As the world gets into the competitive spirit this August, Google is challenging small business owners to brush up on their digital marketing skills. For the next two weeks, the Google Small Business team is unveiling a #SmallBizGames digital marketing challenge each day, with each designed to help small businesses get online and ready for the upcoming holiday season.
To further help small business owners, Google Small Business Advisors are standing by as #SmallBizGames coaches, ready and willing to provide tips, support, and advice for each challenge.
Starting Line Challenge: Get a custom domain name for your business.
Services like Google Domains help you register a custom URL for your business quickly and easily.
Ready-Set-Go Challenge: Make sure your business can be found on Google.
Set up a Google My Business account and update your business info including summer hours, photos, and business location.
Warm-up Challenge: Start a list of search keywords that are relevant to your business.
It’s recommended that each AdWords group includes 5-20 keywords.
Target Practice Challenge: Make sure your marketing targets the most relevant locations.
AdWords campaigns can be targeted by country, region, citiy, zip code, or radius around a location.
Crowd-pleaser Challenge: Ask five customers to leave a review of your business on Google.
55% of people say that positive reviews are an important factor when selecting a business or store (Google/Ipsos)
Going Pro Challenge: Create a custom email for your business.
With Gmail for your business, you get a custom (@yourbusiness) email to look more professional and improve customer engagement.
Stats Challenge: Add Google Analytics to your website to get to know your customers.
Learn about the demographics of your customers, where they’re coming from and what actions they’re taking on your site.
Judge’s Score Challenge: Get your mobile-friendliness score on Test My Site.
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly no matter which device your customer uses.
Marketing Heavyweight Challenge: Start your first AdWords campaign.
Start getting your business and your message in front of customers who are searching on Google.
Strong Finish Challenge: Make sure your marketing message has a call to action.
Your ads (on Google AdWords and beyond) should be specific, relevant, attractive, and empowering.
To participate or learn more, join the Google Small Business Community or follow us on Twitter. Best of luck and let the #SmallBizGames begin!