Do Your Competitors Fear You?

Most of the small businesses we work for are in the $1M to $25M revenue range and have maintained revenue through their existing clients and network of industry referrals. To break out of that cycle and achieve growth requires that a company get discovered by their target market in a crowded marketplace comprised of larger and established companies.

A simple examination would be to explore your industry on Google using various industry search queries. Think of individuals in your marketplace that are searching for products and services you offer. Imagine a person researching for information regarding your industry. These people do not know your company exists. As you perform searches, does your brand (Company) show up in these search results?

This is one of the initial goals of establishing a professional digital marketing function in your business. But don't be mistaken, the goal is a long, arduous experience that requires a commitment from your company leadership. But the return can be significant and result in business growth.

Let's start with your visuals and how you communicate the value of your products and services. This includes your logo, website, social media platforms, business cards, pitch decks, email campaigns, whitepapers, brochures, tradeshow materials, etc. - anything outsiders see and read about your company.

This is often a very time consuming and challenging process that may lead to a form of corporate soul-searching. We have experienced situations where this has halted the process as leadership deems a transformation of the value proportion is required before continuing with a standardization and professionalization of the brand.

This can be a mistake as it can delay and extend the process months or years, squandering time and opportunities. Unless, your company has recently undergone a complete transformation, the messaging should be improved and standardized for consistency and completeness. Realize that the presentation of your value proposition will grow and improve over time.

What do we mean by assets? This can be any or all materials that contain past and current communication of your company, products or services. This can be any and all history of contacts, customers - names, company, email addresses and/or phone numbers. Is this data scattered amongst your accounting system, CRM, email lists, Outlook contacts or in your employees individual contact list.

Next gather your website data and assets. Do you have a Google Analytics (GA) account? GA has a history of website traffic and data critical to digital marketing planning and strategy. Google Search Console (GSC) is another free tool providing valuable history of Google Search engine information regarding your site. These accounts should be "Owned" by the corporate gmail account and only grant access to employees and or 3rd party digital marketing agencies.

By normalization, I mean conducing a deep audit of your site technically and resolving issues. There are numerous best practices that every website should follow to assure Google can effectively crawl and index pages. Conduct a "site://mydomain.com" will list all pages of your site index on Google. Review all pages, titles and META descriptions for each page. Not all pages should be index and can be removed from Google using tools available at your Google Search Console Account.

GSC is such a great free tool provided by Google. Most website owners never no idea the tool exists. GSC provides a detailed insight into your site on Google search engines, pages that are indexed, search queries and more. Rhino never takes on a client without exploring their GSC history.

GSC will provide you with a complete list of search queries where your page is indexed, impressions and clicks. From here, you can develop a list of targeted search queries that you can target and get indexed.

Why not? Assuming your site is relevant to the search query and ultimately represents the searchers intent.

When your competitors see your site on various search queries where they are indexed, they face you as a competitor. If your site is displaying on search queries where their site exists, they risk you drawing clicks from potential customers that they will normally receive.