SEO Timelines: How Long Does It Take to Get Results?
You might have heard that search engine optimization (SEO) is a quick and easy way to get
Here’s why that’s wrong.
The truth is…once upon a time, SEO could work quickly.
But as search engine algorithms have evolved and the online space has become more competitive, the SEO landscape has changed drastically.
Every business owner wants to see results come quickly. But when it comes to legitimate, proven SEO strategies, results simply don’t happen overnight.
Any agency that says otherwise is not to be trusted.
Below, we’ll cover the real factors that will affect how long it will take for SEO to get measurable results for your business, as well as the minimum time investment to really get your money’s worth from SEO.
How Long It Takes for SEO to Generate Leads and Sales
When it comes to SEO, business owners often ask, “How long does it take for SEO to work?”
Which usually means, “How long before I rank #1 in Google?”
This is the wrong question to ask because ranking #1 in Google isn’t the end goal. The goal is to generate qualified leads and sales opportunities.
In other words, organic search traffic is only as valuable to your business as the revenue it generates.
The real question that you should be asking is, “When will SEO start generating sales and leads for my business?”
Based on our experience and that of our colleagues at other reputable SEO agencies, we can give an estimated timeline of 4-6 months for SEO to begin producing some form of results, which could include:
- Overall improved average ranking
- Website being indexed for more keywords
- More traffic to your website and opportunity to close that traffic
The above timeline represents our average client experience. This is when things start to work, but not necessarily when you achieve your end goal.
There are numerous factors to consider when determining when you can expect to begin seeing SEO generate results. It would be impossible to cover them all in detail here ‒ but some of the most significant factors are:
- Competition for high-priority keywords
- How effective are the site’s inbound links
- Healthy, SEO-friendly site
- Regularly published content on the site
1. Importance of Competition in SEO Timelines
Generally, the more competing websites that your business is up against, the harder and longer it will take to see your website climb to the top of search engine results.
In a crowded industry, many of your competitors will have experienced SEO professionals behind them to improve and maintain their rankings. Understanding the level of competition based on your products/services and location will help you get a sense of how long it will take for SEO to get results.
For example, a small local massage therapy clinic will face less competition than a real estate brokerage business serving a large city, amongst many other real estate brokerage businesses. That same brokerage would face less competition than a national-level mortgage company with competitors in every market in the country.
Search results are all relative, and that is the key to understanding why SEO works differently for different businesses online
2. Importance of Inbound Links in SEO Timelines
Acquiring more inbound links will help your business achieve the SEO success you are striving for more quickly… but it is not all a numbers game.
Quality over quantity, like most things, is always the way to go. Having fewer, high-quality links from relevant websites will have a much greater impact on your overall results than having a greater number of low-quality links from other irrelevant websites.
Acquiring higher quality links are much harder to earn, having them on your website will make it more difficult for your competitors to replicate and compete with you. As well, higher-quality links last longer and keep their effective power.
The speed in which your business online can acquire links takes time, make sure to look out for any abrupt increase in links. This could identify an inorganic attempt at a manipulative ranking and negatively affect your business’ SEO.
3. Importance of a Healthy SEO-Friendly Website
SEO isn’t just about keywords and content. Your website’s internal workings also have a big impact on how it ranks.
When your website appears on a Google search results page, it becomes part of what Google offers its users. And Google cares a lot about its users’ experience.
So, a big part of its search ranking algorithm is focused on checking the ‘health’ of your website. It looks at technical aspects of the site that have an effect on the user experience, like:
- Site speed
- Crawl errors & broken links
- Mobile friendliness
- Site structure
- Navigation
- txt
- Sitemap
When your site is healthy and SEO-friendly, the work being done on the content and external links side takes effect much faster. On the other hand, a site that is not technically optimized for SEO will move slowly or not at all.
4. Importance of Content in SEO Timelines
Quality content published on your website plays a vital role in how quickly you will see SEO results.
There isn’t a set length/word count for SEO optimized content. It just has to be long and detailed enough to solve the visitor’s problem.
Along with quality content requires consistent content. Maintaining a publishing schedule will encourage Google to come back to your website to read and learn more about your expertise. It also encourages users to return, suggesting a positive user experience that Google’s signals will notice.
If you focus on producing helpful content that answers specific questions your target market may have, you will see results. Users will come, have a great experience and build trust with your brand (possibly reaching out) and Google has more information about you to determine where else you can rank.
SEO Timelines Then vs. Now
To explain why SEO doesn’t happen overnight, it helps to recognize a crucial difference between the early SEO landscape and what we see today.
Old SEO: When Low Competition Got Big Results
In the early days of SEO, it was possible to skyrocket a website’s search ranking by identifying and optimizing for a small number of high volume, low competition keywords.
The trick was to target keywords that were popular, but not competitive.
You could build an entire strategy around these ‘golden’ keywords, climb to #1 in the rankings, and have most of your traffic come from them within a few months.
Nowadays, it’s extremely rare to find a single keyword or small group of keywords that can drive a lot of traffic to your site.
People just don’t search like that anymore. Plus, the web is way more competitive today than it was in the early 2000s. There are nearly 2 billion websites today, compared to just 17 million in 2000, an increase of nearly 11 thousand percent.
New SEO: Targeting the Long Tail
Today, people are adding more words than ever to their searches to get faster, more specific results.
They’re asking specific questions that they need answers to, rather than searching individual keywords and seeing what comes up.
We call these searches long-tail keywords. And search engines like Google and Bing have gotten very good at delivering long-tail keywords relevant results.
Long-tail keywords are:
- Easier to rank for, because they’re less competitive
- Generate more revenue, because they’re more specific
- Account for a higher search volume in total than shorter “golden keywords”
Today, generating search traffic that brings you leads, sales, and revenue means curating a larger number of natural language or long-tail keywords searches that grow and change over time.
Is SEO a Good Investment?
When you have the funds and stamina to be patient with the results, as well as stay in the game for the long haul, SEO is an incredibly powerful marketing tool that all businesses should invest in.
A minimum of 4 to 6 months of SEO services will allow you the time and money to see the results that you want. For businesses that do not have a budget for SEO services for up to a year, we recommend a few key steps regardless:
- Make your website SEO and user friendly – you may need a professional to help with this as a one-time project
- Work on building out good quality content on your website if you build genuinely helpful content to your target market, it will pay SEO dividends down the road
- Consider using additional funds towards paid advertising to start generating traffic to your website
It’s important to remain patient throughout the SEO process. When businesses fail to see results after a couple of months of SEO services, they are tempted to give up ‒ when they could actually see results in a matter of weeks. We often refer to this time period as the “trough of sorrow” in the industry.
We as agencies or individuals cannot control a lot of the SEO process. We don’t control Google, their algorithm, or what competitors do. The only thing we can do is understand what Google is looking for, give them what they want, connect with our customers and give them what they want, and we will start to see results.
SEO is not only a science, but also the art of adapting to changes in the industry.
Remember that SEO results increase over time, not overnight. Your results should be significantly better after 12 months than they were after 6 months.
To get the results that you need online for your business, professional SEO services are OFTEN worth the time, energy, and money that you invest.
If you would like more information about our SEO and digital advertising services, please do not hesitate to contact our SEO team here at TrafficSoda.
3 Fatal Risks of Cheap SEO Services (Avoid at ALL Costs)
Here’s the hard truth: cheap SEO is too good to be true.
Just because you’re better than your competitors in ‘real life’ (better products, better workmanship, better results, etc.) doesn’t always mean you’ll get a better search ranking.
Google and Bing search results are extremely competitive.
If somebody’s ranking higher than you, it’s likely because they hired an SEO company to optimize their website.
And the only effective way to outrank them is to beat them at their own game.
There’s just one problem…
Bad SEO is Worse Than No SEO at All
Many SEO companies are more interested in your money than your success.
Doing SEO cheaply is not only detrimental to your website traffic but can also harm your business’s reputation both online and offline.
The long-term risks of cheap SEO include:
- Loss of business revenue;
- Getting banned from search results, period; and
- Handing all your potential search revenue to your competitors
Those are the consequences we want to help you avoid. So, in this article, we lay it all out on the table.
Read on to learn all about:
- How, exactly, cheap SEO can tank your business
- Biggest red flags of cheap SEO
- Black Hat vs. Grey Hat vs. White Hat SEO (and why it matters)
- What GOOD SEO can do for your business
1. How Cheap SEO Can Tank Your Business
Google and Bing are for-profit companies, and their customers are search engine users. This means that both Google and Bing want to give people the best, most relevant search results. Search engines have spent years building parameters to identify high quality, relevant search results.
The problem is that bad actors frequently reverse engineer these parameters to exploit rankings, which results in low quality search results and poor user experience. As a result, Google and Bing regularly update their algorithm to identify manipulative SEO tactics and suss out actions that are fake and spammy.
Cheap SEO services often use manipulative tactics that go against search engine guidelines.
Google and Bing actively scan the web for these shady practices using the most advanced machine learning algorithms available.
You might not get caught right away, but you must assume you will get caught at some point.
And when that happens, you can lose traffic, get block-listed, and potentially forfeit all your future search traffic to your competitors.
a. Cheap SEO Decimates Your Website Traffic
Organic search is by far the #1 source of website traffic online, and the most authentic.
If you successfully rank at the top of the search results, you will benefit from more clicks and visits to your website, presenting an opportunity to turn those clicks into customers.
Poorly done SEO can tank your ranking, meaning customers won’t be able to find you and will click on your competitors instead.
b. Cheap SEO Gets You Block-listed from Google and Bing
Google and Bing’s top priority is to create a positive user experience, so penalizing manipulative tactics is smart business for them.
Using cheap SEO tactics will cause search engines to penalize and even ban you, banning you from appearing in search results at all until the issue is rectified.
A search penalty means a real and immediate loss of potential revenue for your business.
If you ignore the penalty, you will find it almost impossible to recover. Your site traffic will continue to drop steadily, leaving you behind the competition and low on stamina to make a comeback.
c. Cheap SEO Funnels Revenue to Your Competitors
Now, you’re block-listed from the search results. So, who do you think all those potential customers are going to click on instead of you?
You already know the answer.
Shooting yourself in the foot with manipulative SEO is like handing your customers revenue on a silver platter.
Plus, ethical SEO practices can take weeks or months to have an impact. So, the more time and money you waste on cheap SEO, the longer you will have to wait for results on good SEO when you finally switch gears.
It’s not worth the risk.
2. How to Spot Red Flags for Cheap SEO
Hiring cheap SEO services can have serious immediate and long-term consequences to your business that can be difficult or even impossible to recover from.
To avoid them, you need to know what to look out for.
First, there’s some SEO industry jargon you need to know. These are the labels we use to separate cheap, manipulative SEO tactics from legitimate SEO: white hat, gray hat, and black hat.
- White Hat SEO services follow the search engine-approved guidelines for optimizing a website. White hat SEO focuses on improving the user experience and creating high-quality content. There is zero risk in using white hat SEO.
- Black hat SEO services rely on manipulating and violating search engine algorithms against guidelines to improve your search rankings. The short-term goals of black hat SEO services are to get you fast-paced wins to fool you into thinking their services have the best and fastest results on the market. Manipulating the algorithm is not effective because it can never keep up with Google’s constant updates, which results in your rankings being wiped out due to unethical practices. Black hat SEO is extremely risky.
- Gray hat SEO services test the limits of what search engines allow, exploiting ‘gray areas’ in the guidelines. Once a gray hat tactic becomes known, search engines often crack down hard, which will cost you the same way as black hat SEO. The results do not stick well over time and require repeated work. Grey hat SEO is very risky.
No serious business should never engage in black hat SEO. Your website will no longer be trustworthy to users or search engines, and recovery could take years.
Although gray hat SEO is often sold as a ‘medium risk for a medium price’, which can be tempting for businesses on a tight budget, the risk is high and the results are not sustainable. Business owners should avoid this trap at all costs.
Overall, white hat SEO services are the only kind worth your money and time because the job done will be the safest and most beneficial for your business online.
So, how do you know when a company’s pitching you cheap, black/grey hat SEO? There are a few key phrases and promises that agencies will make that should ring alarm bells:
a. Big Promises for Low Price Tags
SEO is not rocket science, but it is not as simple as you might think. It’s not just sticking a bunch of keywords and tags on a website.
Achieving long-term success with SEO takes a lot of manual work that cannot be easily accomplished on a shoestring budget. Either you settle for a very small number of keywords, or you end up paying for the work that really needs to be done.
b. No Long-Term Strategy
Cheap SEO companies will offer you short-term solutions, but this is not realistic.
SEO is a long-term strategy. It takes time to gain the rankings you deserve. If the company you are considering offers no plan past one month, they are more than likely a scam. They are either not doing their job or just looking for quick and easy money from unsuspecting customers like you.
c. No Transparency
Do not trust any SEO company that doesn’t offer you transparency into what they’re doing. It is important that you have visibility over the SEO process so that you can assess the results and make changes as needed.
The best SEO companies will offer a full audit of your site and provide explanations for any errors found. They will also provide recommendations for how to fix these errors, give an overview of how to improve rankings, and show rankings progress.
d. Inexperienced Team
One of the most important things to look for when choosing an SEO company is their expertise and experience.
Do they have a website with a portfolio of websites that they have previously optimized? Do they have testimonials from satisfied clients? Can you find any information on them at all?
An experienced SEO company won’t mind telling you who’s on their team and should be eager to tell you about their experience. If they’re not transparent, they could be hiding something.
e. Guaranteed Results
No one can guarantee a #1 spot on Google.
It is an outright impossible claim to make for an agency, as SEO is a competitive practice that depends on hundreds of signals which can change at any point in the day.
What can be guaranteed are solid and safe practices that can win better results when done properly over time.
Agencies that claim their services will guarantee a specific result in a specific timeframe is one of the biggest warning signs for cheap, black hat SEO that will hurt your business.
What About Using Negative SEO to Attack Your Competitors?
Usually, SEO is about trying to boost your own company’s search ranking. Negative SEO is when one company uses manipulative tactics to hurt a competitor’s rankings instead.
Negative SEO is gray hat SEO. A negative SEO campaign against your industry competitors is risky because the traffic attacks can be traced back to you.
Search engine algorithms can detect bad links from good links when competitors create spammy backlinks to tank your SEO and organic rankings online.
Search engine algorithms can detect bad links from good links when competitors create spammy backlinks to tank your SEO and organic rankings online. Google will penalize websites for building spammy backlinks that use anchor text to improve their ranking by matching the exact keywords.
Any mentions of negative SEO practices should be shut down immediately, the risk is simply not worth it.
3. The Long-Term Value of Affordable White Hat SEO
White hat SEO isn’t cheap, but it’s effective – and it can be affordable. When done well, SEO is the most cost-effective and reliable way to reach your target customers and understand what they are looking for when they search for businesses online.
Investing time and money into effective, white hat SEO services will benefit your online traffic, leads, and sales in the long run.
- Search is the #1 source of website traffic. Organic search is a key way people find your website and become customers, whether you sell products or services online or offline. Being highly visible on Google and Bing is money in the bank.
- SEO builds trust and credibility. SEO creates trust and credibility by providing a positive user experience that is easily discoverable on search engines. Establishing authority online through good content results in natural backlinks that boost your ranking. Online credibility takes time, working towards your goals of authority and credibility online takes time, patience, and affordable SEO services from an experienced agency.
- SEO boosts local businesses. Using SEO will improve your local engagement and traffic online by connecting users to your business based on their location. SEO professionals can do this by optimizing the businesses website content and including local citations and backlinks to guide the user to their product or service. An experienced agency can provide effective, local SEO services at an affordable price.
- SEO is quantifiable. With SEO, you can measure your progress using analytics. A competent SEO agency has people dedicated to connecting the dots and assessing the improvements made through SEO. This information can also be used to maximize ROI and ensure that your SEO remains affordable. Hiring a team that is knowledgeable about tracking analytics and SEO data is essential.
- Good SEO means a better user experience. Google is dedicated to providing a positive user experience through relevant search results. Search engine optimization also means optimizing your user experience, so people love using your website and come back for more. Optimizing your website’s user experience will also help maximize the ROI from both SEO and other digital marketing efforts.
Bottom Line: Avoid Cheap SEO Services at All Costs
Cheaping out on SEO is never the way to go. This will only cost you more money and more problems in the future that could potentially be irreversible.
We hope that you now understand the risks of cheap SEO services and the benefits to investing in white hat SEO services that put your success first.
TrafficSoda has built hundreds of successful SEO strategies for companies, like you, looking to increase traffic, leads, calls, online purchases and more. When you’re ready to jump in with a personalized plan, reach out for your free strategy proposal.
5 Changes to Make to Your Google My Business Profile Before 2019
There was never a dull moment in local SEO this year, with new updates to coming to Google My Business at a rapid-fire pace throughout 2018. Now’s the time to log in and make sure your Google My Business page is current and ready for the new year.
Let’s get straight to it. The biggest updates to Google My Business in 2018 were:
- New dashboard for businesses with multiple locations
- Separate fields for Service Area and Business Address (and removing the ability to set a distance-based service area around the business address)
- Service menu for service-based businesses and product menu for retailers
- Letting businesses set ‘factual’ attributes in addition to the crowdsourced ‘subjective’ attributes (including the veteran-led and women-led attributes)
- Videos on the photo dashboard
These changes affected some types of businesses more than others (some local service-based companies will have a lot of catching up to do) but all of them matter when it comes to understanding how to optimize Google My Business for a stronger local presence.
Here’s how to ensure you’re up-to-date with Google My Business in 2019.
1. Scrutinize Your Suggested Changes
In March of 2018, Google rolled out a new Google My Business dashboard for business owners with two or more listings or locations. It’s much faster and easier to navigate than the old one.
The downside? The new dashboard makes it more difficult to track and respond to Suggested Changes in a timely manner.
A Suggested Change is an addition or change to your listing that either comes from:
- A user manually editing your listing information; or
- Google’s algorithm finding information about your listing (often from third-party directory sites).
Here’s the trouble: the name ‘Suggested Changes’ is a bit misleading, since the changes don’t always require your approval before they go live.
As the listing owner, you should receive an email from Google whenever there’s a ‘suggestion’; however, those notifications don’t always make it through to your inbox.
Because of this, it’s important that you log in to check your Suggested Changes periodically, especially since the new dashboard makes it harder to notice them.
To see Suggested Changes for a Google My Business listing in the new dashboard:
- Log in to Google My Business.
- Click Back to GMB Classic in the left-hand menu.
- Click Google Updates in the centre column.
- Make sure the box next to ‘Google updates’ is set to display All.
- Click Resolve updates in the rightmost column to see the Suggested Changes and other updates to a listing.
2. Specify Your Ever-Growing Service Area
Before the update, local businesses could define only their service area as a kilometer/mile radius around their business address. Google realized this was a shortcoming (who actually has a perfectly circular service area?) and turned it around late in 2018.
Now, Google My Business lets you edit your business address and service area separately. Businesses can specify their service area by region, city, or ZIP/Postal Code.
If you haven’t gotten around to updating your service area, here’s how to do it:
- Log in to Google My Business.
- Click the location you’d like to edit.
- Click Info in the left-hand menu.
- Click Edit in the Service Area section.
- Click the X next to a service area to delete it.
3. Promote Your Outstanding Services
Early in 2018, Google began to allow businesses in select industries to list their services in detail right on the page. Later, they expanded the feature to almost all service businesses, including creative industries and the trades.
The service menu is simple, consisting of just a name, description, and optionally a price for each item. It’s a vast improvement over the previous version of Google My Business’s services, which was limited to keywords like ‘repair services’ and ‘installation services.’
Adding services to your Google My Business page is quick and easy. All you need to do is:
- Log in to Google My Business.
- Click Info in the left-hand menu.
- Click Edit in the Services section.
Recently, Google has begun testing a product menu feature for Google My Business as well. Chances are this will expand to more companies next year, so keep an eye out!
4. Add Appealing Factual Attributes
Attributes are Google’s name for small bits of descriptive information about a business. They include things like:
- Service offerings (pick-up or drive-thru)
- Atmosphere (casual, noisy, family-friendly, private)
- Customer/clientele demographic (popular among students, business travellers, tourists)
Originally, the algorithm compiled a business’s attributes based solely on user reviews and feedback via the GMB Q&A feature – businesses couldn’t edit them.
In 2018, Google refined the attributes system by splitting them into factual and subjective attributes. Now, businesses can directly edit certain attributes. The attributes available (which include acceptable payment types, accessibility options, and whether the business is LGBTQ-friendly) vary depending on the business’s category.
Even if you’re not a GMB geek, you might have heard about the release of the women-led and veteran-led attributes – two socially-conscious tags designed to help customers support local vets, businesswomen, and even businesswoman vets.
There’s also a lesser-known family-led attribute, which could help win the favour of locavores in search of a good old-fashioned family business.
In any case, it pays to take a moment to set up factual attributes that will help customers get to know you. It doesn’t take long:
- Log in to Google My Business.
- Click Info in the left-hand menu.
- Click Edit in the Attributes section.
5. Upload an Excellent Video
Video is one of the most powerful mediums available to us as marketers and you as a business owner.
Online video consistently grabs more views and engagement than still images, and 90% of customers now say that video influences their buying decisions.
The addition of 30-second videos to Google My Business shows Google is serious about getting customers to convert (whether it’s making a purchase or booking an appointment) directly on the GMB platform. For businesses, it’s an opportunity to make a huge visual impact just around the corner from the search engine results page.
What’s Next for Google My Business?
Make no mistake: Google My Business will continue to extend its influence in local SEO in the year to come.
Don’t let the imminent demise of Google+ fool you into thinking GMB is on its way out. In fact, part of the reason Google is sunsetting G+ is because GMB has effectively taken over its function as a hub for customer-brand interactions.
So, what does the future have in store? Based on this year’s developments, you can expect to see even greater emphasis on conversions directly from the Google My Business platform in 2019. Additionally, you ought to pay close attention to your business’s attributes – chances are, they’ll fuel increasingly precise local search results based on ‘intangibles’ like a business’s character and atmosphere.
It’s cool stuff.
Reputation Management SEO: Why Branded Keywords Should Be On Your Radar
Online reputation management involves more than establishing a website and social media profiles. Conversations about brands are happening at various channels around the web, and the loudest of these discussions converge at one important place: the search engine results page. This post covers the basics of reputation management SEO, including the relationship between reputation and search engines, branded keywords, and strategies to dominate page one.
What is Reputation Management SEO?
Have you ever Googled yourself?
Not everyone might admit to it, but it’s doubtful anyone could resist Googling their name at least once or twice.
For most people, the results are typical: a few social media profiles, a company “About Us” page, maybe a quote in a local newspaper. Depending on your name’s popularity, the top results might be about an entirely different person; someone you’ve never met, but with whom you share a search engine results page.
You might’ve Googled yourself out of curiosity, or boredom, or because we put the thought in your mind just now. But there could be a time in your life where someone makes that inquiry with more significant intentions: a manager thinking of hiring you, a college weighing your application, or a potential partner scoping you out before a date.
In that case, the search engine results could have very real and lasting impact on your reputation.
The same goes for brands.
What shows up on page one of the results for branded keywords (searches that include the name of the brand) has a measurable effect on that brand’s reputation. That’s the importance of reputation management SEO, which is search engine optimization strategies and tactics to influence the results for branded search inquiries in order to preserve and improve a brand’s reputation online.
How the Search Engine Results Effect a Brand’s Reputation
It’s Friday night, and you’re decidedly too exhausted to make dinner. But you’re not feeling like any of your go-to restaurants, either. So, you pull out your phone and Google the name of that new place in town.
The first result is the restaurant’s homepage; the second is a link to their menu. Perfect. But there, in place three, is a preview of their Yelp rating:
Rating: 2.5 – 63 reviews – Price range: $40-$60
In an instant, your opinion has turned; there’s no way you’re paying 5-Star prices for a 2-Star meal.
Review sites like Yelp can have an enormous impact on a brand’s reputation online. So can Google reviews, news stories, blog posts, forum discussions, directory pages, career sites, and all the other third party websites that rank for branded search inquires.
The problem is that brands can’t control the content on these sites as they rule their own domains. A well-optimized homepage will usually outrank third party sites for branded inquiries, but customers aren’t as likely to click through if it’s surrounded by negativity on the SERP.
You can ask the authors to remove negative pages, but that can easily backfire and result in an even worse reputation.
So, what can be done about it?
Reputation Management SEO Strategies
Rarely do brands have the power to remove negative search engine results outright. However, it is possible to:
- Use search engine optimization (SEO) to influence the results for branded search inquiries
- Influence the content of third-party review sites
- Publish new types of content to claim more above the fold space on the results page
The goal is to enhance the ranking of positive items in favour of negative ones, either by displacing the negative content or improving it. There are several ways to go about this; we’ll briefly cover three strategies in the sections below.
1. Encourage Positive Reviews
Third party review sites like Yelp (along with industry-specific sites like G2Crowd for B2B software, or HomeStars for trade contractors) are crucial when it comes to reputation management SEO for local service industries.
These sites tend to rank well because they provide relevant information consumers want to see. Authentic customer reviews tend to carry more weight than curated testimonials on a brand’s own website.
It might not always be possible to outrank them, but it is possible to turn these sites into an asset:
- Most third-party review sites allow brands to “claim” and modify their profiles. Take this step and fill out the profile completely, using it as a platform to speak to potential customers.
- Upload enticing, high-quality photos that put products and services in the best possible light.
- Encourage happy customers to leave positive reviews on the site to bolster the score. Great reviews are the most effective way to diminish the weight of negative ones.
2. Publish New Content
With proper placement and optimization, quality blog posts, videos, and images that utilize branded keywords can rise in the rankings to displace negative pages.
YouTube videos are especially powerful in this way, since they can even claim the coveted position zero ranking, claiming valuable above-the-fold real estate.
It’s worth utilizing off-site publishing platforms as well as those on the brand’s domain. Industry-specific news sites, as well as pop news sites like The Huffington Post, can be valuable both for back-linking and reputation management.
3. Get Others to Write About the Brand
Journalists, bloggers, editors, and video creators are always on the hunt for great content. Pitching positive stories about the brand helps to seed the web with a variety of content relevant to branded search inquiries.
Over time, these stories can gain enough traction to rise in rank and claim a spot previously occupied by negativity.
Managing Your Reputation Online
Reputation management SEO takes time. Positive stories cannot displace negative ones overnight; high-quality links need to be developed over time; and legitimate customer reviews don’t always come easy.
But at this day and age, reputation management SEO is absolutely worth the time and effort.
The search engine results page serves as a brand’s first impression to many, many people. Negative results can stop potential customers in their tracks.
It’s like the old saying about planting a tree. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. Change takes time, so there’s no better time than the present to work on your brand’s online reputation.
Get in touch with us if you’d like to chat about where your brand stands in the digital marketplace.
Blog Optimization Checklist: 10 Clear-Cut Ways to Boost SEO
When you’ve poured time and energy into a great blog post, you want it to reach as much of your audience as possible. Small changes matter when it comes to boosting blog SEO. Take a run through this blog optimization checklist before you post — it won’t take long, and it’ll help your blog get seen by the right people.
1. Keywords
Keywords are words or short phrases that encompass what the blog post is about (see our blog: What Are Keywords and Why Do They Matter?). When you use them well, keywords can help the post rank for search queries that include those words.
Why Blog Keywords Matter for SEO
Search engine algorithms use repeated words and phrases as clues to what a webpage is about. Placing relevant, natural-sounding keywords in the blog content, title, meta description, and URL can contribute to a blog post’s search engine ranking.
How to Optimize for Keywords
Incorporate your chosen keywords into the blog:
- Title
- Headings (one or more)
- First paragraph
- Meta description
- URL
2. Length
There’s no perfect word count for SEO, but the length of a blog can factor into its ranking.
Why Blog Length Matters for SEO
Search engine algorithms often deem pages with less than 300 words inadequate to rank in the search engine results. However, longer isn’t necessarily better; a 3,000-word post stuffed with irrelevant content will fare just as poorly as a short one.
Optimizing Length for SEO
Aim to write at least 500 words per blog post. Beyond that, the ideal blog length will depend on your audience. Pay attention to how your blogs perform and look for trends related to page length.
3. Readability
It’s in the writer’s interest to make a blog post as easy to read as possible. Spacing, formatting, and writing style all weigh on a blog’s readability.
Why Readability Matters for SEO
Making your content easy to digest will increase the time people spend reading it and encourage them to share it with others. It can also increase the likelihood the content will rank in Featured Snippets, which is a huge boost to blog SEO.
How to Optimize Blog Readability
- Add informative headings and subheadings to make the post easier to skim.
- Format lists or step-by-step instructions as numbered or bulleted lists.
- Break large paragraphs into shorter chunks. Single-sentence paragraphs are common in the blog world.
4. Title
The title is your chance to convince the reader to click in 50-60 characters or less. A good title:
- Is short (search engines cut off titles longer than 60 characters);
- Is compelling (but not clickbait); and
- Promises readers something of value if they click.
Why Blog Titles Matter for SEO
A great title will drive more traffic to the blog, which significantly impacts its rankings. As mentioned above, the title should also include relevant keywords.
How to Optimize Blog Titles
Craft your title around keywords and the value readers receive from the blog. Shorten it 50 characters or less and add compelling adjectives to make it pop.
5. Call to Action
The title succeeds in persuading readers to click on your blog post. What do you want them to do once they’re there? Whatever the goal, readers are more likely to do it if you guide them in the right direction with a clear call to action.
Why a Call to Action Matters for SEO
An effective call to action keeps people on your site and discourages them from bouncing back to the search engine results page (see our blog: Understanding Bounce Rate, Long Clicks and Pogo-Sticking).
How to Optimize Call to Action
Place the call to action prominently on the blog post (the best spot will vary audience-to-audience, so consider testing different placements). It should be relevant to the subject matter of the article and the user’s pain points.
6. Internal and External Links
Internal links are links to content that is within the same domain as your content: other blog posts, product pages, contact pages, and so on. External links are the opposite: they point to other websites.
Why Internal and External Linking Matters for SEO
Interlinking helps search engine algorithms to understand the website’s structure. Links to credible, authoritative external sources help build your site’s credibility within the eyes of the all-seeing search algorithm. Both are an important part of boosting blog SEO.
How to Optimize Links
Be picky about the links you include! Credible external sites will bolster your blog’s credibility, but poor sites will do the opposite. Insert internal links should in a logical way that benefits the reader.
7. Anchor Text
Anchor text refers to the clickable text of an internal or external link. On most sites, anchor text is underlined and highlighted in blue.
Why Anchor Text Matters for SEO
Search engine algorithms use anchor text another clue to what a web page is about, both regarding your blog and the page you’re linking to.
How to Optimize Anchor Text
Good anchor text is succinct, informative, and relevant to the target page. Incorporate keywords where it sounds natural to do so.
8. Images
Images are a necessity in any blog post, no matter the length or the topic. Along with their visual appeal, original images can help boost your blog’s SEO.
Why Images Are Good for SEO
Images make the blog easier to read, increasing the chance people will share it and explore the rest of your site. Keywords in image titles and file names can help give the algorithm context on your blog’s topic. Images also allow the site to rank in image searches.
Optimizing Images for SEO
Upload high-quality images with keyword-rich titles and file names. Avoid adding overly-large images, as they can bog down your site’s loading speed (see our blog: Why Page Speed Matters.
9. Meta Description
The meta description is a 160-character summary of the blog that can display below the headline on the search engine results page.
Why Meta Descriptions Matter for SEO
The meta description can be a huge factor in a reader’s decision to click through to your blog from the search engine results page. Like blog titles, meta descriptions are a chance to pique the reader’s curiosity and promise something worth clicking for.
How to Optimize Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions that exceed 160 words will be cut off, so be sure to include the good stuff in the first 160.
10. Proofreading
Spelling and grammar checkers have come a long way, but they’re still not perfect! Take time to proofread your blog before posting it.
Why Spelling and Grammar Matters for SEO
Poor spelling and grammar will stop some readers in their tracks. Few people will share an error-ridden blog with their friends, let alone peruse the rest of the site. Proofreading keeps readers on the page and preserves your credibility.First, give the blog a once-over yourself. Then, pass it to a colleague for a second look. If no one’s available to help, a free proofreading tool like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor beats no proofreading at all.
7 Universal Content Strategies to Increase Audience Engagement
Content is a contest. Whether you’re writing blog posts or cutting videos, there’s always someone else out there who wants to win over your audience as bad as you do. These content strategies can help increase audience engagement across a variety of mediums to help get your message out there.
1. Gauge the Competition
Who’s winning the race for your important keywords?
Finding ways to outrank those competitors will help bolster your share of the audience.
One important step in increasing engagement is finding (and fixing) gaps in your current keyword strategy.
You could be falling behind in areas where your competitors already have plenty of content. There could also be high-volume keywords the competition hasn’t covered yet, leaving an opportunity for your site to fill in the gap.
Conducting a keyword gap analysis requires a strong grasp of your site’s current standing and where you want to improve: how people are finding your site now, which keywords are most valuable to you now, and what your competitors are doing better.
Tools like SEMRush’s Keyword Gap Analysis can help, but it’s only useful if you understand what keywords are and which keywords matter to your business.
2. Optimize Metadata
To most people, metadata is an afterthought.
For anyone with a website, it shouldn’t be.
Metadata refers to two types of information: basic descriptions of digital files (file author, date crated, file size, etc.) and descriptions of webpage content. Both types of metadata play a role in your content’s search engine visibility.
Search algorithms use metadata to help determine what a webpage is about. When metadata contains relevant keywords, it gives the page a better shot of ranking for those search queries.
Optimized metadata may not increase audience engagement alone, but it can help give well-crafted content the boost it needs.
3. Increase Page Speed
Slow loading speed is one of the biggest barriers to audience engagement.
Nearly half of all internet users will not wait longer than three seconds for a page to load. It doesn’t matter how great a blog or video is if it’s dragged down by a slow-loading site.
If you’re not sure of your site’s speed (or can’t figure out why it’s slow), Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can give answers. Beyond that, there are lots of big and small fixes to increase page speed.
4. Boost Presentation
Looks matter, at least when it comes to boosting audience engagement.
The nicer the page presentation, the more likely people are to view the content, share it with others, and link back to it — all important ingredients of attracting and engaging an audience
Overall site design plays a big part in this (which is one reason to redesign your site periodically). But there are also many smaller steps you can take to make your content easier and more enjoyable to consume.
- Break blog posts into short paragraphs with a logical flow, adding bullet points and lists where applicable.
- Add relevant images. Blog posts with images get an average of 94% more views than those without.
- Embed a video. Video increases the average time people spend on a site by 105%.
If you do add supplementary videos and images, be sure to optimize them with keyword-rich metadata.
Speaking of different mediums…
5. Use a Variety of Content Mediums
Radio didn’t bring an end to libraries. Film wasn’t the death knell for radio. And the Internet hasn’t dampened the popularity of video (only changed how we see it).
Why? Because different people like to consume information in different ways.
Some of your audience will always prefer a long-form blog post or whitepaper to a video; others won’t give text the time of day when there’s a visual alternative.
Using a variety of content broadens the appeal of your site to a wider audience. Blogs, eBooks, videos, case studies, infographics, and podcasts can all help to build different segment of an engaged following.
6. Be an Authority
Authority is one of the biggest factors in how search engine algorithms choose which sites make the front page. To increase audience engagement, you’ll have to show that you’re an authority in your industry.
Being an authority doesn’t mean you’re the be-all and end-all for your industry. Rather, it means you have a take on the topic that is more in-depth, more authentic, and more current than the competition.
For future content, focus on quality and relevance over quantity. As for older content that still performs well? Keep it current!
7. Send the Right Content to the Right Audience
Instead of blasting all your content to everyone at once, take a precision approach. Aim for where you know it’ll connect.
There are lots of ways to make sure your content reaches the right people and get them to engage with it:
- Starting an email list is a great initiative for anyone looking to build an army of loyal followers.
- A/B testing provides guidance when it comes to making the best possible first impression on visitors.
- Retargeting visitors with content you know matches their interests brings wayward audiences back into your sights.
The point is, different content will resonate best at different points in the marketing funnel. Once you’ve figured out your funnel, you can begin to weave it into your content strategy.
Getting Audiences to Engage with Your Content
No content creator can produce a viral masterpiece every time, but these steps will help put it on the screens of audiences that matter.
It all starts with strategy. We’d love to help you find yours.
5 Reasons Why Voice Search is Relevant to Local SEO in 2018
Voice search is set to become one of the top ways people find local products and services online. ComScore predicts that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be made using voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant. With the majority of voice searches being local queries, there are tons of reasons why voice search is relevant to local SEO.
These are some of the voice search trends in 2018 we’re eager to explore:
- Use of voice search is increasing in all age groups, including seniors.
- The hospitality industry is experimenting with voice-enabled devices in hotel rooms, which is a boon to retailers and restaurants who invest in local SEO.
- Voice-enabled devices are becoming more common in college dorms, giving local businesses another route to the lucrative student market.
- All signs point to pay-by-voice as a major e-commerce force in coming years.
- New schema markup can tell Google that your website’s text is perfect for voice search queries.
Let’s look at why these rising voice search trends are relevant to local SEO and discuss how to prepare for them
1. Voice Search is Not Only for Millennials
Millennials were the first generation to adopt voice assistant tech, and they’re still the biggest age group of voice search users. But voice search is increasingly used by people across age demographics.
In 2017, 10.9% of Americans used a voice-assisted device at least once, a 128.9% increase over the number in 2016.
One of the most surprising aspects of this increase is the number of adults over 65 who are eagerly purchasing and using voice assistant technology. Seniors aren’t usually early adopters of new tech, but voice search is different: it comes onboard familiar devices like thermostats and takes barriers like small text and complicated user interfaces out of the equation.
This trend presents a novel opportunity for businesses to speak to a demographic that has historically been tough to reach online.
2. Amazon Wants Alexa in Hotel Rooms
Until recently, the hospitality industry has struggled to integrate voice assistant devices into the guest experience. Many hotels have existing automation systems that don’t interface with new crop of smart home devices, while others lacked the information infrastructure to support them.
But as voice assistants have become ubiquitous, more brands are testing out voice-enabled tech in hotel rooms. The latest experiment comes from a collaboration between Amazon and Marriot. The companies plan to place Echo devices with specialized Alexa for Hospitality software in hotels, vacation rental spaces, and other hospitality locations.
Why is this exciting for Local SEO? Because tourists spend more than natives in local categories like restaurants and retail, and 33% of local search business comes from tourists.
When visitors land in an unfamiliar place, they turn to the internet for recommendations on where to eat and where to shop. In a future where voice-enabled devices are a hotel room standard, more and more of those valuable local queries are going to arrive via voice search.
3. Voice Assistants Are Becoming a Part of College Life
Today, smart speakers are still primarily used for entertainment purposes: playing music, reading audiobooks, and so on. But there’s a huge marketing push underway to frame voice-enabled smart speakers as a tool for college and university success.
Last year, Amazon partnered with four major universities to provide free Amazon Echo Dots to students, along with funding for schools to develop Alexa-related curriculums. Other schools are experimenting with smart speakers in dorm rooms to help students transition to college life.
Regardless of whether students will actually use their devices to keep track of class schedules and due dates, voice-enabled devices on campus are good news for local businesses.
Off-campus student spending accounts for as much as $17.5 billion in local economic activity. If voice assistants become a part of college life, businesses who invest in local SEO for voice search can reap even more of those benefits.
4. You Will Soon Be Able to Pay By Voice
In 2018, just about every major payment platform is working on enabling transactions through voice commands with voice-enabled devices.
Mastercard is looking to bring its Masterpass online payment platform into Amazon and Google’s voice systems. Google recently enabled peer-to-peer transactions through voice commands to Google Assistant, and Amazon has announced plans to let users make purchases with Amazon Pay directly through Alexa.
Once people can easily pay-by-voice, businesses who claim top local listings for voice search queries could see their conversions soar. It would also make calculating the return on investment for Local SEO easier and more accurate than ever.
5. Google Has Started Looking for ‘Speakable’ Text on Websites
Google recently announced a new form of markup called Speakable, which web publishers can use to indicate bits of text that are ideal for text-to-speech conversion.
To briefly summarize, schema markup is code on a website that speaks directly to search algorithms. It’s designed to provide information that helps search engines deliver better results to searchers. Speakable is a new kind of schema code that is meant to tell the algorithm which parts of a web page (if any) might be good answers to voice searches.
Essentially, Google wants to know which parts of your site are perfect for voice queries. That’s a huge opportunity for local businesses.
Speakable is still brand-new, and Google is currently only using it for news-related searches in the US. But its relevance is likely to expand over time, and it could become an important piece of the local SEO puzzle for businesses who want to rank in voice searches.
Preparing for Voice Search in Local SEO
The rise of voice search presents a world of opportunity for businesses who invest in local SEO.
Voice search optimization is still in its infancy. As voice search trends evolve, so will the tactics for optimizing a site for voice queries. However, there are steps you can take now to prepare for rising voice search trends in 2018 and beyond:
- Optimize your site for mobile. 20% of voice search queries come from mobile devices. Many users will follow up a voice search with a trip to the site that comes up in the answer. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s time to change that.
- Start paying attention to While Google is the leading search engine overall, Bing owns a huge share of the voice search market thanks to Amazon’s Alexa. Make sure your site has a complete and accurate Bing Places page and a strong presence in its rankings.
- Focus on long-tail keywords. The biggest difference between voice and text search is the tone, phrasing and words used in searches. Voice queries use natural language and a more conversational tone. They’re also usually phrased as questions. Keep this in mind when targeting long-tail keywords.
For more on voice search optimization, read our post on the key differences between voice search and text search.
How Local SEO Services Can Increase Inquiries and Drive Foot Traffic to Local Businesses
Local search engine optimization refers to tactics that increase a website’s visibility in local search queries. Search engines have become the primary directory people use to shop local (64% of customers use search engines as their main way to find local businesses), and Local SEO services are meant to ensure a business ranks in the search engine results for localized inquiries.
The bare basics of local SEO are things most business owner can do on their own: creating a complete and current Google My Business profile, encouraging customers to write positive reviews, and writing timely Google My Business posts. However, outranking competitors in a crowded local market requires a deeper optimization strategy.
How Google Determines Local Rankings
Search engine algorithm are built to recognize when a user is searching for results specific to a certain geographical location. These queries often include the name of a city or town (“donuts in Guelph”) or another geographical marker (“donuts near me”).
When someone makes a local query in Google, the search engine algorithm tailors its results to the specified location. In 93% of local queries, the top of the results page includes a box called the Local Pack, which highlights three local results for the query.
The Local Pack is a coveted spot in the rankings. It’s the first thing people see on the page, placing above even the top-ranking search result, which bolsters the business’s visibility and credibility.
Whether the query produces a local pack or not, local SEO is essential for businesses that want to reach new potential customers through search. On average, only the top three search results have a clickthrough rate above 10%.
Local search results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. Distance is just as it sounds how far away the potential results are from the location specified in the search. Relevance refers to how well: a local listing matches the search query, drawing from information the business provides in its Google My Business profile. Prominence is more complex.
Although Google has not released the full details on how its algorithm determines prominence in local results, we know it includes:
- How well-known the business is in the “real world” (famous landmarks or well-known store brands are likely to be prominent)
- Backlinks to the business’ website
- Number of Google Reviews
- Overall star-rating in Google Reviews
- Business’s ranking in web results (Google states that, “SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization”)
Return on Investment of Local SEO Services
Local SEO services provide a high return on investment for businesses focused on dominating a specific geographical market. No other advertising channel is as successful in targeting the most people who are currently looking for your product or service.
Local SEO is:
- Highly Targeted
Local SEO tactics are designed to increase exposure to people who are already searching for the business’s products or services and thus more likely to convert. Unlike traditional advertising channels, there is little exposure wasted on people who aren’t interested. - Able to Reach Massive Potential Audience
Google says that 46% of the 3.5 billion searches it processes each day are local queries. Local SEO is increasingly important as more and more people embrace search engines as their primary business directories. - In the Moment
Local search tactics position a business to reaching local customers who are looking for that product or service right now. Half of all local queries from mobile devices are searching for basic information like a company’s hours, address or phone number; 78% of those result in an offline purchase. No other advertising channel is as effective at capturing customers at the exact moment they’re ready to make a purchase.
Local search tactics and strategies are particularly effective in reaching prospective customers in the middle of the marketing funnel. They have already decided they want a certain product or service; all businesses have to do is help them choose between local options.
SEO Writing Tips: 5 Blog Writing Do’s and Don’t’s
Writing for SEO is not all that different from writing well in general. You want to make it clear, compelling, and as concise as possible. But there are a few essential SEO writing tips you should know if you’re new to the world of blogging.
We’ll start with keywords, word count, and a few notes on style.
1. Keywords
Writing for SEO means choosing your words carefully. If a word or phrase reoccurs throughout a web page, the search engine algorithms are more likely to dig up that page when someone searches for that phrase. Those are your keywords: words and phrases that help to define what your blog post is about.
Do: Use Keywords Them Strategically in Each Blog Post.
An effective keyword is one that:
- Accurately reflects what the blog post is about.
- Is something your customers are searching for.
- Does not have steep competition for the keyword.
We visit the topic of how to use effective keywords in greater depth here.
Don’t: Stuff Blog Posts Full of Keywords.
Search engine algorithms look at more than the number of times a keyword reoccurs in a blog post; they also consider its semantic value. Algorithms penalize sites that engage in ‘keyword-stuffing’, which means cramming a dense volume of keywords into a post to try and game the system. While the ideal keyword density is up for debate, writing for SEO means integrating strategically-chosen keywords into natural-sounding prose.
2. Post Length
Ironically, it often takes longer to write a concise piece than a lengthy one. But there is such a thing as being too concise when it comes to writing for SEO.
Do: Write At Least 500 Words.
Like your high school English teacher, search engine algorithms may take points off if your work is too short. There’s no strict word count for blog writing, but any page with fewer than 300 words may come under scrutiny for having thin content. We generally aim for 500 words at minimum.
Don’t: Pad It Out With Fluff.
Most readers are looking for fast, clear answers. Don’t bury key information beneath a lengthy introduction or sprinkle it among irrelevant tangents. If you are stretching to reach 500 words, consider broadening your chosen topic.
3. Active vs. Passive Voice
There are two ways to write action. One approach puts the force driving the action first; the second focuses on the person (or place, thing, etc.) at which the action is directed. That’s the simplest way to explain active and passive voice, a choice which can have a big effect on a blog post’s readability.
What does this have to do with SEO writing tips? It’s simple: the more people enjoy reading your post, the more likely they are to consume it in full, explore the rest of your site, and share it with others. Search engine algorithms take these as signals of a high-quality post that should rank well in the search engine results.
Do: Use Active Voice Whenever Possible.
With few exceptions active voice makes for clearer, more effective writing. Active voice is generally more concise and transparent than passive voice, and it flows naturally. Try reading some examples of examples of active and passive voice out loud: you’ll notice how active voice is smoother.
Don’t: Use Passive Voice Unless You Have To.
Passive voice, on the other hand, is often stiffer and less exciting compared to active writing. While most readers won’t nit-pick your post for passive voice, it will affect their reading experience. Switching from passive to active voice is a small change that has a big impact on the quality of your work.
4. Grade Level
Grade level is a way of measuring how easy a post is to read. The higher a post’s grade level, the more work it takes to read and comprehend its content. You can assess your post’s grade level using Microsoft Word’s built-in writing tools or a free tool like Hemingway Editor.
Do: Write for An Accessible Grade Level.
Don’t shut out potential readers by using long, complex paragraphs and unnecessary jargon. For a general audience, we recommend aiming for a grade level of six to eight. This limitation also has the benefit of encouraging you to write clearly and concisely.
Don’t: Make Errors.
Writing at a sixth-grade level doesn’t mean you should make sixth-grade spelling and grammar mistakes. The occasional typo is fine, but readers are unlikely to read through a post that is rifled with errors.
5. Be Connected
Your blog is not an island. There are many reasons to incorporate outbound links to other sites into your post. Chief among them is the fact that high-quality links gives your readers more value when they visit.
Do: Vet Your Sources.
Emphasis on high-quality. Search engine algorithms judge you by the company you keep, penalizing sites that link out to sub-par pages. If you wouldn’t put something on your own blog, don’t link to it, either!
Don’t: Forget to Give Credit.
There are times when backlinking is mandatory. Borrowing content from other sites without attribution is plagiarism, which can tank your search engine ranking as much as your reputation. Always take notes on the origin of your information while you’re researching your blog post.
Must-Know SEO Trends in 2018
Ok Google. What’s in store for SEO in 2018?
There are already clear SEO trends that will change how businesses approach digital marketing in 2018.
Voice search and mobile search are more important than ever, and the link-building strategies of yesteryear are due for an update. It’s also time to consider the growing impact of AI and machine learning on search.
Here’s what you need to know about some of the top SEO trends in 2018.
Mobile-First Index
Search has gone mobile. 57% of web traffic, including most Google searches, comes from mobile devices. But when it comes to generating search results, Google’s algorithm still looks at the desktop version of a page to decide if it’s relevant to the user.
That’s about to change.
Google has been experimenting with a mobile-first index since 2016. The mobile-first index is exactly what it sounds like: it looks primarily at the mobile version of a site’s content to understand its data and rank its pages in the results.
So, when does Google plan to deploy the mobile-first index in full? No one knows for sure, but many predict that the shift is coming in 2018.
The good news is, there’s still time to prepare for the mobile-search index. In addition to optimizing sites for mobile web browsing, businesses should start to consider how mobile search differs from the desktop.
Mobile searches are all about context; they’re usually made on-the-go, after all. That changes what kind of information searchers are looking for and how they go about finding it. Some keywords rank differently on mobile, and local SEO has a substantial impact on mobile results.
This also ties into the voice search trend, since voice queries often come from mobile devices.
Voice Search
Voice search is one the biggest SEO trends in 2018. According to Google, almost a quarter of searches made through the Google App on Android devices are voice queries, and the increasing adoption of digital home assistant devices is fuelling more voice searches every day.
Currently, most voice search queries fall into the category of ‘housekeeping’, like asking Siri or Alexa to play a voicemail, look up contact information, or set an alarm. But a growing number of voice searches relate to goods and services. The voice query app Hound found that 22% of voice searches relate to local information, like shopping and services; expect that to grow in 2018.
Voice searches are drastically different from the kinds of queries people type into a box. The phrases tend to be longer, often coming in the form of complete sentences. The tone of these queries is more conversational than a search you would type out.
Here’s an example. Say you want to know how late Starbucks is open next weekend. The typical Google search query is usually cold and efficient; something like, Starbucks Saturday hours. A voice search, on the other hand, would sound more like, Ok Google, how late is Starbucks open on Saturday?
The content of voice search is different as well. Voice searches are more likely to be about topics in-the-moment, like information about local businesses and services. On the other hand, people tend to avoid ‘sensitive subjects’, like social networking and health, when it comes to voice search.
The rise in voice search will have an enormous impact on the approach to SEO in 2018. Pages will not only need to target short keywords, but questions rich in long-tail keywords. More than ever, appealing to your audience will mean producing content that speaks their natural language.
It might seem daunting, but this trend opens a world of opportunity for local businesses to appeal to customers on-the-go.
Diverse Link-Building
Link-building is one of the pillars of powerful SEO. Search engine algorithms treat backlinks as endorsements, a thumbs-up to your relevance and quality of a site.
But not all backlinks are equal. The algorithm weighs the freshness, authority, and relevance of links, and poorly-sourced backlinks reflect back on your own site in the eyes of the search engine.
Last year, Google began looking at certain link-build strategies with greater scrutiny. Google now warns against leaning heavily on guest posts or syndicated posts for backlinks, especially those stuffed with keyword-rich links or penned by unreliable authors.
This trend emphasizes the importance of a diverse link-building strategy. Fortunately, there are more ways than ever to get your content out there.
Your backlink profile should consist of links from many different types of sites: HTML pages, blog posts, social posts, and more. Look for opportunities on Q&A sites like Quora, local news outlets, third-party review sites, and niche platforms that relate to your industry.
Think of it not only as link-building, but building relationships as well. These connections are critical to building a strong SEO strategy in 2018.
Featured Snippets
Featured snippets have only been around since 2014, but they’ve become such an integral part of Google search that it’s hard to imagine life without them. Almost 30% of results pages now display featured snippets, which pull quick bites of information from a web page relevant to the search query.
And people use them — a lot. Featured snippets have an average clickthrough rate of almost 33%.
More importantly, pages that land in the snippet box appear above the top-ranking result on the page. While the majority of snippets come from the top ten results for the query, only 30% come from page number one.
That means pages that optimize for snippets have a chance to draw traffic that would otherwise go to the top-ranking result.
So, how do pages earn a place in the featured snippet box? While sites can opt out of featured snippets, there’s no way to opt-in. The algorithm decides which pages to feature in much the same way it ranks results organically. However, it does favour content that offers quick, direct answers in language that matches the searcher’s intent. Lists, graphs, and Q&A-style content are also popular.
RankBrain AI
What is RankBrain? In short, it’s an artificial intelligence system Google uses to help sort search engine results. This AI is a part of Google’s overall search algorithm that picks through billions of web pages to find the ones that best answer a person’s search query.
RankBrain attempts to uncover the user’s intent behind their search. It looks at various signals, such as the searcher’s location, their previous searches, and what other people are searching at the time, to deliver more contextualized results.
As Google gets better at tailoring search engine results down to the individual user, businesses will have to be more aware of the steps in their audience’s buyer journey. That will determine the kind of questions they’re asking. Optimizing for RankBrain AI will mean delivering the right answers at the right time, using language that reflects the query.