Published : 9 years ago, on 14/04/2016

Once upon a time, small businesses advertised their goods or services in local print and radio outlets and this seemed sufficient until one day, Google, King of the Search Engines came along, created digital advertising and changed the scope of commercial possibilities for small enterprises, forever…

Here are just four ways that Google’s online advertising created happy endings, and happy beginnings for thousands of small businesses in Britain:

Reduced Costs:

Traditional forms of advertising were passive. Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) booked ads, paid for them and then waited for customers to call or stroll into their bricks-and-mortar store to gauge whether the expense was warranted. Even now, Yellow Pages, which once dominated the advertising arena, charge anything from a few hundred pounds to a few thousand for one fixed ad.

Google made advertising more cost efficient with the introduction of pay-per-click (PPC). With even the smallest of budgets, SMEs can now launch a PPC campaign of ads that only become billable once consumers click on them, but it gets better…

Greater Control:

Adverts previously placed in traditional outlets were fixed for anything up to a year, but Google ads made everything flexible and for the first time, full, instant control was given to small business owners.

With free tools like Google Analytics, SMEs can monitor and assess the impact of an ad, amend any which prove unsuccessful or deactivate those that generate overwhelming enquires or orders instantly to make advertising really work towards commercial aims and capabilities.

Understanding the technical aspects of doing this requires digital knowledge and commercial

insights but for the motivated, tech-savvy individual, Google search provides free and direct access to countless tutorials and how-to guides to help business owners create and control their own advertising.

Extended Reach:

Unlike print and radio advertising which is largely confined to geographical areas, Google’s targeted advertising services make it possible for SMEs to target a particular demographic at a specific time on a local or global scale.

Equally suited to nurseries who want to promote their services to families within a 20-mile radius and ambitious retailers who want to sell products worldwide, these targeted ads allow each individual organisation to reach more of the right customers at the right time and increase brand awareness and revenues.

Opportunity:

A solid advertising budget undoubtedly helps some companies stay ahead of the competition, but Google actively supports organic SEO with free, informative tools like Adwords that, in combination with algorithmic updates which prevent companies from manipulating rankings, have levelled the playing field between major corporations and local independents.

Perhaps more importantly, they made it possible for anyone with entrepreneurial flair, a small

budget and basic computing skills to open a small business and advertise it online. 99.9% of all

British business are now small to medium enterprises and 55% of them have been established since 2000; it’s no coincidence that that was the year that Google launched PPC.

This relationship between King Google and small British businesses is a mutually beneficial one; both enjoy increased revenues and enhanced reputations while new companies, like digital marketing agencies who act as a middle-man to help business owners who lack the time or skill to manage their online advertising, flourish.

Credibility:

Starting a business takes a lot of hard work and before Google came along, independent traders relied on traditional advertising, their heritage and their customer base to promote their services and spread word of their reliability and trustworthiness.

Then Google arrived and changed consumer expectations altogether. Now, this King of the search engines is the first port of call for anyone looking for information about a small business or the products or services that it might provide.

Consumers trust it, and any small enterprise that ranks in Google’s search results, whether it’s been trading as a family business for 100 years or is yet to reach its first anniversary is given something money can’t really buy: credibility.

This relationship between King Google and small British businesses is a mutually beneficial one; both enjoy increased revenues and enhanced reputations while new companies, like digital marketing agencies who act as a middle-man to help business owners who lack the time or skill to manage their online advertising, flourish.

Once such company is Yoma, a digital marketing agency who specialise in helping SMEs reap the rewards of life in the Google kingdom, so if you’re too busy running your business to run your online advertising, give them a call to find out how they can help you.