This is a major gap for many businesses across Trinidad and Tobago, their business cannot be found via the #1 way that people learn about businesses today…Google.

Think about this, whenever you have a question, your back is hurting, you need to find out who got standing desks for the office, or you have a question about insurance, the first place people tend to go with their questions or queries.

There begins the customer journey. 

For context, according to Hootsuite’s yearly data report for 2021, the most viewed website in Trinidad and Tobago was Google, followed by YouTube and then Amazon.

Citizens of T&T for Sept 2022 visited Google more than 835 million times.

Now here is why your business needs to be Googleable, Google and other search engines like Bing or Yahoo, do not Index social media content. They do index usernames, so whilst if someone Googles your business name and your social media handles will show up, your content won’t.

However, unless you are a celebrity, nobody is Googling your business name or even the name of the business owner. They Google the things they have problems with, and the things they are desiring to have and then whoever shows up on Google Search, that’s who will typically get the sale on their website, the phone call or even the visit to their physical location. 

According to Google, while 63% of all sales transactions online start from a Google Search, 88% of those who Google your business will typically visit your physical store within 7 days. Google is also giving you the tools to track how many times people are calling your business and then how many times people are visiting your business. 

The shift that businesses need to make now is rather than focusing on Ads, they need to start focusing on what exactly are people searching for within our industry that we can help them with. Once we know that, then you want to start creating content and information that answers those questions or queries that they have and doing it on platforms that Google indexes.

What you want is anytime your audience or potential customers are going on Google to search for something in your industry, your company should be showing up in the Search Results, giving people the information they need and also having your products showing up in the results.  

The more Google results your content or products are showing up for in the Search Engines, the more trust you will build with your audience. This is also how we go about building organic traffic which Is the most coveted type of traffic in marketing.

Organic traffic costs you the upfront investment of creating the content or information but once it gets indexed by the search engines, it will continue to be shown on Google for years to come, as long as that content remains on your website. 

A business’s goal now needs to be to show up for as many Google searches in your industry, that way whatever your audience is searching for, your brand is a part of the results. This will help to establish trust with your audience and also increase traffic to your platform. The more traffic your site can bring in, this will give you the ability to build your email list, and push notification list and also help to build your targeting pixel pools (Think Facebook Pixel for retargeting site visitors on Facebook). 

One way to know exactly what people are searching for start typing into Google a word in your industry and look at the Auto Suggestions that Google gives you in the drop-down. Those are questions that are currently trending in your country surrounding that word.

Learning how to be Googleable is how you are going to be able to take market share away from competitors and also start showing up where they are not. 

Social media in Trinidad and Tobago is crowded. However, still, most businesses aren’t showing up on Google and this is a big gap that we need to take advantage of, especially if we want to start getting international clients. 

You also need to consider that apps like your favourite Maps also pull information from Google so that when you ask Google or Siri for the location of a business or the business phone number, these apps are pulling information from Google in order to display the business on the maps or give you the phone number to contact the business.

What about one of our favourite ways to get info, reverse image searches?

Google and other Search Engines are pulling images from websites and that allows for reverse image searches to happen.

Ever tried Google Lens? You would have noticed that all of those images and information are pulled from websites thanks to Google.

There are a number of ways that Google pulls information and provides it to us, those conducting the searches. The more your business understands how Google works, you can start to put the right content and information in front of your ideal clients.

This will help establish trust, build discoverability and increase business conversions.

If you would love to learn how to get your business Googleable, learn the strategies needed for your brand to become the top resource for clients and also learn about all of the ways Google pulls info from, to index so you can show up in various formats for your clients, then I got something for you. 

On Saturday, November 19th, I will be having a workshop called “ Becoming Googleable”. This is for businesses, entrepreneurs, advocates, influencers, and even employees who are looking to build their names to land a new job should attend. This workshop will cost $45usd/$300ttd and you can get all of the information on KeronRose.com.

Hit the link to reserve your spot in the workshop – The Becoming Googleable Workshop.

Becoming Googleable is the most important thing to do digitally for your business to succeed.