The decision tree: Here’s how you get business in search
Good afternoon. Michael Byrd here with Home Services Digital for video number 17.
I’m going to back out a little bit from going down the the path of organic search today and just explain a little bit why we chose that path, and the greater context because we are gonna go and look at some other parts of that first page of Google that mythical first page of Google.
I mentioned Stephen Covey in the last video. I talked about beginning with the end in mind. That’s one of the seven habits: begin with the end in mind. And one other of the seven habits is do first things first. That’s again to focus on why we want to pick one tactic over another. The two main ways of measuring what are first things: what is the first thing you should do, or what is the next thing you should do. It should either be the biggest and most effective option, or the one that’s going to give you a quick win, and perhaps at low expense of time or money.
So I want to switch over to the screen. I drew up a little decision tree. It’s not great artwork but it will help to illustrate the point, just to help you get a little bit more oriented on where we are and why we are where we are.
Here’s how people searching online might find you
All right so what we started with is marketing options. You should be using many marketing options. I encourage the use of search for one very important reason and that is because, in search, people are looking for you. They are ready for what you’re doing. They’re gonna buy from somebody. They need a plumber, in this case. They’ve done a search. It used to be that people went to the Yellow Pages to find a plumber. Now they go to a Google search window and that is just
the way of the world. You can look up statistics if you want. You can just go by your own experience and what you do and what the people around you do, and if
you have children you’re gonna see them doing it. Everybody goes to Google, I can just assure you.
So you’re doing some other things marketing-wise but you want to do the things that get you in front of the customer that’s already looking for you. You don’t have to find them. They’re trying to find you. So you’ve got to be there so that they can find you.
So that’s this decision right here. A these various shapes are the levels of decision. So as we move down the page we’ve made this decision. We’re gonna do this one. You’re going to do some of these other ones, too, but right now we’re talking about Google search.
The organic search results are 1 of 3 ways someone might find you on Google
So somebody does a Google search and then they’re gonna end up here at this, at this lime green level. I’m just gonna illustrate this. I’m showing it to you here. You’ve got three options here, and they’re all good. That’s represented by this right here. It was this first page of Google and, remember, that doesn’t describe it accurately. It’s the first page of Google for this search in this marketplace. There are many many many many many millions and billions and trillions of pages of first pages of Google in fact. So you have what I just showed you on the decision tree: the ads, the map, and the organic results.
So let’s go back to the decision tree and recognize that this lime green area of those three sections. We decided to focus on organic search. I want to make this point again: We decided to focus on organic search not because it’s necessarily the best place for you. It might be. It may be the best option for you, and in the next video we’re going to talk about how you decide whether to go this way first or Maps first or ads first. I would say that, generally speaking, you ought to end up in all three. We’re just gonna pick our shots based on criteria, but I don’t want to get into that now. We had already started down organic search for one reason only and that is because when somebody does a Google search, that is what they are thinking about, those 10 results. They might actually pick something from ads or Maps but what you’re thinking about is the 10 search results, OK, also known as organic search.
You’re up against your competitors, but also up against the directories
All right, so let’s go down another level of decision. The person has decided on the 10, that section of 10 down below the Maps. Let’s just go back there and just reiterate that that’s right here, down here, we’re down in this playing field among this 10. The decision’s gonna be made among this 10. OK, now, there are two types of results there. We talked about those in a previous video. We have individual players in the marketplace of plumbers. That would be you, your plumbing company, and your competitors: Acme Plumbing, Joe Smith’s Plumbing, somebody else’s plumbing company. There are those kinds of results, and there are directories. We talked about directories. We actually went down that path a little bit and I showed you what that was about and why we are not for that. Now then, I’m back out of that. There may be an instance where you might want to be over here. We’re not really talking about that and not gonna talk about it any time soon because we talked about the math.
Now I wrote in here 1 to 7. Don’t be too confused by that. There are 10 results. I really messed it up because — not really messed it up — but there are 6 here but we have 10. It’s 1 through 10, and I wrote in here, you and your competitors 1 through 7 because usually there are at least three directories on the page. So a page that’s rich in actual plumbers and maybe they have 7 on it and three directories in a small market. It might be the other way around. You might have only 3 plumbers and 7 directories, but more or less here.
So we’re gonna go down another level of decision. Your prospect sees these decisions and decides to pick you. So let me jump over here to that. We’re gonna use a particular example that is not our customer. I used it because I thought it was good. Their title tag, their headline, is good: East Coast Plumbing and Drain Wilmington Leland NC Plumbers. It’s not great, but among the individual providers on this page it’s maybe the best of the bunch. So somebody clicks on this, and I’ve already got it queued up. I could click it but let me just go here. We have this. This is the landing page, which happens to also be their home page. And it’s pretty good. You see some things right out of the gate. The page looks good. It’s gotta look professional. That is a credibility factor for the person. If you see a clunky page or a page that’s obviously old, hasn’t been shown much attention, it’s less, it’s just not reassuring you know. Is this a “going concern” that’s got enough money to keep their page up or not? East Coast Plumbing and Drain — they bothered with the logo, they’ve got the phone number right here. We’re talking about conversions. They’ve got this: some people are shy. They’d rather you call them. I mean, that’s a small thing but that is just the way people work. And we know with the internet that we do a lot of trials and we see that with A-B testing. It’s a good number of people that would rather you call them, and they’re testing you. ”I’m gonna just hit this button and put my information in here and see if they call me.” If you don’t they’re probably gonna move on somewhere else. I don’t want to go too much more into this ‘cause we’ve already done it, how you get a conversion.
They could still bounce after they get to your page. You’ve got to be good!
So let’s go back to the decision tree. They’ve made the click on this page to East Coast Plumbing. Click. There we go. That’s this. They go to your landing page. We just showed that. Now we get the conversion. Oh, wait. They go to your landing page to go over here, East Coast Plumbing. If it’s not good, they have decisions to make too. They could bounce. Uh oh. That’s not good. Or a conversion. Now, understand, this is a conversion for for your purposes but it’s not a total conversion. It’s not a sale. You have to do the rest of the conversion when they call you or when they push that button and ask you to call them. That’s also known as a form. They would have to put some information into that and then you get to the last really good thing which is the sale. Or if they talk to you and you don’t get them or you don’t want ‘em it’s no sale but that’s how you end up in a sale.
As much as this might look a little convoluted this is a pretty straightforward path. And remember, you didn’t have to go find this customer. They found you. You just made a good impression, which caused them to make a click and then your landing page made a good enough impression in the other sense, which is they decided to do something, take action, instead of bouncing, and then you converted them. That’s how we get business from search.
And that is our video for today. Michael Byrd with Home Services Digital. Please subscribe. It makes it easier for you. You’ll get a notice that the next video is up and you can watch or listen on your phone. And please tell a friend in other home services business to subscribe.
