Remember back in the day when everyone had an ad in the Yellow Pages? That's all you had to do to kick off your advertising; everything else was word of mouth. You may have spent a couple of extra coins to make sure your ads stood out. But when folks were looking for help, they checked one of two places: their neighbors and the Yellow Pages. Even though Yellow Pages still exists, who actually uses it? Google is the new Yellow Pages.
One of the easiest ways to make sure people can find you is to set up your business listing on Google! This search engine is something that people use every single day. In fact, it's so popular that the word Google itself has become a verb meaning to “look up online”. So, if the world is using Google to look for everything from recipes to lawyers, it just makes sense that your business is there too!
Once you have your free listing, you are able to add details like your physical address, website, business description, and services. However, Google has stepped it up so that you can now also add photographs, videos, and even customer reviews! It's like having a free website created for you. You can add posts, promos, QR codes and more.
Once your listing is up and running, you want to make sure that you are working hard to get it ranked higher. Using Google Ads and other tools, your business can move up the list so that it shows up on the first page when someone googles your business name. Now this is something you can do organically on your own or you can hire someone to help you out. Frankly, I leave this up to the experts! This is definitely something that you can outsource and use that time to work on other parts of your business.
So, stop what you are doing and make sure that your business is listed on Google. It's the first step in your exposure journey!