Tag: voice search

Best Tips For Businesses Looking To Optimize Local SEO

Do you have a functional and well-designed webpage? Today, websites have become digital storefronts where people shop for products and services. They can browse the webpage by clicking a few buttons, add products to their cart, and checkout by filling in their details. Sounds simple!

However, what happens if your webpage isn’t visible to the audience? Millions of people could search for products and services like yours but cannot catch a glimpse of your digital store. It happens when your website isn’t optimized for the search engine. As a result, Google doesn’t rank it amongst the top results, leaving it on the second or third page of search results.

If that is the case with your business, it is time to invest in search engine optimization (SEO). It will help boost brand visibility, build users’ trust, and improve website engagement. You can also optimize the webpage for local SEO to enhance visibility in local search results for better results. It targets nearby customers, leading to more foot traffic and website visits.

Let us show you the ropes if you are ready to jump. Here are five best tips for businesses looking to optimize local SEO.

Nowadays, search engines have witnessed a rapid increase in voice searches. Therefore, optimizing how people ask questions in local SEO has become vital. Firstly, all marketers should remember that they are optimizing the site for local marketing products; hence, long-tail keywords will be more effective. And due to this, you must adjust the content’s SEO to make it sound more conversational and informal.

Moreover, understanding the user intent is important when optimizing voice search. People perform voice searches when they need specific information. For example, they might ask Alexa to ask about your store timings. Therefore, ensure all such crucial information is readily available on your webpage. For this, you can make an FAQ section on the website. It will help match the exact phrasing of voice search queries, improving visibility.

2.       Improve internal linking structure

There are two types of links – internal and external. Most marketers believe external links are ideal for boosting SEO rankings, but internal links can be a game-changer for local SEO. Internal links support website navigation by assisting search engine crawlers with information and web structure. Likewise, these links also improve page authority, improving website visibility.

Internal links can also connect relevant pages with your website. Hence, any link from a page related to your local business to other pages that provide information about your products can build credibility.

Now, the question is how to improve this linking structure. First, identify local landing pages on your website and create a sitemap. It will help visualize the connections between different pages and their relevance. Next, group related local content into different categories to create a pathway for users to navigate your site. You can also use descriptive keywords for your internal links to improve the website’s visibility in local search results.

3.       Optimize webpage for local SEO

Another crucial step towards local SEO is to build an optimized website that captivates local audiences. Here are a few tips to optimize the website for local SEO.

  • Contact information: Today’s consumers want to know everything about businesses; hence, create an “about us” page on the website. If you have multiple store locations, include all your business addresses, email, and operational hours. It will make it easier for the audience to find you.
  • Mobile-friendly optimization: More than 82% of smartphone users conduct near-me searches, which means you must optimize the website for mobile devices. It involves four elements – responsive page display, readable font, clear text, and media display.
  • Keyword research: Every marketer must target local keywords that answer people’s search intent. For example, you can add “near me” to your existing keywords to target nearby customers. Let us explain how. You are a boutique owner whose site contains keywords like stylist, designer, clothes shop, etc. To attract local audiences, you can use keywords like stylist near me or clothes shop nearby.

4.       Create local content

Previously, content marketing was all about appealing to search engines. But as Google gets smarter every day, marketers should start creating content for audiences. You can focus on writing about local or industry news to captivate your target audience. You can capitalize on the popularity of an upcoming community event and write about it. Likewise, cover local events from a local business owner’s perspective.

Once you have a few content ideas ready, learn about your target market. You cannot create valuable content if you don’t know who you are creating it for. Thus, go through the readers’ personas and understand the demographics. Do you young adults read your blogs? Is it the Gen Z that has caught your attention? Depending on your audience, you can curate content that resonates with them.

According to stats, link signals are the most crucial factors for local SEO. These are backlinks pointing visitors to your site while boosting your local SEO. They contribute to the site’s credibility and visibility in the local search, indicating your site is a trusted source. So, the question is, how can you get high-quality backlinks? Look below.

  • Use local directories and industry-specific web pages to list your business. Alongside this, ensure your contact information is consistent with increasing link signals.
  • You can collaborate with other local businesses and influencers. In turn, they will write about your business offerings, leading to high-quality backlinks from their website.
  • Reach out to local media outlets and share stories about your business. Believe it or not, media coverage often helps generate authoritative backlinks.
  • Develop relationships with local bloggers and journalists who cover topics related to your business niche. They can reference your webpage in their articles.

Conclusion

Today, local SEO has become an integrated part of every SEO strategy for local businesses. It helps the audience find your business readily, improving website traffic, lead generation, and conversions. Therefore, it is time every marketer optimizes the webpage for local SEO. Besides content and long-tail keyword, ranking in local search results takes a few backlinks and optimization. Therefore, ensure your site is mobile-friendly and optimized for voice search to gain visibility on the search engine results page.

Voice Search as an Important SEO Trend: Changes Are Required

In the year 2011, Siri was introduced to the world by Apple. This technology was undoubtedly a novelty that provided important information along with laughable responses to several other queries. People and businesses found it difficult to understand that it would become one of the most important digital trends that would rule the future. Since then, voice search has gone through several important changes. Find SEO by Get House Deals.

There are important voice-activated technologies that are present in the market, namely Google assistant, Cortana, Alexa, and also, Siri. 

Advantages associated with voice commands

Since the technology of voice recognition is becoming versatile and accurate, users have started to realize the benefits that are associated with using voice commands. This has also allowed in a better ranking of the websites. The reasons as to why people are in love with voice search include:

  • They can multitask easily.
  • It is easier for them to complete their tasks faster. 
  • They can receive answers instantly.
  • It is also responsible for making the daily routine easy.

Optimizing for voice search

Indeed, the adoption of this amazing technology is still going on; however, smart marketers have started optimizing voice already so that they can get the best out of search marketing in the future.

Voice optimization is undoubtedly significant for most of the large as well as local businesses. Most of the individuals prefer using voice search when they are driving, asking questions regarding a particular business location, etc. Both the chain companies as well as small businesses are interested in optimizing for local SEO and they need to consider voice search queries. 

If you are interested in making your business stand out from the huge crowd and reach the top position within search engines, you have to consider optimizing for voice search when you are strategizing your content. Given below is a list of the significant changes that you should be making for optimizing voice search. 

Keyword research

It is your responsibility to consider all the semantic differences that lie within the search queries. You have to understand that people type as well as speak differently. You need to understand and brainstorm the different types of questions that people can ask based on the target keywords that you are choosing.

You can use several tools for doing this. You can use an important SEO tool; namely, Answer the Public, which has gained a lot of popularity. This tool will help you to understand all the questions that can be asked based on a particular keyword. 

Site structure as well as content development

When you are building an amazing content strategy and you are thinking about optimizing for voice search, you will want to understand the questions that your customers will be asking. This will help in making sure that you are available through voice search irrespective of the requirements of the customers. You have to consider the following points:

Apart from that, the three significant content types, which work ideally for voice search optimization include:

  • Information intent- Guides, how-to, etc. 
  • Navigational intent- Store locations, press releases, services, customer service information. 
  • Transactional intent- Videos, comparisons, product information, product stories. 

Structured data optimization

There is no denying the fact that optimizing for voice search is a hit and miss. Unlike regular results, where the results that appear second for any particular search query are going to attract traffic, voice search is responsible for returning one single answer from the result that is best optimized.

Therefore, it is your responsibility to ensure that you are making the content informative and relevant so that Google finds your answer to be the best optimized.

You also need to make sure that all your pages can be crawled easily. If you have not done this, you need to ensure that you are creating a sitemap and submitting it to Google search console. Another important thing that can help Google bots understand the content, as well as its relevance, is using schema or structured data markup. 

Structured data markup will help in creating metadata, which will tell Google regarding the content, without affecting how the content appears to the users. Given below are a few examples of the type of information that you should identify for the Google bots. 

Structured data markup does not affect the rankings directly. However, it can help in boosting the results of voice search by depicting the relevance associated with the content for certain search queries.

Making use of schema data is also considered to be one of the best SEO practices, as stated by www.forbes.com. 

Mobile-friendly means voice friendly

The algorithms of the search engines have started changing and they have already made search engine marketing mobile-first. You need to know that most of the voice searches are responsible for coming from smartphones. Therefore, when you are optimizing for voice search, it is going to have a positive impact on mobile optimization as well. For instance:

  • Voice search results are responsible for loading 52% faster on mobile phones in comparison to average pages. 
  • Making use of structured data can help in making the content perfect for voice search. 

This has been stated by the professional marketers of SEO by Getting House Deals. 

Getting ready for future developments

While several steps can be taken for incorporating voice optimization, it is undoubtedly only the beginning. Home voice assistants have already started gaining popularity. People from different parts of the world have also started recognizing the capabilities that these tools have.

Big brands like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are constantly developing several features as well as capabilities to contribute to the growth of voice search. Therefore, the ideal thing that you can consider doing is to prepare yourself for all the future developments that are coming along the way. 

The bottom line

Voice search has already started dominating search engine optimization and it is also having a great impact on search marketing. You need to make sure that you are incorporating all the strategies that have been mentioned above so that you can prepare your business for the best even when the adoptions continue growing.