Search engines like Google are a vital source of customers for businesses of all sizes. Achieving visibility on Google is key. A quick and guaranteed way of doing this is with paid Google Ads. Normally these ads come at a cost that is paid in the form of a bid during the virtual auction process. But what if you don’t have a large marketing budget for ads or even no budget at all? Fortunately for SMBs trying to do Digital Marketing on a shoe-string budget, Google offers many opportunities for free and low-cost advertising. Here are some of the best examples of how to do free advertising on Google.
Free Advertising on Google with SEO
Take a look at Google's search engine results page (SERP) and regardless of the query, you will always notice two kinds of results: those with ‘ad’ written by them and those without. Any result on Google without the words ‘ad’ written by it — is referred to as an organic search result. Getting a top-ranking organic result on Google doesn’t require paying Google a fee. In this sense, SEO is free advertising on Google. The top organic ranking result is achieved by convincing the Google Algorithm that your page is the best fit for the user’s query. Putting this as simply as possible: making Google think your page’s setup and content is the best fit for what the user is typing into the search engine.
Naturally, the next question for any of you digital marketers on a small budget is how can I set my website up for free to achieve those top organic rankings? It is certainly possible to get free help with key areas of SEO. For instance, a big part of creating content that ranks well for phrases your customers use is targeting the right keywords. Free keywords tools like those included with rankingCoach Free will help you to find and target the best keywords to save time and money.
Improving your website’s technical SEO is also a great way to improve its SEO rankings and get free advertising on Google. For example, making your website more mobile-friendly, optimizing internal links, and creating an XML sitemap are all great ways of improving your SEO strategy, and this will help you to get more free visibility on Google.
If you don’t have the technical expertise to improve your website’s technical SEO, hiring a professional to improve it for you will not come cheap. On the other hand, digital marketing software like rankingCoach 360 can be extremely affordable. You can also take advantage of the free trial which includes an audit of your website’s technical SEO to show you what you need to improve upon. When it comes to implementing changes to your site’s technical setup, investing a little money in software that can guide you through the process is a much cheaper option than paying a consultancy and safer than going it alone.
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Boost Your SEO with FREE Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers free digital marketing analytics that provides valuable insight into how users find and interact with your website. Gaining this key information will help you to make smarter decisions with your SEO, and can also save you money on your Google Ads by helping you to see what’s working and what’s not. Google Analytics will also help you to find out whether or not your site can be found and crawled by Google. Remember, before customers can find you on Google the search engine must be able to find you and its content. Setting up a free Google Analytics account is a good way of making sure it can.
Setting up Google Analytics is also a great way of keeping track of your website’s visibility on Google and seeing where your site’s traffic is coming from, as well as the most successful pages on your website for visitor time and sales conversions. All this information will help to optimize your site to improve your rankings and get more free advertising for your business on the SERP.
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Free Keyword Monitoring
You have already found the right keywords for your business and even have top rankings, but you can lose this free advertising if you do not protect your ranking with keyword monitoring. Monitoring will inform you the moment your rankings start to drop so you can improve your content and ward off competitors trying to knock you off the top rankings.
Monitoring the rankings of your keywords will also help you to see when important keywords you are targeting start ranking. A page of yours may move up the rankings but just stop short of the first page. Knowing this will allow you to make those extra few changes that will lead to more valuable free advertising on the SERP. You can monitor the rankings of your keywords absolutely free using rankingCoach Free
Free Advertising with Google My Business & Local Directories
Another way to advertise on Google for free is through Google My Business and Local Directories. Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool that allows all kinds of organizations and businesses to expand their online presence. It enables you to establish a solid foundation on Google, on both Search and Maps. Using Google My Business is a crucial way of helping more customers to find your business. It is also a powerful way of verifying your business, building trust with the official Google association, and making sure you have control over your key business data so it’s always up to date on the SERP.
Google My Business will also help you boost your rankings and improve visibility on Google Maps. Best of all, Google My Business is completely free. With rankingCoach, you can take this even further as rankingCoach allows you to set up and Manage GMB and Google Analytics completely free.
Free Advertising on Local Directories
Free local directories like Yelp can help with the free advertising as well. Yelp and Tripadvisor have been around for so long that Google now trusts them! Many listings from their pages appear on the first page of Google, so setting up a listing complete with an attractive description and pictures of your business will make it easier for your site to rank well on search engines.
Other examples of free local and niche directories that can help you rank better on Google include the Yellowpage and Foursquare Once you have set up these listings, including it’s important to manage them and keep them to date, otherwise, that free advertising could give customers the wrong information and this would be a waste of that free advertising!
Set Up Social Media Accounts
Social media can also help you to get free advertising on Google. Setting up your social media accounts and linking them to your website is good for your SEO, building your following will bring more customers to your site, especially if you use it to distribute interesting content from your site. Increasing positive links and traffic to your site is good in itself but can also boost your visibility on search engines like Google.
The following social media accounts are good options for creating and linking to your site. The best ones for your business will vary depending on your target audience.
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Instagram
- LinkedIn
- Snapchat
- YouTube
It’s not sufficient to merely create these accounts. It is important to update and respond to comments made by the social media community about your business and post regularly. Social media is a great place to get your message out for offers and promotions, posts promoting these things are done in a way that engages with your audience and sticks to the style of the platform. Remember the likes and followers you get for your business may also share your content in their feed which will expand the reach of your promotional activities.
The Bottom Line on Free Marketing with Google
Beyond the introductory Free Google Ads with rankingCoach 360 there are many other opportunities for advertising on Google and free digital marketing tools that will improve the effectiveness of your current digital marketing activities and save you money. Especially keyword finding and monitoring tools and social media monitoring. Taking the time to set up a listing for your business on local directories and review platforms will also provide free advertising, if you take advantage of the right free tools, it will boost your SEO and visibility on the SERP.
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