. Failure to do so, just as in providing wrong information on your business card, can lead to a drop in customers.
Prolonged Crisis
While there are many good things that can be said about Google, there are just as many negative things that can be said. One of which is their ability to prolong a crisis. This is the reason that many people have started to advocate for the right to be forgotten. Just because you or your company made a mistake ten years ago, does not mean that you should be punished for that now.
If left unchecked, Google will continue to have the negative things that happened to you in the past on the front page of their results. The reason is, there has been nothing new to come along and replace it. Some argue that after a certain amount of time it should be removed, but Google maintains that if nothing replaces it, then it must still be true.
In order to make sure this does not happen to you, make sure that after the crisis you employ an online reputation management company. They will help you to drive down the negative rankings and replace it with the new information that Google is asking for.
Content
In Google’s eyes, the king is still content. If you expect to be on their first page, then you need to provide content. It doesn’t really matter about the amount of content that you provide as much as it matters about the quality. They also want to see you posting on a regular basis.
As you can see, Google is making the rules on how you rank on their pages. It does have a little bit to do with what people are clicking on, but that is just a byproduct of what there is for them to see. Therefore, if you have negative things on the front page, people are curious, and they are going to want to read about it. The key here is to make sure that they have other things to read other than the bad stuff. For now, you need to only focus on the first page. The second page is not somewhere that a lot of people go.
Conclusion
As you can see, Google has a major influence on your company. Not only do they make the rules, but they also alter them from time to time. It is up to you to make sure that you are up to date on what they want to see. Recently, they made the switch to voice searches having a priority. Therefore, if you are in the middle of making your website more accessible to mobile users, you need to start to make sure they are accessible to voice search as well. Failure to do this will find you ranking lower on the list. Remember, when it comes to your company, it is important to know how you appear to Google. Once you satisfy that, you are golden.