Hi, and welcome to the definitive two part series from WeSellAnyCompany.com -designed to help you sell your business using the power of Google.
This first two post will be looking at how exactly you can manipulate your business on Google when your potential buyers are looking to purchase a business just like yours.
Although this post is aimed at the UK business owner, some of the tips and tricks will also be useful for all those third party websites out there who want to leverage the power of Google to promote and sell UK based businesses on behalf of their clients.
The third in the series will be concentrating on Google PPC – that’s paid, sponsored advertising.
As all the other SEO consultants out there will be aware, you can go more in-depth with your Google strategies to sell your UK based business but in the interests of you having an easily implementable action plan, this guide will give you the starting springboard you need to leap ahead of your competition.
H2 Why use Google to help sell your business?
It has become an integral part of our lives and conducts 8.9 billion searches every day. In fact the latest statistics show that Google conducts over 99,000 searches every second!
Whatever you are looking for there is a high probability that Google has the answer.
This search engine has become so intertwined in our lives that the very name ‘Google’ has been officially recognised as a verb:
To search for information about (someone or something) on the internet using the search engine Google.
“on Sunday she googled an ex-boyfriend”
Think about how many times you use Google on a daily basis. It’s likely that the fact that you are reading this very blog is as a result of a Google search.
So, if you want to sell your UK based business and your potential buyers are searching for businesses like yours on Google every day, the real question should be:
Why would Google NOT be a key part of your marketing strategy?
H2 Google strategy when selling your UK based business
It’s all very well saying ‘Use Google’ but without a viable working method, that advice would be as useful as a cat flap in an elephant house.
Which leads us nicely onto the purpose of this post – to give you a useful method, with some tried and tested ideas when it comes to selling your UK based business online and leveraging the immense power of Google to help you do just that.
H3 Google is not impartial
Google is the market leader for a reason. It provides the most relevant answers to a searchers query and in the fastest possible time. Google wants to remain top of the tree and it has complex algorithms that aim to make sure that web users are so satisfied that they keep coming back every time they have a query.
Google will only rank sites that it deems ‘deserving’ based on a number of factors – including site relevance to the selected search term and quality of the site.
This means that although there is low hanging fruit that you can pick to get quick results, if you want to see yourself coming up on page one of the search results then you will have to do your research and implement some of the strategies outlined in this post.
Searching for a business for sale on Google.
Let’s suppose I am an investor with a burning desire to own a used car business in Huddersfield town centre. My journey begins with a simple Google search:
The first two listings are intended for searchers who are looking to purchase a used car. The first actual relevant search from WeSellAnyCompany.com is next which means that over 39% of all search traffic typing in that phrase will be clicking on WeSellAnyCompany.com.
At the time of writing there are approximately 100 people typing this phrase into Google which means that WeSellAnyCompany.com are benefiting from around 39 visits every month from this phrase alone. This may not seem like a lot but consider – before clicking on the site, these visitors have already passed a quality check, purely through the phrase that they have typed in.
Google knows that the searcher is not likely to be searching for entertainment or information for educational purposes, for example. They have commercial intent.
Demographically there is a high probability that the users that have typed in that search phrase are considering the purchase of a business of that type. The fact that they have been very specific in the geographical location can also point toward this interest being more than a passing fancy, which may also indicate that those visitors will visit the same page more than once before taking the next step.
H2 Have the right mindset to sell your business
With your current business you probably already sell products or services – that’s how you generate profit after all.
I want you now to look at your business sale as you would your current business, but instead of having thousands of products to sell, to perhaps thousands more people you have just one ‘prize diamond’ of a product and you are looking for a single buyer.
Thinking about it like this should make your job a lot easier right?
Well, yes and no.
Your business is a very expensive product (hence the diamond reference), which will limit the amount of people who are both willing and able to buy your company, though, provided you know whom your potential buyers are (or where to find them) and you are able to present your offering as instantly engaging then … yes your job can be easier (and fun).
H2 Have your own dedicated page or site aimed at attracting potential buyers
We’ve mentioned this before both in our blog and video content but it’s worth reiterating:
Always run your business as though your intention is to sell.
Doing this means that all your proverbial ducks are in a row when a potential investor shows an interest in purchasing but it also means that your business is running smoothly and is likely to be generating the type of profit that would appeal to a future buyer.
Once you have made your mind up to sell, it makes sense to have a platform so that you can show potential buyers what an amazing acquisition your business would be. As far as Google visibility is concerned there are three main ways to do this:
- Advertise on industry specific forums, sites, publications and platforms such as WeSellAnyCompany.com
- Build your own landing page and use the techniques I outline in this post to help it rank.
- Use Google Ads
We will cover Google ads is a separate post because that is – whilst beneficial – a whole other world of its own.
H2 Building your own specific landing page to sell your business
If you are a web designer then this will be very easy, but for the rest of us less technically inclined folk who are less comfortable with the world of computer code and design, there are a few options:
- Pay for an experienced web designer to build you a simple site (three page max)
- Use a template based platform builder such as WordPress to build your own single business selling site.
Although I can build websites, that is not my specialty, so my preference will always be to have an expert build my site. Compared to the eventual sale of my business – the cost is negligible and should be looked at as more of a marketing investment. I will also say that well optimized sites on WordPress tend to do very well in the Google search results pages.
Now, the beauty of having your very own page / site dedicated to the sale of your business means that you can go into much more detail, helping any potential buyer knock down all barriers to sale and giving as much relevant information as you can to make your business sale both informative and attractive.
This has been part one of ‘How to use Google to sell your UK based business. If you’d like to go right to part two you can access it here.
I hope you have found it useful. If you have any questions, or would like help buying or selling a UK based business with WeSellAnyCompany.com then please get in touch here.