Choosing business vendors, google ranking and getting more customers

I often see companies get bogged down by activities that are unrelated to their core business (selection of tech vendors, choosing platforms, etc). It’s such a universal situation that I think it warrants a little space on the Witmer blog. And, it actually got me thinking about Google+ – which everything seems to lead back to nowadays anyway.

Let’s think about choosing the technology that will support your business for whatever you  might need. This could be anything from phone services to a marketing automation platform, from your hosting solution to the technology you build your site in. These are often decisions made earlier in a businesses life cycle but have monumental impact on the future growth of the business. Vetting technology solutions is a really tough process – not just tough, but exhausting, time consuming and I’m not sure how accurate the end result is either. For example, at my previous agency, RFP’s were the norm, and what I learned was that the deliverables rarely matched what you saw in the sales/RFP process. You rarely get to continue working with that sales team right? What’s always been ‘tried and true’ though is referrals from trusted peers. Peer and trusted recommendations make all of the difference whether its phone solutions, document sharing platforms, social distribution resources, or whatever.

Google ranking and content authoring go hand and hand. To quickly make the connection and expedite this post, I will simply say Google+ is the equivalent of a peer / authoritative referral – and it’s only going to get more powerful over time. And here’s where I can prove it.

Here’s an example. I searched for ‘marketing automation software’ and here’s my results:

1. The paid stuff still dominates the top area
2. The number one organic result takes first place below the paid items
3. A blog article take place #2. Ashley, the author, is IN 903 google+ circles – note, I didn’t say how many circles she had or how many circles she put people into. She’s in 903 circles, 903 people/companies/ideas put her in their circle – that’s validation.
4. Her picture is there, and it really stands out from the other results. A coincidence? Of course not. I would argue that this highly circled google+ contributor is the #1 placement on this page of search results based on ‘ability to stand out’
5. There’s a second search result further down the page (but still on page 1) which belongs to a top vendor of marketing automation. He’s in 426 circles though, I’m sure he will continue to move up the page over time!

So get writing great content, join communities and keep growing. Until our next chat! Happy marketing!