Have you ever wondered whether the time on the clock influences the results of a Google search? It’s an interesting question.
While the obvious answer may be “no”, there are in fact some variables that affect where your business sits on the rankings in Google – whether from your perspective, or other’s.
Below, we’ll take a look at what causes your placement in the search engine results pages (SERPs) to shift, and their correlating factors.
Googling yourself (we’ve all done it)
As a business owner, it can be tempting to check in on your company throughout the day.
You might want to Google your business to check your reviews, get a feel for how your page looks on the search engine, or to see where you’re ranking against your competitors.
However, doing this can produce misleading results.
By repeatedly Googling your own company and clicking on your page, the search engine is learning that this is what you want to see – so it will proceed to rank you higher in your own results. So, while you might think you’re doing really well, as you watch your business creep further up the results page – it’s only you that will see this. Everyone else will only see where your business is ranking organically.
Google Paid Search
An instance where time of the day does matter, however, is if you’re using Google Paid Search.
If your business sets a daily budget for using paid search, and you exceed that budget before the end of the day, then effectively you lose your visibility past a certain time.
Say, for example, you run a restaurant in Chester. Someone working a 9-5 job may already be dreaming ahead to what they’re going to eat for dinner that night, and start Googling “restaurants in Chester”. They spot your ad, but decide to hold off booking until later, when they get home (and the boss isn’t watching them).
Fast forward to 5pm – your prospective customer has clocked off for the day and is ready to book your restaurant. When conducting the same search on Google, however, they find that your business is nowhere to be seen – and has been replaced by your competitors, instead, because your budget hasn’t stretched to last the whole day.
Google is constantly changing and updating, and it can feel almost impossible to keep up. Here at Engage Web, we’re on the ball with the latest trends. Reach out today to find out more about our digital marketing services.
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