This Is Where Your Time Is Best Spent In Search Marketing

Don’t be psyched out. Basic principals still hold true, even when it comes to the internet and so-called digital marketing. It’s no different that any other marketing. You want to play in the big game; you want to go where the most fish are. Don’t be distracted by side hustles, also known as “directories.”

Transcript:

Good morning Michael Byrd here with Home Services Digital doing another video talking about search we are talking about search for the purpose of getting your phone to ring and we are talking mostly to plumbers heating and air contractors roofers painters flooring companies and others who provide home services. typically your customer isn’t somebody who has a person they might they might get a referral but you want to also you want to be winning in search that is where the game is played today. Last video I talked about scanning the 10 we leaked down or left down into the 10 organic search results and we went through and we identified two types of results there. Directories and actual competitors and hopefully maybe you’re in that list of actual providers for service before we get into the part of it today I want to I want to talk a little bit a little fireside chat I guess you would call it about trusting your own mind and common sense. And I go back to a story that was there was a moment that was important for me when I was right out of college I was in journalism back in the day weekly newspaper and it went to the newspapers of turning to ask him about libel law it was in a particular situation with a with a story and the attorney took time with me it was a Southern gentleman wore suit he pulled out a legal pad. And we sat down and we looked at the law book and he said well let’s just look at the law right here and he had his legal pad which I do a lot in too and we took the first sentence of the thing. Now obviously on was at the time that I am still an English major and graduated with journalism I could read the English language but what he was doing by breaking this down was he was showing me that I could trust my own mind. And the implication was just because he’s a lawyer and I’m not a lawyer doesn’t mean I couldn’t read the law and understand it. And so today I want you to trust your own mind and Trust the math we’re going to go through some real basic obvious math that a lot of people miss when it comes to search where it’s related to directories so you can understand this it’s important to have a framework for context of philosophy if you will on understanding things conceptually. You don’t have to get into a lot of mumbo-jumbo language I don’t do it but as far as digital marketing is concerned so don’t be psyched that I guess that’s part of what I’m what I’m saying here. All right now we’re going to switch over to Spain when I start recording in Spain my head’s going to shrink and we’re going to go on into the picture-in-picture bit so here we are. Now let’s say I did a search for roofers in Wilmington North Carolina yeah I don’t believe we’ve touched on roofing yet and we’re going to skip the ads we’re going to skip the skip the maps for now I want to come back to maps. And we talked in general sense about directories and actual competitors here is a provider Flores and folia actually I happen to know them good roofing contractor in Wilmington his Baker roofing another good one, here’s another directory some techno we did this last time so I’m not going to bore you with all this. What I want you to see and we actually did touch on this a little bit what I want you to see is that the person who’s looking for a roofer has in front of them a list this list right here and there are 10 we just know that there are 10 in a Google organic search result section. And then you get down here and do some more ads over here you got 10 here you got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 roofers and 5 directories now. If I’m the kind of person that is going to make it go to Google search and I’m going to skip the ads and skip the maps which not everybody does obviously I’ve got a choice to make I’ve got a choice to either choose a roofer an actual roofer floor isn’t fully right here number one first roofer that comes up after home advisor which is director or  Baker moving. I can see something about and I can just check them out look at maybe I look at these two websites and I call each of those two and or I can choose one of these directories. I have a 1 in 10 chance if I’m the roofer of  getting this search now it’s not exactly 1 in 10 but roughly speaking it’s a 1 in 10 chance. What if one of the some people actually do pick a directory Home Advisors advertising on television now so they may get a click and you can just see right here without even clicking on it what you’re going to get you’re going to get 25 roofers in other words it’s another list and if you are florida’s and foley roofing let’s say or baker roofing let’s say or a roofer that’s not on this page where would you want to be would you want to be. On this page here may let’s say just to throw out a number let’s say it gets a hundred thousand searches or would you want to be in one tenth of that ten thousand searches here and now you still only have a one in 25 chance of getting click. You want to be in the big pool that’s what I’m saying and just to carry this a little bit further how is it that home advisor or thumbtack you see them here thumbtack or one of these other directories bbb.org Angie’s List we’ve heard of these yellow pages we’ve heard of these how is it that these people have a business and they may have a great business how is it that they have a business. Getting only 1/10 of the clicks and you still up against 24 competitors if you want people that bought into their deal, how is it that they have a business? Well I’m going to tell you in short in short terms, number one I guess and homeadvisor advertises on TV so they are building a little bit of a brand to themself but what they’re doing is they have a great sales effort to come out and they sit in front of you now. Google doesn’t do that so I’m doing it to help you to see that really being on the Google page is 10 times better ten times better, maybe more than 10 times better if you factor in the 25 bit here. What homeadvisor is going to do in their sales offer is they’re going to show you statistics probably honest statistics about the 10,000 searches that happened last year they’re not going to mention the fact that people got to them a hundred thousand searches and nine out of ten didn’t click on okay so they’re not telling you that 10,000 searches rule was I like a big number it is a big everything with the internet is a big number. 10,000 searches in Sarasota and you get this and you get that and if you spend my money you get one of those featured positions in that list of 25 I’m just going to click on it just so you see what I’m talking about here. And I want you to do that as your takeaway for today the real point of this video I’ll just go ahead and wrap it up is that the math is overwhelmingly in favor of the Google place look at all these people going to be up against yeah you can do it yeah they show you stars but you get all that in the Google page too so it’s trying to win the big game and don’t go get into little one a little side games Unless you just don’t have a chance on the big game and you do so you take away is to do a search look at the directories and actually click on it and think about the math here just see what you you’re up against. I got one more request for you I’ve been I’ve been failing to do this I have started the video series based on Gary Vaynerchuk’s advices is the way to get started start so that’s what about to try to provide advice I have not asked you to subscribe but I would like you to subscribe and I would like you to also tell a friend about this. Tell somebody in in not a competitor necessarily but somebody a roofer a painter a plumber somebody that you know to listen to this series and get some get some advice on search so you can you can win the game Thanks Michael Byrd with HomeServices Digital.