Get a Free Business Phone Number Using Google Voice

Many small business owners and entrepreneurs, including myself, get into the habit of giving out their personal cell phone number when they first start doing business.  This not only creates a bit of chaos when attempting to handle personal and business calls using the same line, but it also limits the way you are able to greet your potential customers when they call to get information about your services.  While obtaining a new phone number through your wireless carrier or a third party company is a viable option, it can often get very expensive.  In the first stages of starting a business, especially if you're the sole employee, any added expenses hurts your bottom line and lessens the amount of capital you have to put back into your business.

To honor some of your clients' success, and to provide a quick view into the amount of profit and exposure there is to gain through search engine optimization or SEO, we wanted to quickly share some of the most recent results from our SEO Case Studies.

How Can I Get Ranked on The First Page of Google?

Every web site owner wants to see their web site on the first page of Google and Yahoo and the other major search engines.  We all know that the majority of searches never go past the first page of results, so it's obvious that it would be every web site owner's goal to be ranked number one.  With only 10 results displayed per page, it can be difficult to reach the top 10, especially when every other person that's targetting your keywords is going after the same rank.

The question now, is how can I reach the first page on Google if so many others are trying to as well?

Using Google Adwords to Increase Traffic

Every website and business needs some form of advertising to get exposure and in turn traffic.  As paper mediums have slowly lost their effect, people are moving towards the internet for their advertising.  The best way to advertise online is to have a website, but how do you drive traffic to it?

There are many different ways to advertise online, you may pay other websites to display a banner or mention you in an article or you spam your links all over the web, but there is a solid and proven solution out there that many people overlook.

Google is by far one of the most recognizable names in business and on the web, and they offer a program called Google AdWords that allows you to get your website where it needs to be for free, right in front of your customers' eyes.  The program will place your customized ad on search results pages in the Sponsored Links section of search results.  You provide AdWords with the keywords you'd like to show up under, and then tell them how much your willing to pay per click.  That's it, you get your link on the top pages of Google searches under your designated keywords, choose how much your willing to pay for each click and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.  By using this program you can actually believe that guarantee that "you'll see your site on the first page of Google" because you're working directly with Google to get it there.  While you're site won't show up in regular search engines without quality SEO, your ads will display right next to the top search results with your customized links and text.

Pay Per Click

AdWords uses a pay per click system, which means your ad will be displayed on search pages completely free to you until someone clicks on your ad.  Once you sign up for the program you can start setting up your first ad campaign.  At this point you will decide how much you want to pay per click and Google will recommend a price based on what others are willing to pay.  The more you are willing to pay per click the higher up your ad will appear.  Once you decide on the price you want to pay, you can decide how much your willing to pay per day.  This option gives you complete control over your advertising budget.  If you have a $100 monthly advertising budget you set it up per day so you won't exceed a certain dollar amount per day, allowing you to advertise all month long without breaking your budget.  At the end of the month you can check how your first campaign did, if AdWords brought in quality traffic and not just click-thru's then you can decide whether you'd like to spend a bit more or a bit less based on your campaign results.

Creating Your Ads

When you create you ad you won't be using standard SEO practices as your ads won't be shown with the standard search results.  Instead you will create a custom ad that will appear in the sponsored links section on search result pages and on other google ads.  Your ads will be shown on search results based on the keywords you provide and will only appear when a search contains your keywords.

Since the ad you create is the only thing a user will see with regards to your website, it needs to be built based on the keywords you want to be related to.  You want the ad to grab the users attention.  Your ad will contain 3 parts:

Ad Title

The title will appear as a blue link at the top of your ad.  It might seem obvious to use the title of your website but it's to avoid this.  People have a tendency to read top to bottom, left to right.  If the title of your ad doesn't tell them that they've found what they're looking for its likely to get passed over.  With that in mind make your title relevant to your content.  Instead of "Super Awesome Inc" set your title as "HVAC Certified Installations".  When your title leads into the description you have a better chance of the user reading the ad and being led to your site.

Ad Description

The description will be a plain text phrase directly below the title.  This phrase will be about 2 lines deep and should be quick and to the point.  As this is the only information the user will see it needs to describe exactly what you can offer them without being extremely detailed.  Instead of "We will get you a good deal on our services" use something like "Quality car repair by GM Certified Mechanics and discount prices!". Make sure you get the point across with descriptive words.

Ad Link

The 3rd component of your ad will be the link.  The link will display in green and will direct customers to your site.  The link can be the regular "www.myRiseDesign.net" style link or can be a bit more direct.  If you sell multiple products you want to have your ad send the user directly to the product your advertising instead of your homepage.  If you send customers to the main page and force them to search through the site you will risk losing the sale and the money you spent to bring that customer in will have been wasted.  Set the link to your site to "www.mycompany.com/store" and they will be able to see the products your wanting to sell rather than your main page which is the goal of the entire ad campaign, making sales.

Choosing Your Keywords

No matter how impressive your ad looks when you finish it, it will be no use to anyone if your keywords fall short of your ads excellence.  The most important aspect to choosing your keywords is to make sure they're relevant to your website and the link the ad will send the user to..  You paid good money for your ad to send people to your site, so you want them to find what they were looking for so they'll come back without you paying for it.  If you have quality SEO on your site or are using a tracking program like Google Analytics you can find out what keywords are being used to find your site.  If not, you can base the keywords for your ad campaign off the content of your site.  Without some kind of analytics on your site choosing keywords becomes a bit more of a hefty task.  Examine your site and see what words are used most often?  What words best describe what you have to offer potential customers?  Figure out the words you think your customers will be searching for if they want your product or service and make a list of them.  While you do this, consider what phrases a user might search for as well.  Your list should contain words and phrases like "car, repair, certified mechanics, honda civic parts".  The more detailed and creative you get the better your campaign will work.  Try to remember when choosing your keywords to leave out words like "my, if, the, and" as they will have no relevance when someone searches.

By following these tips you should be able to increase the effectiveness of your AdWords campaign and drive new quality traffic to your site.

The information presented in the above article is not warranted or guaranteed by myRise Design to be effective and should not be construed as fact.  The information is provided for educational and entertainment purposes to provide foundations for the reader to use in personal ventures.  myRise Design will not be held liable for any negative consequences incurred from implimentation of the content in this article.