Tag: local seo

SEO in the Age of Voice Search: Strategies for optimising content for voice-activated devices.

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Voice search has emerged as a game-changer in the field of search engine optimisation (SEO). With the increasing popularity of voice-activated devices like smartphones, smart speakers, and virtual assistants, optimising your content for voice search is essential to ensure your website remains visible and competitive. In this article, we’ll explore strategies for adapting your SEO efforts to the age of voice search.

Understanding Voice Search:

  1. Conversational Queries: Voice searches tend to be more conversational and natural in tone compared to traditional text-based queries. Users are more likely to ask complete questions or use longer phrases.
  2. Local Intent: Voice searches often have local intent, with users seeking nearby businesses, services, or information. Optimising for local SEO is crucial in this context.
  3. Featured Snippets: Voice assistants often read out featured snippets or “position zero” content as answers to queries. Structuring your content to appear in featured snippets can boost visibility in voice search results.

Strategies for Voice Search Optimisation:

  1. Natural Language Content: Create content that mirrors the way people speak. Focus on answering questions concisely and conversationally. Consider using FAQ-style content that addresses common queries.
  2. Long-Tail Keywords: Voice searches are often longer and more specific. Target long-tail keywords and phrases that match the conversational nature of voice queries.
  3. Local SEO: Optimise your website for local searches by claiming your Google My Business listing, encouraging online reviews, and ensuring your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information is consistent across the web.
  4. Structured Data Markup: Implement structured data markup (schema.org) to provide search engines with additional context about your content. This can improve your chances of appearing in featured snippets.
  5. Mobile Optimisation: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly. Many voice searches occur on mobile devices.
  6. Page Speed: Page load speed is critical for voice search SEO. Compress images, enable browser caching, and minimise HTTP requests to improve your site’s performance.
  7. Local Content: Create content that highlights local events, news, and attractions related to your industry. This can increase your relevance for local voice searches.
  8. Use of Headers: Use clear, descriptive headers (H1, H2, etc.) in your content. This helps search engines understand the structure of your content, making it more voice-search-friendly.
  9. User Experience: Provide a seamless user experience with easy navigation and intuitive design. Voice search users expect quick answers and a smooth browsing experience.
  10. Voice Search Analytics: Monitor your website’s voice search performance through analytics tools. Understand the queries people use to find your content via voice search and optimise accordingly.

Conclusion:

Voice search is reshaping the SEO landscape, and adapting your strategies to accommodate this trend is essential for maintaining online visibility. By focusing on natural language content, long-tail keywords, local SEO, and technical optimisations, you can position your website to perform well in voice search results. Keep in mind that as voice search technology evolves, staying informed and adjusting your SEO strategies accordingly will be crucial for staying ahead in the digital marketplace.

Advanced SEO: Black Hat-SEO, Local SEO and Competitor Analysis

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This post is by guest author, Sameer Panjwani. This article has been edited and published with the author’s permission.

Getting your website ranked high on Google, Yahoo, Bing and other popular search engines so you can attract the most traffic is not something that happens by accident. It requires a comprehensive strategy that addresses all the major components of Search Engine Optimization.

In the online world, a lot of websites have addressed basic SEO techniques and ways to optimize your website structure in order to make your web pages more appealing to search engines. Now, in this article, we are going to address some advanced techniques that describe additional things you should – and shouldn’t – be doing.

LOCAL SEO AND COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Black Hat SEO Strategies

The term “black hat” refers to sneaky, underhanded SEO strategies that attempt to fool or short-circuit the search engine algorithms into ranking your pages higher. While these types of strategies may have worked in the past. Today’s algorithms are smarter and more sophisticated – and designed to identify and penalize websites that use black hat SEO.

The best approach is to avoid black hat SEO strategies altogether. These include such things as keyword stuffing, using hidden text and cloaking, copying and pasting other people’s content onto your pages, and using link schemes that artificially increase the number of links you have leading to your web pages.

In order to stay away from these black hat SEO techniques, you should know what they are:

  • Keyword stuffing is when you include an excessive amount of keywords within your content in order to artificially boost your keyword saturation. Not only are algorithms designed to identify this now, but it also will make your content effectively unreadable, turning away-page visitors.
  • Using too many H1 headings used to help get pages ranked higher, but now search engines will penalize pages with more than one H1 heading.
  • Copying and pasting content from another page is not only unethical. But it also could be a violation of copyright laws. If you aren’t able to create original content for your web pages on your own. Consider hiring a professional freelancer to do it for you.
  • Link schemes are programs that artificially build backlinks in order to make it seem as if your content is more influential than it actually is. Search engines now actually put more value in the number of social approval signals you have. Such as Facebook Likes and how often your link has been re-posted on Twitter – than the number of backlinks your content gets.

When it comes to black hat SEO strategies, the best approach is to avoid them altogether and instead focus on innovative approaches to improve your SEO.

Local Search Engine Optimization

The Internet is global, but your customer base is often very, very local. To rank higher on Google and other search engines, include keywords that include geo-specific information about your website. For example, the keywords “auto body repair” will likely bring in millions of links on Google. But “Akron auto body repair” will bring in a much more specific SERP listing that will be more valuable to users looking for that specific type of service in that specific geographic location.

You also can localize your SEO by including local information on each page of your websites, such as your street address, phone number, and business name.

The Google Search Console also allows you to specify the country or region you want to target. If you are already a Google webmaster for our site, the steps are simple:

  1. Click on Tools
  2. Set your Geographic Target
  3. Input the geographic location for your website
  4. Select the country or region you want Google to target

It’s important to note that Google restricts this feature to sites with a given country code top-level domain.

You also can use Schema Markup to aid Google in identifying places listed on your web pages. For example, if you include reviews or other business information, structured markup can help connect your pages with these places online.

Helpful Hint:

If yours is a physical business with multiple locations, you probably would want to create unique pages for each location. Making sure to include different content on each page, including local contact information.

Schema Markup is the common criteria all the major search engines have agreed to support rich snippets. Microdata is based on HTML tags that assign brief, descriptive names to items and properties within your pages. To learn more, check out this helpful article or visit Schema.org. Our you can use the Rich Snippets Testing Tool provided by Google to check the structured data markup on your web pages.

Competitive Analysis

The key to running a successful business is attracting more visitors to your web page than your competitors’ sites. Competitive analysis is the process of keeping tabs on what your competitors are doing right – and doing wrong – and stealing their best ideas while learning from their mistakes.

One way to do this is by running a backlink analysis of your competitors’ site. And then comparing the report with yours. The biggest indicator of this is page ranking. If they are ranked higher than you on Google or other popular search engines. You need to change that by following the SEO strategies outlined in this series of articles!

Another way to “keep score” is to find out how many visitors your competitors’ sites get compared to yours. This can be done using data provided by Compete and Alexa, two popular online website measurement tools.

Finally, it’s important to track what your competitors are doing off-page. Set a Google Alert to create competitive brand name monitoring so you can get notified every time your direct competitors get mentioned online.

Subscribe to their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts so you can analyze their social media strategies such as the best time to post on social media platforms, the type of content to post etc. and compare them against your own. Remember, Google now gives additional weight – and ranking – to websites with a higher number of social approval signals. Such as Facebook Likes, now often their links are re-posted on Twitter and others.

Your competitors are always improving. So it’s going to be up to you to continually seek new and effective ways to improve not only your SEO but the way you promote your business online, through social media and other platforms.