Google holds more than 90% of the search market share. Unfortunately, that very popularity figure has turned it into a nightmare for small business owners.
Simply speaking, Google has to try and rank so many different websites, many of which differ very little in terms of quality, that it had to resort to some extreme measures to decide which website has to rank where in its search results.
While their situation is understandable, it begs the question:
Where does that leave YOU?
In the case of many small businesses, it literally means zero traffic. In the case of businesses servicing a large area, it often means zero leads or sales coming in from Google – unless you pay a lot of money for pay per click ads.
It also means that search engine optimization services for Google – from people who actually know what they do – cost a LOT.
But what are the complaints about Google?
Without getting into too many details…
Well, originally the internet was supposed to level the playing field between the little guy and the big guys. On Google, it doesn’t work that way any more.
Google now looks for websites with authority, which display expertise and experience, which people trust.
As a small business website, how on earth are you going to compete with a much bigger business, who has a bigger budget for content writers and search engine optimization?
Not to mention that, if you want to start a blog to attract traffic to your website, you could be looking at a requirement of more than 2,000 words per post to compete with the top results.
And while Google is adamant that backlinks provide signals about authority and trust, they have not only started ignoring most of the backlink options available to you, but they started actually penalizing people for “not having a natural backlink profile” – the meaning of which seems to change every few years.
So, before we get into a three-day discussion about everything wrong with Google…
What can small business owners do without Google?
You have a few options:
1. Paid traffic.
No, not from Google. Most niches have prohibitive costs per click on Google ads. There are, however, many other options to explore, although some of them may come with a bit of a learning curve (in order to run them profitably).
You have native advertising (ads that look like part of the content) from networks like Taboolah.
You have push advertising (which looks like a notification on your phone or desktop) from networks like Propeller Ads.
You have Bing Ads, which also distributes to Yahoo and AOL, and which – in most cases – cost notably less than similar ads on Google (albeit with a lower reach).
You can run ads on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok or Pinterest, depending on the demographics of your clientele.
And finally, you can do individual agreements for advertising – both with webmasters and with social media influencers.
2. Build social media assets.
Fair enough, this takes time and effort – but so does getting traffic from Google. In fact, getting traffic from Google is likely to take longer, and require more effort and/or expense.
Start off with one social media network, where your target audience hangs out (look at the demographics for the different networks to see which one you should focus on).
Learn everything you can about it, and build out that presence as best as you can.
Once that one is going, include the next platform, and then the next.
Eventually, you will – ideally – have several social profiles/pages, on several social networks, each of which should have a notable presence.
Done properly, this will give you “traffic on demand”, pretty much like opening a tap whenever you need water.
3. Aim your efforts at Bing.
This one is not for everybody. If you service a small area, there might simply not be enough Bing users to make it worth your while.
Also, the majority of Bing users nowadays are between 25 and 44 years old – as opposed to the older crowd who used MSN Search (which Bing replaced).
Not to mention that almost two thirds of Bing users are male.
So, if you want to say, sell knitting supplies to seniors in a small town…
Then Bing will probably not work for you.
However, if you are offering say, automotive spares in a city, it might just work for you.
Important to note:
While there are many similarities to what Google and Bing looks for on a website, there are some fundamental differences.
For one, Bing hasn’t jumped on this whole “authority and expertise” bandwagon yet. Instead, they have recommended “writing for humans” for many years (as opposed to writing for the search engine).
While Google has been saying the same thing for many years, their results often appear to not live up to their own instructions.
Also, one huge difference is this: Bing places a LOT more value on social signals…
The more likes and shares you get on a social post linking back to your website, the more weight it carries with Bing.
As a result, the more established your social presence becomes, the more traffic you will see from Bing.
Not to mention that Bing is not nearly as full of bull about backlinks as Google is, so it is easier to build links – and be rewarded for it – on Bing.
That being said, Bing is a bit more fussy about the basic quality of your website, which is why they have much fewer indexed sites than Google. You need to get your basic search engine optimization sorted if you want to get onto Bing.
Finally, in the Bing search results, local businesses are a priority. They give preferential placement to websites from local businesses (during localized searches) – apparently more so than Google.
In conclusion
The websites at the top of Google are getting tons of traffic. There is no denying that. But for some businesses, the incredibly tough competition means that it is just not worth the time and money to get there.
If that is where you are at, you may need to do some homework to see what will work best for you.
Or, if you are not sure how to proceed, let’s talk. Maybe we can help with that.