Are you committing Googlecide? Martin emailed me to arrange a call. We had the call and he told me the following. 20 months ago we invested time, energy and cash into our new website business selling equipment to the —— trade. Our business has grown so fast through organic search and made very good money. It’s just busy and we never stop.

UNTIL THAT IS …

Google sent a penguin to overhaul everything and since then we went from most of our pages listing on page one to three to just our index page listing on page 11 of Google. Not only has it affected our business but it stopped our business dead in its tracks”

“Martin what other marketing do you do?”

“Nothing”

“So you rely 100% on Google organic searches?”

After a brief silence Martin replied,

“Yes”

Its alarming to hear so many calls saying the same thing.

An alarm will go off to let you know there is a problem and frankly if you are investing all of your time and efforts into GOOGLE and GOOGLE only you are in big trouble and here is why.

If you rely solely on Google (and more and more do) you are actually placing your business in the hands of a controller that is now in control of the flow of your business.

• They say when you are busy.
• They say when you are quiet.
• They can disrupt your business in one action.
• They can cut your income to zero (even we had this with one of our websites)
• They can drop all of your positions overnight.
• They can restrict access to your websites
• They can destroy your business to the extent you may have to sell your home.

And to add insult to injury they even take data from everything you are doing so they can not just control your business but take make-or-break choices about your business without even asking you.

It’s complicated (like most relationships are).

So if Google have cut you down in your prime what can you do?

Well it’s not just about what you can do but more about what have you been doing so let me fire this at you (and write the replies down on a sheet of paper on your desk)

Can you write down 12 tactics you use weekly in your marketing? (most can rarely scribble more than 2 so don’t worry - just do it)

Can you write down you actual strategy for the next 12 months and detail the marketing plan to fulfill your strategy?

Can you write 10 tactics you use that don’t involve Google?

That was tough right? And that’s because the mainstream feed us endlessly that the only way to take your business into the marketplace is through Google. Non experts playing at being real marketing experts say this to you …

• We can get you Google listings
• You need a strong social media strategy

Yet when Google drop you - what they tell you and what they do for you means nothing.

Now don’t get me wrong marketing has changed and changed big time. The reactions and the reasons people take action are very different to what they have ever been. The time you have to get across your message has changed.

Take this for example.

Go to YouTube and look at a video. You’ll see at the start of the video there is an advert. The ad tells you in 5 seconds you can skip that ad. Yet I would say almost 100% of those doing video marketing STILL create video adverts that are 30-60 seconds. Let me ask you; do you watch the ad or skip it after 5 seconds? I always skip!

So those days have gone and the reality is the ad should be created to suit the habit. The habit of the user is to skip the ad. So you either change the way you do ads or you tell them everything in 5 seconds - believe me - that is possible when done right!

So habits have changed and the way people react has changed and even if you are creating powerful marketing and not creating it with the habits of the new way people look and feel you are stuffed.

Even worse if you are totally relying on Google as your main source of leads, customers, sales or getting seen you have a major problem looming or happened already.

Let me step back a little.

In the 90s when Madonna was the queen of pop I still had to keep my hairdressing salons packed with paying customers.

There was NO google and intact as far as I was concerned there was NO internet until 1998 and even then dial-up could barely dial-up never mind show things like images.

If I did one thing to get clients it was nothing of any impact (what all salons were doing).

If I did two things it hardly had any effect.

If I did more than 4-5 things the affect would start to show.

Yet eventually one thing I discovered was if I did a magic 12 things DAILY to market my salons with NO Google well within 18 months not only did we rarely have a slow day we quickly became the number one salon out of 35 salons in that town.

Even with my OrangeBeetle company in the early days I quickly worked out how to maintain a steady flow of leads, business and sales without Google (because Google had not been invented) only to be quickly recognised as an expert in my field.

Everytime I work with a client like you the first thing I need to know is how reliant on Google are you?

The second thing we work on is how to we become less reliant on Google and Google alone?

Why? So you have a steady a stable and a consistently profitable business. If everything is going through Google right now you are in big trouble at some point.

Here’s a couple of things you can chew over.

• Direct Mail - Do you do it and if you do is it effective?
• Email Opted Lists - Do you do it, do you know how to do it, is it effective?
• Magazine or Newspaper Ads  - you do them but do they work?
• PR Marketing, flyers, social media, tactical marketing, referral and actually there are hundreds of ways you can take your business to market effectively.

Here’s one thing I know working as a direct marketing consultant for the past 15 years most business try marketing, are not sure why they are marketing and don’t get the results from the marketing they do.

How about you? If you are reliant solely on Google you have a problem that will drive at some point.

If you are solely reliant on organic search for your sales well frankly your screwed or will be at some point... it's

Googlecide

Here’s what I can do for you.

• Listen to the problems you have
• Look over all of your current marketing materials
• Create a strategic marketing strategy
• Build tactical campaigns for sales
• Grow your business fast with or without Google
• Create powerful ads and copy that sells
• Build your brand and perceptions

And so much more - just ask. Here’s one thing I do know and it’s this. If you keep relying on Google to create a steady, happy, profitable business at some point soon you’ll be in trouble.

 Just ask me here for help. From the desk of the Googlecide prevention squad.