Google Decluttering The First Results Page – What This Means for Featured Snippets
Google recently announced that pages that earn a featured snippet will no longer repeat as a regular listing on the first page search results.
If you’re unfamiliar with what featured snippets are, they’re selected search results that are featured on top of Google’s organic results, right below the ads. Featured snippets are in a box and aim to answer the user’s question right away, which is great for brand exposure in search results.
This change not only affects featured snippet owners, but those in competition with featured snippet owners. For featured snippet owners, this change means that their URL will only appear once on the first page of Google, instead of getting two listings. For those who aren’t utilizing featured snippets, this means that their competition will no longer show up twice.
Although Google is prohibiting a business from appearing twice on the first page of results if they have a featured snippet, they can still show up at the top of the second page.
The featured snippets will be counted as one of the ten organic listings shown on the first page of Google results. By keeping an eye out on rankings and traffic to your site, you should be able to get a read on how your business is adjusting to this change.
A Look at The Digital Marketing Benefits of Google Search Console
As a leader in national SEO and digital marketing we leverage the Google Search Console for data within our future strategy for our clients. The Google Search Console is a combination of Google SEO tools. Google Search Console has different data and configuration controls that help boost your website. There are also multiple visitor metrics. The Search Console gives you an insight into Google’s opinion of your website. You can check your site for any errors or broken pages. You can also receive messages from Google concerning your website. You’ll be notified if there is a potential security issues or malware outbreak. You can also use Google Search Console to add deep linking features to your app. Here is a look at some of the additional ways that Google Search Console can assist your digital marketing efforts.
Site Links
Site Links help people browse your website. The Site Links are automatically generated by Google. They are considered shortcuts to direct pages.
Search Traffic
The Search Traffic feature gives you access to important information such as the number of impressions, the keyword search phrases Google served your site and your average search engine rankings for a specific keyword. You can also view your hidden link structure.
Analytics
You can view analytics that show how your website is performing based on the organic search traffic generated through Google. You’ll receive access to the most popular devices, pages, and queries. Google Search Console also allows you to segment traffic through using different filters. You can segment your organic traffic based on your business objectives. You can use the analytics feature to view new opportunities and trends.
Internal Links
View the Internal Links breakdown to look at the pages with the most links from inside of your website. If the impressions are consistent, but you are noticing a lack of clicks, that is a sign that something is wrong. Test out some new description tags.
Content Keywords
The Content Keyword feature lets you view the most popular keywords founds on your website. This helps you ensure that the vision of your website content according to Google aligns with your small business objectives.
Crawl Stats
The Crawl Stats feature allows you to view the number of pages during the allowable reporting period of around 3 months. Analyze the Crawl Stats to identify website performance issues.
Link Multiplier
When you go to the Search Traffic section, you’ll be able to view the top linked pages. Check to see if the listed content is trending. If the content is currently in demand, use it to connect with bloggers and other influencers.
Digital Marketing Trends for 2020
The new decade is a great time to start setting goals for your digital marketing. You will want to use a variety of different methods to keep your brand in front of your target audience at all times. Therefore, you will want to consider these digital marketing trends for 2020.
Social Media Marketing
With people creating five new profiles every second on Facebook, your customers must find your company on this social media platform throughout the coming year. The most common demographic for Facebook is between 25 and 34 years old. You also need to determine which other social media sites your target audience is using, and make sure that your target audience finds your digital marketing on these platforms, including those like Snapchat that goes away after a few seconds. You can expect niche social media sites to become even more prominent throughout the coming year. SEO Locale can help you with your future social media management.
Pay Per Click Advertising
One of the most significant changes that you need to embrace throughout the coming year in your PPC advertising is to use hyper-specific landing pages. This will work in your favor in at least two ways. First, Google rewards pages that they find highly relevant to their perception of the user’s intent. Secondly, conversion rates are higher when buyers find exactly the content, they are looking for immediately on your page. Paid advertising management can help you get the boost you need immediately compared to SEO that takes some time to kick in.
YouTube Advertising
Most companies find that their conversion rate with YouTube advertising is 2.5 % higher than with other digital marketing techniques. This is especially true if your target audience is under 35. You will want to use short bumper ads that are less than 15 seconds. Make sure you are working with a professional team that can deliver your message in a very creative way. Our team at SEO Locale can help you create the multimedia you need to start your effective advertising.
Email Marketing
One of the hottest trends for 2020 will be the use of videos in emails. Remember, however, that not all providers show videos in emails, so be sure to include a link to it. The use of AI to personalize emails this year will continue to be significant. Try incorporating the user’s past behavior into your subject line to increase open rates. Email marketing can be difficult so keep in mind to segment your list out so it is getting to the right people.
Website
One of the trends for 2020 that you will see on many websites is the use of voice-assisted search to help users find answers very quickly. You will want to create some professional videos for your site that reflect your company’s voice because they are memorable and help set you apart from your competitors. You need to be very open with your pricing while pointing out why customers get great value when shopping on your site. Make sure that you are always offering excellent customer service directly from your website.
These are just a few of the trends that you will want to embrace in 2020. Contact us today to get started on your marketing for this new decade.
Myth or Fact: Do Google Reviews Help SEO?
Do Google Reviews help SEO? The short answer is yes that Google reviews, so long as they are positive, do assist with SEO by helping to improve search engine rankings. Positive reviews indicate to search engines that the recipient of the reviews is trustworthy and authoritative. In an era in which competition on the Internet has gotten harder and harder, especially for smaller companies, overseeing online reviews helps to differentiate a business and improve its visibility in search engine results. Authority and trustworthiness are rewarded by search engines through improved search results. Your response as a business owner is key on helping keywords trigger to Google Bot to see you are relevant for X service or product.
Why Positive Google Reviews Matter
SEO requires examination of extensive search details, including content creation, link building and reviews generally don’t get much SEO attention. However, they certainly should, and especially for local businesses. The Local SEO Guide confirms the value of positive customer reviews for local businesses. For larger national businesses, the value is also indisputable. In fact, 88% of customers believe in online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations. Shoppers nearly always check online reviews before visiting any business, and 95% of shoppers say that reviews affect buying decisions. Google itself has confirmed this. In a recent survey of Google ranking factors, it was found that the importance of reviews has increased substantially over the last several years. Reviews now rank at 15.44% in search engine importance and #13 among 50 top ranking factors. The value and importance of positive reviews in SEO are clear.
Reviews Allow Customers to Learn About Products
Customers use online reviews to learn about products. When a product is new, there is a very good chance the customer will do a Google search to learn more. Positive reviews are likely to lead a customer to choose a provider of the product, and even to become a buyer.
What is the Best Way to Manage Reviews?
So long as a business is successful, review management should not be too difficult. Make sure that positive reviews are collected and reported online, and positive results will follow. Always display positive reviews on a website. There are various website development tools that can be used for this. Communicating with customers, encouraging reviewing, and collecting reviews makes good sense and will lead to receipt of positive reviews. Attempt to gather an email address at the time of a sale and then send a request for a review. Unfortunately, not all reviews will be positive, but even negative reviews are useful and should be collected. Communicate with negative reviewers from a customer service perspective in an effort to resolve complaints, and with resolution of complaints, a negative review may very well become a positive review. Allow us help you manage your Google My Business and reviews online, we can help you grow your entire digital marketing strategies.
Answer: Fact
Why SEO Plays a Central Role in your Digital Marketing Strategy
At this point, having a solid digital marketing strategy is a must for business owners. Your digital marketing strategy is what you will leverage to attract and retain more customers. Often times though, many business owners find that the strategy they spent so much time creating doesn’t work as effectively as they thought it would.
With that said, it’s not always that your strategy is wrong but that you don’t understand SEO and the impact it has on your digital marketing strategy overall. For this reason, we’re going to explain what SEO is and why it’s important in improving your digital marketing efforts.
What is SEO?
Simply put, SEO stands for search engine optimization and is a process that involves gaining new traffic to your website from organic search results. Search engine sites such as Google have primary search results that show up when someone needs an answer to a query.
Google focuses on delivering accurate results to its audience and is therefore constantly ranking content for relevancy. With that said, in order for your business to rank high and land on the primary page, your content needs to not only be relevant but is actually useful to the audience.
Even more, all of your content needs to be optimized for the search engine so that sites like Google can actually find it. Doing your SEO effectively will help Google determine the usefulness of your content and give your content rank.
SEO and Digital Marketing
In reality, you’ll never be able to maximize your digital marketing efforts without incorporating SEO. SEO is what helps you bring in organic traffic outside of paid ads and helps you foster real relationships. In addition, this leads to increased visibility and brand authority, which ultimately leads to brand loyalty.
SEO is comprised of so many fractions that help drive traffic to your website. For instance, SEO focuses on keywords, optimizing content, off-page SEO such as backlinking, and local SEO. All of these things work together to ensure that your digital marketing efforts are strengthened and you can garner real traffic.
While paid search is always good and should be a part of your digital marketing strategy, SEO plays a huge role in how successful your business is. SEO helps your business remain searchable in an over-saturated digital world.
Businesses that are focused on their digital marketing strategy should not ignore SEO in the process. There is always going to be a new marketing strategy that businesses find useful. However, one thing that will remain the same is that SEO plays a central role in how well businesses garner new customers.
Simple Guide to Breaking Down Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are used by many companies to reach a wider audience and gain more business online. If you’re thinking about utilizing Facebook advertising for the first time, there are a few things you should know before setting up your ads.
Step 1: Determine What Your Objective Is
Facebook offers a number of different objectives that are broken down into three different categories: awareness, consideration and conversion.
The awareness category is simple: if your goal is to make more people aware of your business and services, this is a great option to choose. If you want to make an ad describing some of the services you offer and want to get more eyes on your page, you should choose an awareness objective, like brand awareness or reach.
Consideration is a step further than awareness. This objective gets people to start thinking about your business and potentially look for more information about it. There are a range of options in the consideration objective. A popular option is website traffic, which leads the user from the Facebook ad to your website so they can learn more about your business. A few other popular options are engagement, video views and lead generation.
The last objective category Facebook offers is conversion. This is taking the consideration goal and turning it into a sale. This objective works well when you’re selling a product or service online and you want the prospective customer to make a purchase or fill out some type of form.
Step 2: Find Your Audience
After you’ve selected an objective for your Facebook ad, the next step is to figure out who exactly you want your ad to reach. You can choose geographic location, age and gender to reach your desired audience.
After you select the appropriate audience, you can be even more specific with your audience through detailed targeting. Detailed targeting allows you to zero in on certain behaviors, likes, job titles and more that Facebook keeps track of to reach an even more defined audience.
Once you put in all of that information, a budget, and a start and end date for your ad, Facebook will show you how many people you’ll reach on a daily basis and the total amount of people you can reach by running your ad.
Step 3: Create the Ad
Now that all of the technical aspects are out of the way, you can create your ad. Here, you can select a photo or video as well as create a caption and headline for your ad. You want to make sure that the text you use captures the attention of your audience. Keeping things short and straight to the point is a good route to go if you’re not sure what to do for the ad.
Feel free to get creative with your ad and make sure that it captures the essence of your business. If you would like to learn more about social media marketing or digital marketing, feel free to contact our team today.
Facebook Review and Ad Results
After you’ve finished your ad, you can submit it for Facebook to review. Facebook has an advertising policy, so during the review stage, Facebook checks to make sure your ad isn’t violating any of their policies. You should read up on Facebook ad policies before creating your ad to make sure your ad will start running right after the review.
If your ad is in violation of the Facebook policies, Facebook will let you know the reason your ad wasn’t approved. You can either go back in and edit your ad to comply with the policies, or if you feel as though Facebook made a mistake, you can request for them to take a second look.
Once your ad is approved, it’ll start delivering and you’ll be able to track your results!
What Is the Relationship Between SEO and Social Media?
The relationship between social media and SEO is quite complicated. Thus, if you wish to comprehend this relationship, then you need to become mindful of many advanced multidisciplinary concepts in the world of SEO. First and foremost, social media is about creating content on social media networks that invites the reader to find the information they need.
However, you should do this in such a way that you’re not interfering in their choices, and you should also give them time to digest this new information. By improving and optimizing your use of social media networks, you would directly increase the traffic of your website, your SEO, your visibility, and your revenues. To enhance the quality of the ranking of your site, you must also share your content on social networks.
You should also avoid spelling mistakes, post articles that are long enough, and publish regularly. At the same time, posting on social media networks is not suitable if your site content is not relevant. Hence, you will need to work on the layout of your website while you’re making useful posts on a wide variety of different social media networks.
Search engines are no longer being fooled today by the strategies that used to work in the past. With the advanced modern technology presently utilized by search engines, website owners need to take advantage of new tactics like using social media to boost the search engine ranking of a website. Thus, social media is an essential tool that modern site owners will need to make use of if they wish to improve their search engine rankings.
Remember, the more a search engine believes that your site is relevant to the interests of internet users, the more it will be likely that your website will appear in the first few results. On the other hand, if your site is tedious, then users will spend less time on your website, and Google will perceive your pages as uninteresting. Also, the use of bold letters, pictograms, links, illustrations, symbols, photos, italics, capital letters, and subtitles can all make your social media posts more interesting to read.
These are just a few of the many tips that you may wish to utilize to make the content you post to social media networks more pleasant to read and more attractive. At the same time, the ultimate goal for many website owners is to make more money. Therefore, you should understand that all these tips will help you to get more social media network users clicking on your links and thereby to earn you more money.
Indeed, having additional subscribers shows that you are publishing compelling content, which will both encourage more people to follow you and improve your Google ranking.
The Dangers of Hiring an SEO Company That Specializes in One Vertical
When you are shopping around for a digital marketing agency you may search for “lawyer seo company”. When doing searches like this you will find yourself looking at SEO companies that target just one industry only.
Below are some of the problems you will encounter by moving forward with an SEO company that specializes in only one vertical:
- Possibilities of working with your competition.
- You are just a number to them.
- No custom strategy is created.
- You’ll be given a template for your marketing strategy which they created for a competitor of yours.
SEO Locale has a different approach when it comes to bringing on new clients. We will not work with your competition and we provide you a true custom strategy that is aligned with your expectations and goals. As a smaller agency, we can provide the attention you deserve without any type of the limitation.
Listen Now: Future of SEO in 2020
Marc Brookland and Nick Quirk discuss with Neil Howe at Business Innovators Radio about how Google is always changing. Local Service Ads by Google will be expanding to more local small businesses. Local Service Ads, if available in your city and industry, will appear on the top of Google Search with the Google Guarantee badge. Consumers looking for “movers near me” can trigger Google Local Service Ads and businesses will appear in that position.
Applying for Local Service Ads
If you are a small business you can apply on the Local Service Ads platform by going through the process of background checks, licenses and business information. This process can take up to 2 weeks. Once you get approved you will be able to select your geographic area and budget. Google will then determine the cost per acquisition for you. With this model, you pay per lead versus the pay per click model. For our clients we see a higher percentage of closed leads compared to other directories.
Google Local Service Ads vs Pay Per Click
Google Local Service Ads can cost around $15 per lead and in traditional pay per click, with a typical conversion rate of 1-3%, you will find it tough to get an ROI. In 2020 the cost of Google Local Service Ads could increase when it starts to expand. Jumping on this as early as you can be a good start for your small business if it is open in your industry and area. Google Local Service Ads have minimal maintenance per month compared to traditional pay per click. All you really need to worry about is your targeting and keywords.
What is Google Guarantee?
Protecting the consumer with a guarantee of the service. In Google’s terms of service with Google Local Service Ads, they will protect the consumer up to $2,000. This is an important factor for consumers and the local small businesses to provide the highest quality of service. Google is creating a comfort level for consumers so they know they are protected while hiring a business to perform a service.
Optimize Your Google My Business
Optimizing your Google My Business by setting up the categories your business is in and making sure information is accurate on the platform. Keeping consistency with your Google My Business is key to the success. Posting on Google My Business can easily help you get a promotion out or a service you provide. Sending triggers to Google that you are relevant for your service and/or products by connecting everything. Customers want the engagement of your business so make sure you have a GMB post strategy in place. Search Engine Land showed a correlation between images and the number of calls a local business receives. Marc discusses how difficult it can be to get images for businesses, so posting images can help optimize your GMB.
Websites Are Still Relevant
The strategy between websites and Google My Businesses still need to be strong. Ignoring your website can be detrimental to your digital marketing strategy as a whole. Beating out the big directories can be difficult, but you need to come up with a strategy that will overtake the competition by targeting easy wins with long-tail keywords. Creating enough authority to start beating directories and competition can be accomplished with a full online marketing strategy.
Obtaining Conversions From Your Website
Make sure your website has a great user experience with great page speed and an easily accessible contact form. Don’t force your users to find what their search intent was so you can answer their questions without them exiting. Remarketing & Retargeting are important pieces to bring back users and obtain that conversion. Touchpoints these days can take up to 20 times when years ago it could have just been a handful. The market is becoming busy and there is a lot of information that is accessible through the internet. Look at your data points for assisted conversions. Remarketing won’t make a direct impact but will assist your brand awareness and help to convert into another lead source.
Creating a Successful Remarketing Campaign
When your users exit your website this could be a result of a user not finding what they are looking for or shopping around. With a successful remarketing campaign it is important to be everywhere from social media to Google Partner websites. Send the users to a new landing page that may answer their questions or bring them back with an incentive.
How Will Video & Voice Search Expand?
With 5G on the horizon for most cell phone services, and allowing technology to be leveraged with faster speeds, creating a strategy with voice search and answering people’s questions with long-tail keywords. The increased speed will start allowing people to leverage video more on all types of websites. Many people currently fear having videos on their websites as they believe it will slow their site speed. The growth of mobile traffic will continue to increase in 2020.
Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Platform Comparison Market Share
SEO Tactics in 2020
Google Local Map Pack is starting to become more of a trusted area in search results. In November of 2019, there was an update to nullify people who tried to manipulate the Local Map Pack. We will start to see a shift in the map pack for more quality in 2020. Businesses will find it more difficult to rank for certain areas and keywords with this quality shift.
Link building will still be an important piece for an SEO strategy – this is a key factor for Search Engine Bots to determine what keywords you should be found relevant for.
ADA Compliance will work hand-in-hand with SEO, as there are compliance items like image alt tags for your on-page SEO strategy.
Address technical issues on your website for the user’s experience and the search engine bot’s crawl-ability.
Moving forward keep doing everything well and do not focus on just one item of your strategy. With Google making ~8 updates a day to their search algorithm you will need to keep up and maintain your strategy regularly.