Did you know there are 5 ways to advertise your business on Google for free? When we talk about ‘advertising’ and ‘Google’ most people think of Google Ads but as you’ll see below there are other ways to promote your business on Google, without paying.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to increase your site’s visibility on Google, without spending any money on advertising.
How to Promote My Business On Google For Free
These are the 5 most effective free Google advertising methods:
- Create a Free Google Business Account
- Optimize Your Google Maps Listing
- Get Free Traffic From Google Search
- Use Google Shopping Free Listings
- Get A Free Google Ads Coupon
1. Create a Free Google Business Account
A great way to get free advertising on Google is by creating a Google Business Profile account. Google Business Profile is a free service offered by Google to local businesses.
By opening an account and verifying your business, you can achieve the following:
- A user-friendly listing when people search for your business name on Google.
- You increase your chances of appearing on the local results for searches related to your business and the area you’re doing business.
- You can customize your profile to add essential business info to offer better service to your customers.
- Respond to customer reviews on your business profile.
- Share photos and posts about your products or services.
- Respond to customer messages.
For example, when you search for ‘Italian restaurants in NYC’, below the ads and above the ‘normal’ listings, you get the local search results.
Businesses that appear in the list get more traffic than the rest of the pages. Optimizing your local business to appear for location-aware searches is known as Local SEO. Besides opening a Google Business Profile account, you must make several other changes to ‘win’ a top position in the local results.
The most important are:
- Ensure all information in your Google Business Profile account is accurate and up-to-date.
- Make sure that you have added images of your business.
- Ensure that your business address (name, address, phone number) is visible on your homepage and in the correct format.
- Add a Google map to the Contact Us page.
- Use structured data markup and the proper schema to give Google more information about your local business.
- Pursue brand mentions and links from the local press.
- Reply to customer reviews in your Google Business Profile.
For a complete list of all the techniques you can use to promote your business on Google local results, go through the items in our local online marketing guide.
2. Optimize Your Google Maps Listing
Google Maps is another Google service you can use to get free promotions. In the digital marketing industry, this is known as Google Maps Marketing.
Google Maps listings are shown in the search results (as part of the local search box - explained above) and when users visit the Google Maps tab.
To get your business to show up on Google Maps, you need to have a Google Business Profile account (as explained above) and make sure that:
- You have provided a valid address to your GMB account.
- Your business is verified with Google.
- You have the same address displayed on your website.
- Your website is mobile-friendly (this is a must since most Google Maps searches are performed on mobile).
3. Get Free Traffic From Google Search
Another efficient way to get free exposure on Google is to rank high on the organic search results for keywords besides your brand name.
If you have a website for your business, Google will show your business in the search results when users search for your brand name or website URL.
While this is one way to get free traffic from Google, it’s not enough. To get more traffic, you must appear in the top five positions of Google for search terms related to your products or services.
The way to do this is through Search Engine Optimization or SEO. SEO will help you optimize your website for Google so that it will show up in the search results for the keywords that matter to your business.
Before we go deeper into what is SEO, let’s see why it is important to show up on top of the SERPs (search engine results pages) and not just in any position.
Free and Paid Ads on Google
When you search on Google, you’ll be presented with results that include paid and free listings.
The page layout differs depending on the query type, user location, device, and type of results, but the basic concept is the same for all.
So, besides the top part, which consists of paid ads, the rest of the listings are free.
The problem is that organic results are lower on the page and get far fewer clicks and traffic than those in the top positions. Recent studies have shown that most organic traffic goes to the first five results.
This means that if you want to take advantage of this opportunity to advertise your website on Googe for free, your website needs to be fully optimized for search engines.
This is especially important if you’re starting an online business or have a small local business. Free Google traffic can help your business grow faster than any other form of traffic.
Let’s see how SEO and other digital marketing disciplines, like content marketing, can help you get found on Google.
The whole process can be broken down into 3 stages:
Stage 1: Optimize your website’s technical infrastructure so that Google can access and index your website’s content without any issues. This process is generally known as Technical SEO.
When you go through all technical SEO items and fix any problems, you’ll have an SEO-friendly website.
Stage 2: Optimize your website to provide the right signals to Google regarding the keywords you want your website to show in the results.
As explained above, it’s not enough to rank for brand-related keywords, but you want to appear in the results for searches that can help you get customers and make sales.
To achieve this, you first need to do keyword research and find the search terms people type in the Google search box. Once you have a list of keywords related to your business, the next step is to create content to target those keywords.
For this process to be successful, your content needs to be useful to users and satisfy their search intent while giving the right signals to Google to help their algorithms understand what your content is about.
This process is known as on-page SEO. The most important on-page SEO elements are:
- Optimizing your page titles
- Adding meta descriptions to all your pages
- Adding ALT text to your images
- Adding relevant headings (H1 tag, H2, etc) to your content
Stage 3: As you may already know, hundreds of websites are likely competing to secure a top Google ranking for specific keywords. Most probably, they have already gone through stages 1 and 2 above.
What happens in this case? Which websites will benefit from the free Google traffic?
The websites that did a better job convincing Google that it deserves to rank higher than other websites on the same topic.
In the online marketing world, the way this is done is by making sure that:
- Your content is better than competitors.
- Your website is secure and loads fast on all devices.
- Your website is mobile-friendly.
- Your website has backlinks (references) from other websites.
- Your brand name has a good reputation online (reviews, mentions, etc.)
Businesses that work consistently on stages 2 and 3 will eventually gain Google's trust and earn their share of Google traffic without spending money on paid ads.
The downside of this method is that it can’t be done overnight. It will take months or even years to get to a point where you can run a business solely from Google organic traffic. Nevertheless, the sooner you start with SEO, the better.
Resources to Learn More About SEO
- Digital Marketing Full Course - Our digital marketing course includes everything you need to learn about SEO and other digital marketing techniques. You’ll learn how to get more traffic from Google and other sources (like social networks) without paying for advertising.
- How to Learn SEO - a learning plan for beginners to get into Search Engine Optimization.
4. Use Google Shopping Free Listings
Another way to advertise your products on Google without paying is by using Google Shopping free listings.
Google shopping products are shown in the Google shopping tab, Google search results, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google images.
Until recently, adding your products to Google shopping was only possible through paid advertising, but since April 2020, Google made this feature available for free. Paid ads still show in Google Shopping, together with free listings.
To get your products on Google Shopping, you need to:
If you’re using a known shopping platform like WooCommerce or Shopify, creating a product feed that Google Merchant Center can accept is very easy.
Once you submit your product feed and your products are approved by Google, they can show for related searches in all Google properties.
5. Get A Free Google Ads Coupon
Google Ads is the platform to run paid ads on Google search and other Google products (Gmail, YouTube, etc). While this method is paid, you can get a Google Ads promotional code (coupon) and earn free advertising credits.
To claim your Google Ads coupon, go to Google and search for "Google ads free credit". Look for the top results, and you'll notice a Google Ads Promotion Ad.
Another way to get free advertising on Google Ads is to contact one of the official Google Partners, and they'll be able to give you free credits for your first advertising campaigns.
To learn how to get started with Google Ads, read this guide.
Key Learnings
Google offers several ways to advertise your business without paying for ads.
If you have a local business, create a Google Business Profile account. This will help you get more exposure for searches related to your area (especially from mobile devices) and Google Maps. Ensure your business is verified and follow the checklist above to optimize your website for local SEO.
If you run an online store, create a Google Merchant Account and submit your product feed. This will make your products eligible to show in Google Shopping Free Listings and other Google properties.
Finally, SEO can help your businesses get free traffic from Google for the keywords that matter to your business. It takes time to work, but the results are worth the effort.
