Voice Search and Digital Assistants Here to Stay

The latest trend in tech today is the growing popularity of voice search and digital assistants.

Every major tech company now has their own version of this helpful, disembodied technology. Amazon has Alexa. Google has Google Assistant. Microsoft has Cortana. And, of course, Apple has Siri.

Within just the past 12 months, the number of web users who rely on digital assistants to help them listen to their favorite music, answer questions about the weather, set cooking timers, and even unlock doors and turn lights on and off has increased exponentially.

Adapting to Change

This isn’t just a fad. Voice search and digital assistants are here to stay. In fact, Google recently reported that 1 out of 5 internet searches now come from voice queries.

Ignore this change in the way people use the web at your own peril. Today, smart businesses are adapting by using long-tail search keywords and natural language that matches the conversational tone people tend to use with their favorite digital assistants.

For example, for web-based searches, a user might type in “auto mechanics near Cincinnati, Ohio”. But the same person conducting the same search via their voice searching digital assistant might be more likely to say, “Siri, where is there an auto mechanic near me?”

Shift Towards Voice Search

The shift toward voice search will become even bigger as more and more people get the enabling devices in their homes. Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home will likely be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year.

Voice search technology also is becoming more prevalent among automakers who are looking for ways to provide the convenience of online access to their customers while minimizing the risks of distracted driving.

As digital assistants go beyond smartphones and enter our homes, our cars, and eventually our workplaces, the opportunity for businesses to use SEO and content to connect with this growing market increases.

A Single Video Can Be Used Multiple Times

Video is one of the most immediate and effective ways to communicate with a target audience.

The types of videos you produce are many. It can be a video promoting your business’s products or services, establishing your brand, or enhancing your reputation within the community. Or it can be an instructional video that teaches viewers something useful that they can use right away.

Or you can simply share somebody else’s video, providing your customers with relevant content that they can enjoy.

A Single Video Can Be Used Multiple Times – Not ‘One and Done’

One of the biggest benefits of video is that it can be used over and over again in a wide variety of different formats and contexts.

For example, let’s say you produce a video that teaches viewers something, such as training your employees on how to perform a specific task or showing your customers how to use a particular product you offer.

You might post that video on your website so that customers, employees, or others can access it and watch it at their convenience. But is that the end of the useful life of that video? Not at all!

Social Media and Other Uses

You can post that same video on your social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. It can be posted on all your accounts at the same time or staggered over time so that it appears on one then another a short time later, on a third in another week, and so on.

Staggering the distribution of your video on social media can help expand its audience. If a follower doesn’t happen to catch it on Facebook, for example, they might find it on Twitter when you post it a few days later.

You then can use the video in other places as well, such as an instant message, an email blast, or as a free giveaway during a future promotion.

Unlike other media, video has “legs” that allow you to post it multiple times to get exponential benefits from a single video production.

Too Many Bounce Backs Can Hurt Your SEO Ranking

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others use a lot of different kinds of metrics when assessing the value of your website. One of the most important is the number of bounce backs they detect from your web page.

A bounce back is when somebody goes online, finds your website and clicks on it, then immediately clicks back to the search results page — presumably because they did not find what they were looking for on your website. Too many bounces will definitely hurt your site rankings.

Bounce Backs Hurt Your Rankings

Search engines don’t always know why a visitor bounced back from your website. Nor do they care. They simply want to make sure they are providing their search engine users with high-quality results they can actually use.

So when Google detects a lot of bounce backs from your website, it will automatically assume that your website isn’t useful. And it will penalize your website by ranking it lower.

Too Many Bounce Backs Can Hurt Your SEO Ranking – Reducing Bounce Backs

There are many different reasons why your website may have a lot of bounce backs. The most common one has to do with user experience, also known as UX.

User experience is related to things like site speed, site architecture, quality content, and even the colors and fonts you chose to use on your website. If visitors don’t like any of these things, they are likely to bounce back to the search page where they found your website in the first place.

To improve your site rankings, it is critical that you identify the reasons for bounces. Once you can identify what people don’t like about your web pages, then you can do something to correct it.

Fixing bounces is one of the fastest and most effective ways to show immediate improvement in your rankings on the most popular search engines.

For On Page SEO Content Quality Is Still Top Priority

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There are all kinds of things you can do to improve the Search Engine Optimization of your web pages, including both on-page and off-page SEO techniques.

But there is nothing more important than providing your page visitors with high-value, helpful content that they can actually use. If you do nothing else, create high-quality content and your web pages will attract a lot of visitors.

Content and Web Crawlers

Search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google use a lot of criteria when judging the value of web pages. But the number one thing they are looking for is high-quality, useful content.

It’s simply supply and demand. People aren’t going to use search engines that don’t give good results they can use right away. So Google isn’t going to rank web pages high unless they meet this measurement first and foremost.

Your web page can have outstanding design, great embedded keywords, and every other type of SEO technique known to programmers worldwide, but if it doesn’t provide visitors with great content they can genuinely use, it’s never going to rank at the top of the search engine results pages for your keywords. It’s really that simple.

For On Page SEO Content Quality Is Still Top Priority – Measure Your Content

To ensure your web page has high-value content, simply ask yourself two essential questions:

Why are people looking for web pages like yours?

What do they expect to find when they arrive there?

If your web page clearly provides visitors looking for specific pages like yours exactly what they want when they land there, there is no way your page won’t rank high. Even if you do nothing else to improve your SEO, your page will attract the attention of the top search engines like Google.

Providing valuable content that people can genuinely use right away is the best way to get your web pages ranked at the top of Google.

If You Can’t Beat Amazon, Join Them!

If You Can’t Beat Amazon – Join Them! In 1995, Amazon began as an online book seller. But in the subsequent 17 years, it has become the biggest and most successful online retailer in the world.

But Amazon founder Jeff Bezos isn’t stopping there. The company has acquired such diverse enterprises as the Washington Post newspaper, upscale grocer Whole Foods, and many others.

Many businesses find themselves in direct competition with Amazon, as the online retail giant makes it easier than ever for its customers to buy from them rather than anybody else. In recent years, the company introduced its new Amazon Echo interactive home device that literally allows customers to order practically anything they want simply by asking “Alexa” for it.

In recent years, the company introduced its new Amazon Echo interactive home device that literally allows customers to order practically anything they want simply by asking “Alexa” for it.

And more innovations are certainly coming from Amazon.

If You Can’t Beat Amazon, Join Them! – SEO Florida – Selling through Amazon

In the wake of such marketplace dominance, many businesses are discovering that it is easier to join forces with Amazon than compete against it.

Amazon makes few products on its own, instead serving as a marketplace for other businesses’ offerings. Companies can sell their products to Amazon directly for resale, or ship their products directly to customers who buy them through Amazon.

While Amazon takes a share of the profits, it is often worth it for companies because they can gain access to the online retailers billions of prospective customers.

If You Can’t Beat Amazon, Join Them! – SEO Florida – Amazon Affiliates

Another way to use Amazon’s market dominance to your advantage is through its Amazon Affiliates program.

When you sign up, you can promote products available on Amazon through your own Website, social media accounts, and elsewhere and when people click through to buy those products, you get a small commission for every sale that is made through your portals.

In the early 21st Century, Amazon has created a market position that is hard for other businesses to compete against. So if you can’t beat Amazon, you might consider joining them.

On-Screen Tech Support Builds Bonds with Customers

There is a growing trend among many online retailers to provide on-screen tech support boxes right on their business website. You may have seen these text boxes, which usually pop up at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen when the user lands on the web page.

Typically, these on-screen tech support boxes say something like, “Let me know if there is anything I can help you with today!” They also may include an image of a smiling person wearing a headset.

How On-Screen Text Boxes Work

If the page visitor has questions about your products, services, or other aspects of your business, they can simply type in a text message into the text box.

If the on-screen support screen is being monitored by somebody within your company, they can respond right away in real time. Often this responsibility is “pushed” to a specific department, such as customer service.

Depending on the setup you use for the on-screen text box, any customer inquiries may be forwarded to an individual’s laptop, smartphone, or another device.

On-Screen Tech Support Builds Bonds with Customers – SEO — Building Customer Loyalty Bonds

Having an on-screen tech support box right on your website is a great way to build loyalty bonds with your customers. While a very small percentage of customers will actually use the box, people like the idea that there is a real, live person they can communicate with at any time they like.

It helps them feel as if you genuinely care about their concerns and questions. On-screen tech support text boxes also give you the opportunity to resolve customers complaints, fix problems, and even upsell customers to more of your products and services.

These increasingly popular add-ons to your web pages can be a very effective way to enhance both the usefulness and interactivity of your web pages.

Pictures of People Connect Better with Page Visitors

When you post articles, blogs, or other content on your web page, it’s important that you always include some sort of image to go with it.

But not just any image will do. Visitors to your web page will connect better on an emotional level if you include an image that includes at least one person, rather than simple pictures of objects of products.

Numerous studies have shown that Internet users prefer websites that include pictures of people over pictures of things.

The Human Touch

Human beings are social entities and they like to make connections between people and their stories. When you include an image that includes a real person, people will project their thoughts and ideas onto that image.

But when you simply post a picture of a thing, the viewer can’t make that imaginative connection as easily. They can’t empathize with an object in the same way that they can with a real live human being.

The Voyeuristic Effect

People also like to look at other people. But they don’t always get the opportunity to do so as much as they would like in real life.

Think about your own experiences. In the office, or even in your own home, if you were to stare at another person as long as you wanted it probably would make you both feel uncomfortable.

But you can look at an online photo of a person as long as you like.

This is known as the voyeuristic effect of online marketing. Professional marketers know that if they include images of young, attractive people with their postings, it will attract and hold the eye of the viewer longer.

Pictures of People Connect Better with Page Visitors – SEO Fort Lauderdale — Effective Web Pages

Your web postings will have more effect if they include photos of actual people whenever possible.

People love looking at people. Use that to your advantage.

With SEO Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture

The algorithms search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo use to create search engine results pages (SERPs) are highly complicated and top-secret. They also are constantly being updated, improved, and modified.

A lot of web page managers will spend endless hours trying to outsmart these algorithms, constantly scanning the web for anything that will give them an edge over the competition. In some instances, companies will pay thousands of dollars and devote weeks of resources to move up just a few spots on the SERP for their specific keywords.

Given today’s highly competitive online environment, it’s easy to get caught up in this web-based arms race. Unfortunately, it’s also easy to lose sight of the big picture.

Web Page Basics

Inserting a keyword here or moving an image there may marginally improve your page rankings. But if you really want to attract more people to your web pages all you really need to do is to provide high-quality content that people can actually use.

That’s what search engines value most. And it makes sense.

From Google’s perspective, they want web users to use their search engine more than any other because then they can sell more space to advertisers and make more money. And the best way to attract the highest number of web users is to give the best possible search engine experience.

With SEO Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture – Give Them What They Want

If people go to Google to find information or products they want to buy and instead discover links to low-quality websites that are only marginally related to what they are searching for, they are going to go somewhere else.

The same holds true for your web pages. If you don’t provide your customers or clients with what they want, they will keep searching until they find what they are looking for.

Google understands this. And you should, too.

With Today’s Web Design, Content Is King

In order for your web pages to be popular, they have to strike a delicate balance between search engine optimization (SEO) and giving visitors what they want. In effect, web designers have been serving two masters: The giant search engine algorithms like Google, Bing!, Yahoo, and others, and the people who actually visit their web pages.

Now, all that is changing. Google and others are realizing that the pages that score the best in their algorithmic equations aren’t always the pages people really want to see. So now they are changing their criteria to favor high-value web pages that provide users with genuinely usable content that looks and feels good.

Web Design – Content Is King – Give the People What They Want

Like any emerging industry, the internet is getting smarter as it gets older.

Consider the auto industry. Birthed in the first decades of the 20th Century, car makers built vehicles that were utilitarian but had few frills. As production became bigger and cheaper, however, auto companies started building cars people wanted, rather than simply stripped down cars they could use.

Web Design – If You Build It, They Will Come

The internet is following the same path. Search engine optimization used to be highly formulaic: If you included these keywords, put them in these places, and added a few other SEO tricks, you could be assured of getting a high page ranking on Google.

Now that formula doesn’t work. A better plan is to create web pages that include useful content people actually want. Not only will you attract more visitors, but you will make the search engine algorithm gods happy as well and be rewarded with top rankings.

The web hasn’t stopped evolving. In fact, we are still in its infancy. But adapting to the changing times will help get your web pages ranked higher.

Search Engines Are Measuring and Weighing Your Website

When you post a business website on the internet, your aim is for customers to find it easily and quickly. But in order for people to find your website, it has to be appealing to search engines.

Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines are what connect customers with your website. So if your website doesn’t provide search engines with what they want, it won’t be ranked high on search engine results pages. And if that happens, people are going to have a hard time finding your business website.

Search Engines Are Measuring and Weighing Your Website – SEO Florida – Search Engines

Like your business, the goal of search engines is to give their customers what they want. So when they scan through the internet looking for new websites, what they are really looking for are those websites that provide the most relevance for their users.

When the come across your business website, search engines use an algorithm to scan through it to measure and weigh its relevance to their users and then assign a rating, or ranking, based on what they find.

Essentially, search engine algorithms are looking for content that their users can genuinely use. But they also are looking at your website’s performance, such as how fast it works and if it is easy to use.

Search Engines Are Measuring and Weighing Your Website – Authority and User Experience

Search engines also want to make sure your website is authoritative. In other words, would people likely to go to your website to seek answers for the questions they have related to your content? If so, or if your website is linked to authoritative sites that do provide answers, it will be ranked higher.

Finally, search engines consider the overall user experience when people land on your website. If your site attractive? Is it easy to navigate around your web pages? Does it look trustworthy? If the answer is “yes” to all these questions, your business website is more likely to rank high on the search engine results pages for people looking for businesses like yours.

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