The Emerging Power of Voice Search
The Emerging Power of Voice Search “Hello Google,” or “Hey Siri” are two things that you hear all around you these days. The act of typing in searches into a device is quickly disappearing with the prevalence of voice assisted searches rising higher than ever before. The thought that over 1 BILLION voice searches are performed every month brings into glaring focus that it is definitely the growing trend of the future. Especially in local searches with 58% of people looking to find a business quickly and they find it easier to speak the question then trying to find the right words to type. And by doing this they have changed the way that you get results. With long-tailed keywords, “Near Me” searches and the conversational style of speaking which brings more context to what you are searching for, search engines are adapting by bringing you results better tailored to your intent then it would have if you had typed in your query. Who uses voice search and what are the benefits? Everyone use voice search for basic things like “What’s the weather like today?”, “Play music by…”, “Find the nearest hardware store” to more uncommon searches like, “What did my web designer mean when he said…?”, “How can I kill the weeds in my lawn without killing my grass?”. All of these results will be more in line with user intent because user intent and context come through more clearly then if you had just typed in “How to kill weeds?” With the weather, music, news, entertainment, and shopping being the top 5 things people voice search for, it becomes more obvious that the need for voice optimized sites are what any growing business needs to keep current and to compete for local business. Do not underestimate this growing trend, that would be a huge mistake to the future of your online presence, to be completely skipped by search engines because of what you might consider a ‘fad’. To be left behind now will mean a big leap later to try and catch up. Now here comes the part that you will care about: the main ways that this will affect your business. There are several ways this will affect you, the first being in your keywords. Long-tailed, conversational keywords embedded into your site will help you get noticed. With the queries that people pose being in a more conversational style Google will be looking for a more complete answer. Changing the copy on your website to reflect an answer to the possible questions that might be asked in your industries niche will be a great way to start. Rich snippets are also a key component to Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) and a voice assistant will often read these results to you. Have you ever searched for a restaurant and in the search results you might see their ratings, menu, reviews? Or looked for a movie and under the search results there might be information on the times that the movie will be showing at that theatre, all right there on the search results? Those are called rich snippets and that is something that Google loves to see on a website because it makes it easier for Google to index what that site is about. Google will show that information in the search results to help people decide if the site is one that they will want to visit. How to make your website VSEO ready Now we come to the part where you learn a new term: VSEO Voice Search Engine Optimized There are several ways to optimize (make the best of) your website for voice search, you need to better understand the user intent behind their queries, as well as conduct keyword research into long-tailed keywords and use more conversational content that will help Google better understand and bring that understanding to the user. Your digital manager will also need to optimize (make the website better) for featured snippets to help search engines better understand what your site is about. Rich snippets have been around a long time, and they are becoming more important because the voice search uses these snippets to answer your queries (questions). And last but definitely not least it is becoming more and more important to enhance your website’s mobile friendliness. Since a majority of these voice searches are done on mobile devices it is essential that your website be enhanced effectively for mobile usage. Load speed times are a very important part of this process since you have about 1.2 seconds to catch a user’s attention before they push the back button to try the next site on the search results list. All of these processes are not easy for the general public to perform on their own, so my advice is to find a good digital marketing agency like Silver Moon Agency to keep your website on the cutting edge of technology and to keep the referrals from your website coming in !!
SEO Success Secrets: Insider Tips for SEO Success
SEO Success Secrets: Insider Tips for SEO Success As the vast and competitive digital landscape in Houston evolves, the demand for effective SEO strategies has never been higher. Businesses face unique challenges from competition, both local and nationally. Online, the SEO challenges range from changes in search engine algorithms to keeping up with product branding and buyer habits. In this blog, we delve into the success secrets of one SEO agency in the Houston area: Silver Moon Agency. We are going to discuss the tips and tactics that help set their clients apart in competitive marketplaces. Silver Moon Agency works almost exclusively with small businesses. This niche marketplace has a high demand for successful competition as well as very tight marketing budgets. Silver Moon has success in finding that “sweet spot” where their clients’ marketing efforts bring in leads that don’t cost them $85.00 per click (like one new client was paying) !! Silver Moon understands that small businesses do not have the financial depth to experiment. Small businesses need two things: a consultant that knows more than the company owner knows about marketing, and a marketing partner that will stand with the small business with regard to results. Sure, there are certain foundational issues that have to be resolved with every client. Those issues are quick, down, and easy to do. Every marketing agency out there will say they will solve these issues. But HOW the issues are solved can be very very different. That takes marketing skill and intense attention to detail. Silver Moon has the expertise and staff to correct the errors that others have made, and this is with very little outlay of cash. Here’s how we do it. Understanding the Texas SEO Landscape Texas boasts a diverse and dynamic business environment, and this makes SEO a critical component of online success. However, businesses often encounter challenges specific to the state’s expansive market. These are some of the functions programmed with SEO. The Foundation: Local SEO Mastery “Local SEO” is actually pretty easy to get started. Do not confuse this with the full “SEO” process, which is technically very complicated and can be expensive. This topic is discussed further in this article. Houston’s diverse business ecosystem calls for a nuanced approach to SEO. One size absolutely does not fit all. What is effective for a printing company does not at all work for a roofing contractor. One cookie-cutter marketing approach is not effective for the different marketplaces and the end-user customers. It takes long-term experience in marketing in general AS WELL AS in-depth experience in the murky world of digital marketing to create an effective online marketing campaign. Also, a company’s online marketing campaign should integrate seamlessly with any other marketing campaign the business is utilizing. It is ineffective for a business to hire multiple marketing agencies to do bits and pieces of marketing – what the business will end up with is a hodge-podge of marketing materials that does not “brand” the business. Keyword Research Excellence: Silver Moon Agency’s SEO Cornerstone Keywords lay the groundwork for successful SEO campaigns. Sounds so easy – just put a topic into ChatGPT and out pops keywords. Looking in from the outside, it seems as if everyone can do it in a heartbeat. Hold on, hoss fly – that’s a neophyte’s view of the digital world. It takes real skill, experience, and sometimes innovative thinking to ferret out the keywords for each type of business – sometimes HOURS of research. A business is just wasting their money if the wrong keywords are used. And the keywords have to be able to be gracefully installed into the content of the marketing material, whether that is a website or an introductory tri-fold brochure. Silver Moon Agency has staff whose minds go beyond just the generic down-and-dirty keyword production. Our approach ensures content relevance, which improves the chances of ranking higher in search engine result pages (when you search for “roofer near me,” does your company pop up on the first search page?) Strategic Content Creation: Tailored for SEO Success Creating compelling and SEO-friendly content (wording, paragraphs, marketing material) is an art all on its own. Many times, it’s not WHAT is written, it’s also HOW it’s written. For instance, a website for a plumber or an electrician is vastly different from that of an assisted living facility. The plumbing website is “all about the facts, Ma’am.” The water heater costs $XXX and the broken pipe will take XXX number of hours at XXX rate. The electrician’s website is all about how long it will take to replace that light fixture, and the fixture costs $XXX. BUT . . . . An assisted living facility is about housing your MOM or DAD for their later years. Here, the website has to evoke an emotion – will my mom be safe? Will my dad like the food? Will the caregivers treat my brother with respect? These two examples of copy are vastly different, and it takes a marketing expert to know how to present the content. Many content writers have copy they literally COPY over and over again, very rarely custom writing their clients’ marketing materials. Shocked? I was too, until I discovered I could almost predict who had written the materials because I had seen those words before, presented in almost exactly the same way, either on the screen or on paper. What is true is every business has its own corporate environment, no two businesses are the same. That’s why some people thrive in a particular firm, and other people don’t get along so well at Firm 1 but do wonderfully at Firm 2. It’s the difference in environment that people look for to suit their own personalities and character. Marketing materials must reflect the client’s corporate culture. How that happens is the content is custom written to convey what that special spice is that makes that business tick. That’s the secret of writing good copy. On-Page Optimization: Fine-Tuning
Reputation Management 101
Reputation Management 101 When was the last time you actually thought about your reputation? 9th grade? When Suzy accused you of trying to steal her boyfriend and spread the word you were just a “man-stealer?” That was devastating at that age. And that was just in your high school. What if your business was cooking along really well, you were servicing your clients very competently, your product was being bought and was loved by all, and someone who you can’t even figure out who they are posted a terrible review online about your company? What would you do? Look at Budweiser – they took a real hit to their reputation and look what happened to their business. And they had been respected for almost 100 years. What would you do? Well, at that point, you might have trouble if you hadn’t planned ahead of time. Protecting your “brand” – you company name, your company reputation – is a really big deal. Once your reputation is damaged, it’s really hard to climb back to the top. Just like preparing for a hurricane, you get your ducks in a row. You carefully establish your internal controls, so your product or service is effective, you monitor your advertising for accuracy and completeness, you deliver on time, you make sure complainants are satisfied, and you are careful, careful, careful. This takes a LOT of work and a LOT of attention. And you can’t let your guard down for five minutes. You must carefully cultivate brand reputation by monitoring what people think, say, and write about your product/firm. You must respond to every piece of misleading information or malicious allegation. You must watch your reviews carefully, responding especially to negative reviews in an effort to mitigate any blow-back. And you must watch trends like a hawk, keeping your company in the forefront of people’s awareness. Sound daunting? Absolutely it is. Now, let me ask you: How much time do you have, as a business owner, each day to spend on all of the above issues? 10 minutes? 20 minutes if you’re lucky? That’s not enough. Also, how much education do you have in the psychology of advertising and/or selling that will give you the background so you are confident that you are going to touch people’s hearts and get them to reach for their wallets? Have you read The Psychology of Influence by Robert Cialdini? Or Persuasion: The Psychology of Selling? Or In Demand by Ryan Jaten? Or The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg? Or even Entrepreneurial Personality Type by Alex Charfen? These books scratch the very top veneer of what It takes to understand how people think and respond to advertising, selling, and purchasing. Persuasion – the underlying method to all sales and client management Habit – how you build your day, your staff’s focus, and your client interaction Entrepreneurial – what does it take? What do people see when they see you and/or your company? Reputation online has to be built over time. A company owner can’t just wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll get a reputation today. I’ll call on a couple of companies, tell them what a great guy I am and how my wonderful company was started, and my reputation will spread.” An online reputation is a lot harder to get and even harder to keep. Someone once told me, “It’s not the money you MAKE, it’s the money you KEEP.” Reputation is the same way. So how DO you build and maintain a reputation? Here are a few hints. Google is the largest search engine in the world, thus we will talk about Google. And Google is all about reputation. That’s all they sell – reputation. Yours is tied to theirs. If Google refers someone to a disreputable company, people will start using DuckDuckGo. If Google refers someone to a company that turns out to be nothing but a con, people will start going to Bing. And Google doesn’t like that. They are not about letting go of one teeny tiny customer. Google watches VERY CAREFULLY everything you do. Don’t believe they don’t. And sometimes that watchdog effect is very subtle. For instance: Sure, you got a website up. Several years ago. When was the last time you had your website guy go on your website and make a few tweaks and changes? Like your hours that changed last year. Like you moved your office. Like you added a new product or division of services? Or you just discovered a typo, and you asked your web developer to fix that? Google knows when you published your website and when you updated it. Google knows people (companies) don’t do one thing in a piece of their lives/corporate life and then do something else in another arena of their lives/business. That’s just human nature. Google knows if you put a website up and you don’t pay any attention to it for two years, you are probably just as lax with your long-term customers as you are with your website. Google is ALL ABOUT reputation. That’s all they sell – reputation. They are a bunch of computers somewhere in the world that is looking at zillions of websites and companies all the time (that’s called “the algorithm”), evaluating, scoring, and determining a reputation score. Google likes attention: to Google, to your website, to marketing, to customer care, and to all the myriad of little details that make up marketing campaigns. That’s how you build reputation online. Continuous attention. Exhausting? You betcha, because you still have a business to run. Another example of reputation management: There is something called “branding” out there, and it’s critical to your online presence. How this works is your Facebook ad must resemble your website must resemble your LinkedIn presence must resemble your pay per click ads must resemble …… ad infinitum. This is so people get used to seeing the same thing over and over again. Here’s an
Company Growth
Company Growth Some things in business seem to be universal. Growing Pains Inevitably Happen After having worked with around 100 small businesses in the last 45 years, I can see emerging patterns in top management issues so in this blog, I’m going to refer to owners only. However, a full-charge manager of a small business can create the same disastrous results for a small company that we will be discussing. My directive from my clients, over and over again, was to aid in company growth. My specialty was guiding companies from bankruptcy level, or at least making very little profit, to growth and profitability. I’m now retired from the work – it’s very high-energy work, lots of long hours, and I aged out of the arena and now own a boutique website/digital marketing firm. One of the most debilitating issues for small businesses is when the owner doesn’t personally grow as the business evolves. One of my first evaluations of a business was to evaluate whether the owner was performing the core functions of business management, and, if not, why not. What functions was the owner actually handling? Working with the owner on how to define their evolving responsibility for their business and to let go of non-core duties was a very touchy subject every single time. Every single time, with lots of push-back. When a business is very small, the business owner is involved in every single tiny detail of the decisions made, of client management and customer service. Many business owners gain a lot of satisfaction in knowing exactly the status of every detail of a client’s account. The owner and the client develop a strong and personal relationship based on direct contact. This gives the owner a feeling of safety, of control, and a regular “hit” of dopamine to their brains, the “satisfaction” and “motivation” hormone. The owner gets the kudos from the clients, the owner goes home at night feeling satisfied. However, as a business grows and expands, if that same owner doesn’t re-work his own job description inside his own company and LET GO of the portions of the workload that are unrelated to top-level company management, the company will suffer greatly. Growth will be limited, employees will be unhappy, and eventually the clientele will implode. That’s usually when the owner would find me. I would be hired to “fix” the company. 100% of the time I had to “fix” the owner before I could get anything done in any other part of the company. Letting go of the direct client management is very hard on small business owners. When they start stepping away from the direct client interaction, they give up a measure of control and that feeling of safety. And often they are forced to hire their own replacement for the job duties that are not longer applicable to their company’s needs. As I worked through the core job duties for the growing company with a company owner, a job description would also be created for that critical replacement person. Not only would the duties for the newly created position be decided, we would also work through the needed skills, the personality traits needed, and the background required by the new person in order to satisfy the owner that the job would be handled appropriately. Then came the hiring process. In a small business, often the newly created position meant a critical drop in cash flow first, before additional income would be generated by the new person. It’s a catch-22 that stresses the financial structure, which in turn stresses the business owner. It’s a difficult decision for the owner to make, and inevitably somewhere during the hiring process the owners start to drop off requirements in order to hire someone for a lesser amount of money than for someone fully qualified. This is a siren song that business owners hear every time. They start with “on-the-job-training” and “teach the new person MY way of doing business” and “growing with the company.” Now, keep in mind the owner has created a new position because they themselves are completely out of the resource of time. They don’t have TIME to babysit an unskilled person. They will end up having to micro-manage the client relation portion of the job, which defeats the purpose of the new position. And the process fails most of the time. The company suffers, and the owner suffers, because now he has client relations problems and possibly production problems. The company stutters, finances are worse, and the owner becomes distressed and depressed. When I could, when a really good and qualified candidate was available, my recommendation was to suck up the financial drain and take a leap of faith. Hire the person who had a history of success in a corresponding position. Successful people aren’t successful just once – they generate success wherever they go. They bring fresh air to a company, fresh knowledge, and successful endeavors. Only after I had detailed how the job duties would be split would owners grasp the context of how much a qualified person would help the company grow and prosper. Sometimes owners would have to get financing to support the newly created position – sometimes with family members, sometimes at the banking level. It really was a leap of faith, and not once were the company owners sorry for having made the decision to hire the qualified person. There were several times where the newly hired person turned out to be a bad fit for the company. This might have nothing to do with skills. It