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
What Does It Takes to Seo A Landing Page
What Does It Takes to Seo A Landing Page & How to Find Good Help So, let’s talk about your landing page. If this is not right, you might as well not spend any money on SEO because your prospective customers on the internet have become spoiled brats – they have high expectations of websites and won’t stay on a sub-standard website long enough to buy a product or book an appointment. They have become sophisticated shoppers. First of all, you want to ensure someone that clicks onto the landing page will understand it and wants to read it. This is called “customer experience” and we digital workers use the term “UX” to talk about “customer experience.” You may think we are silly, but the good webpage designers really focus on this overall response to a landing page. Is the main color of the website appealing? While bright neon green might be your favorite color, it may not be appropriate for the website. Is the page organized logically? Does it “flow” easily? Will someone new to the website be able to follow the flow? Are the visuals (pictures, videos, and icons) placed strategically? Or are they just thrown onto the page willy-nilly, with no seeming relevance to the copy around them? Are they stock pictures that someone pulled for you that you have seen on five of your competitor’s websites? Is the INTENT of your website clearly stated on your landing page? In other words, if you are selling chicken wings, are the words “chicken wings” prominently displayed? You can certainly talk about raising the chickens, you can talk about processing in your chicken plant, but if you are a specialty sales organization that only sells the wings, be clear and upfront about “chicken wings” so Google AND your prospective clients will understand clearly that “chicken wings” are the focus of your marketing. Is the copy written well? Does the copy have any real relevance to you specifically, as the business owner, or was it copied from some other website? Is it cold and technical, or does it really lack importance or relevancy to the topic? Is your business model reflected on this page? Do you really give meat-and-potatoes information to a prospective client or is the copy just fluff and air. Do your values show up on the page? (If your answer is “no,” work with a copywriter to redo the page.) Are your “keywords” in your copy (see above). Do you have duplicated copy, where you said the same thing twice (this should be eliminated)? Is the font size big enough to be read easily? Do you have an intrusive pop-up or ad that every single looker must get around before they can see your core message? Note: There is a place called Fiverr.com where you can shop for things digital. Be sure to choose someone who has English as their first language. Ask for references before you buy services. So, I Have My Landing Page, Now What? Working with clients to transition their websites to make them more SEO compatible, I get a lot of questions. The number one question I get is: I paid to have this website, why do I have to pay AGAIN to do more programming on the website? THAT, my friends, is a valid question. And there is a simple answer. SEO is extremely complicated. It takes a set of very specialized skills to get a website optimized (this means adjusted or re-programmed) to be SEO responsive. The normal, everyday website developer does not have these skills. Clients every day attempt to pay less for their websites. I get it. The problem with this type of negotiation is – website development is labor-intensive. Website developers have to eat, too, and they have kids going to college just like everyone else. If you push their pricing too far down, you get fewer hours into your project, and you might never know you were short-cut. A lot of what developers do is invisible to the non-technical person. It may be much later before you figure out what was skipped. And a website all by itself out on the internet doesn’t necessarily get you traffic. The owner of the website has to go out into the web world and give shout-outs: “HEY, I’M OVER HERE. COME SEE ME.” That’s called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is expensive, and the time commitment is between six months and one year before a business owner will see a change in their website traffic. It takes a lot of patience – AND money. And there is no guarantee it will meet your expectations. There are just too many moving parts, not the least of which is the general public itself with their search patterns. The reason it’s expensive is, again, because it’s very labor-intensive. It’s not a process a technician does once and done. The program is monitored each month to ensure the results are coming through – slowly, for sure, but coming through. SEO builds and builds, taking on steam as it goes. The speed depends on your industry, on how competitive your business is in your location, and several other items. And, to boot, there are jillions of companies out there spamming your email saying, “Hire me, hire me, I’ll do SEO for you.” It reminds me of that old joke. What do you call the guy who graduated last in his medical school class? You call him “Doctor.” Same way with digital marketers. How can you tell the difference between the good guys and the scammers? Especially since they are more often than not from other countries – you never meet them face-to-face; zoom is the best you can do. First, as a digitally uneducated owner of a website, you need to know just a few fun facts: Your SEO consultant must be uber-organized. This means they must have an extensive on-boarding system. While you are shopping around for an SEO consultant, ask them to
SEO Pitfalls: Key Things to Watch Out For
SEO Pitfalls: Key Things to Watch Out For For those of us who are not digital giants, the term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) holds an element of mystery. Sure, we can get the definition, but what’s BEHIND it all. And when you talk to a digital provider they speak in terms that aren’t familiar, OR (worse) they get hazy about what they are providing as a service, you as the prospective client are left with having to make a very pricey decision without full knowledge of what you are supposed to be buying. I’ve been there. I’ve spent four years learning what SEO is and what it’s not supposed to be. Today, instead of talking about the “IS” portion, I’m going to talk about what you as a website owner want to watch out for. After all, the reason for spending the money on SEO is to get your website referred by the search engines, not to be penalized by those same search engines because your SEO provider did the programming wrong. So, here we go with five critical issues. Through Artificial Intelligence applications, search engines have exploded their capability to “read” your website. The search engines now want websites to be relevant, with original copy (words), providing real information to the readers. No longer can you put irrelevant content (words) on a website, stuff a few keywords in the paragraphs, and get away with it. No longer can you hire someone for pennies on the dollar to create a website where the words on the website are not in colloquial language and are off a template. No longer can someone creating your website go out and simply copy words that look good from another website and plop it down into your website. Google will find it and will know which was the original website. You as the owner of the website will have to dig down yourself to help the website developer convey why your company is different from everyone else’s. While keywords are essential to SEO, something called “keyword stuffing” is no longer allowed. There is a limit to how many keywords can go on a webpage. No longer can your website developer create a separate page for every keyword: A page for Sugar Land, a page for Cypress, etc, just to get the keywords in. And this one: cloaking. This is where a website developer hides words or links on your website where the print is the same color as the background, all just to get a keyword into the page. You can’t see it, but Google can, and Google knows the difference. Google wants transparency every time. The next issue is called backlinks. This is where your website “talks” to another website. Example: you are a roofer and you have sourced out a company that would provide financing to your clients. Your website developer can install a link on your website to the financial provider. That’s a good link. Bad links is where a developer goes to a “link farm” and buys a bunch of links to install on your website where the links to go companies that have zero to do with your industry. In this case a good example would be a link to a retail store. Google analyzes the links and will refuse to refer your website if you have a bunch of irrelevant links. The last issue today is keeping your website fresh. Search engines look for websites where there are changes and updates made regularly. This may be a few words on several of the pages, it may be a new service added to the website, or it may be a new blog added. Websites can go “stale” and the search engines will start referring them to searches less and less often. Spend a little time every quarter looking at your website, spend the money with your developer to get something changed or updated. You won’t be sorry. There are a dozen or so more technical practices you as the owner need to know in order to protect a large business investment: your website. If you have questions, just call Silver Moon Agency, 832-370-1328, and we can have a talk.