Seo Specialist | 4 Vocal SEO Changes in San Diego for 2016

As the rain ends and the skies clear in San Diego after four days of brutal (in our terms) weather conditions, some search engine optimization specialists are assessing how a local business’s website performed during the week of rain. For business owners, those four days and the upcoming El Nino storm days could add up to missed business opportunities. And that’s just the start of this winter’s storms. Businesses with brick and mortar locations will see a drastic drop in sales if they do not have an online presence when they can either sell their products or schedule out their services. If you already have an online presence for your business, this article is specifically for you.

There has been a new emphasis on searchability by mobile and voice that will change your business’s current positions on major search engines. If you are not prepared for these search engine changes, an SEO specialist can help your company make the necessary updates for your San Diego business on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

1. 80% of San Diego business’s website searched by mobile device, 20% from desktop

According to A1genius.com, 80% of internet users use smartphones to search the web, boasting a 12.1% increase from last year. Everyone is on mobile, and every marketing strategist knows that if a competing business is not including mobile in their SEO campaign, that they will not be around much longer. But a mobile responsive website is not the only change needed here. A business owner must have ‘mobile on the mind’ while designing your website pages first, then make minor changes needed for the desktop medium second.

Simply put, business owners must include the following in their SEO strategies:

• mobile search-ability
• responsive website
• mobile layout
• marketing and advertising on mobile
• mobile e-commerce
• mobile payment
• mobile CRM
• integration between mobile, social media and local

Think about the last time you searched for a local business or service on your smartphone. Once you ended up on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page), you chose the first or second choice and made a phone call to them. On mobile devices, 85% of people choose the top two results, making the top spot on mobile much more valuable than the 67% of desktop users choosing the first two results. Of that 85 %, 80% of those local searches on mobile convert! This conversion rate is the best consumer to product conversion ratio found online.

This exponential increase in mobile search will have a major impact on local businesses, especially for retail stores and restaurants. This only proves the importance of getting your local business listed on Google+ local and working with an SEO specialist to get that listing in the top two of San Diego for your specific industry.

       2.  Your voice is the future of search in 2016  

When you ask Siri, Cortana, or Google Now, you might include or exclude words in your search that you wouldn’t have if you were searching on your mobile or desktop. Words such as ‘the best’ or ‘the top’ when describing what you are looking for might come out unintentionally more often than they would if you were typing them. Another example is if you asked Siri or Google, “Who is the best SEO specialist in San Diego”. Odds are that your search on a smartphone will not be the same. Instead, you would search “San Diego SEO” or something similar to that. Also, how you accessed your app (going to the search bar and pressing the microphone button or simply pressing the home button and saying “Hey Siri” can determine who comes up as the top choices in the SERPs. Voice search terms will usually include terms of Who, What, Where, Why and When. The What, Who, and How searches are categorized as people that are interested or searching for something as opposed to the When and Where searches being categorized more as “ready to act” searches.

The voice search was created to save the user time and effort, which it has. As some searches are done using voice recognition are trivial questions that are then supported by statistical-based answers, questions such as “Who is the best SEO specialist in San Diego” will allow the user choices, similar to the mobile and desktop searches.

    3.  How do businesses integrate these changes to their SEO strategy?

Businesses must run an active website marketing campaign with a search engine optimization specialist who can deliver game-changing local results. To do so you must have a well-detailed and actively run Google+ page complete with reviews, views, products/services description, pricing, location, and business directory citations. You also need to create new, unique content on a blog. This post will help you optimize your blog posts for Google.

If you are one of those businesses that have a highly ranked local listing and a deadbeat website, a change could be in the cards for you. In the next few months, Google will be changing the Google+ listing in the “three-pack” to also take into account the strength of your organic listed website. So your 32, 5-star reviews that have been keeping you at the top spot could be taken over by a company with 7 reviews and a strong organic searchable website. To survive this, we recommend getting a basic 7-10 page WordPress website built, paired with an active Local SEO campaign to increase traffic and business. Let this year be the year that you make the change towards catching up with technology!

    4.   The Google direct answer movement

You may have noticed the new section that has popped up on Google when asking a direct question. Instead of bringing up the most relevant website to your search, Google may provide you the answer to your question in a paragraph or two, along with the URL of the website the answer came from. If you are the top choice for a particular question the user is searching for, then you’re in luck! If you’re not, this may affect your chances of selling your goods or services based on your current long-tail keywords.

Although only around 19% of searches will have a direct answer in the SERPs, your search engine optimization specialist needs to make sure your website can compete with these changes. How do you compete to retain the top spot? Create more unique content and boost your long-tail keyword campaign! 2016 search engines will be more focused on content marketing than ever before, which means your blog needs to be at least a weekly priority. Within those blog posts, long-tail keywords need to be focused more on voice searches for the coming changes. This focus will work for both mobile and desktop users too because the searches will contain the same keywords. An example of a long-tail keyword specifically designed for voice users “what is the best SEO company in San Diego” or “how do you train your dog to walk beside you,” will help your specialist create a bulletproof plan.

In closing, when designing or revamping your website for the new year, you need to have the mobile version of your site as your number one viewed platform. If you own a retail show or are in the foodservice industry, this is especially important for you. The changes in search and positioning for mobile and voice require a long-tail keyword approach directed at search appropriate phrases. Those phrases should be questions written conversationally as if you were asking your neighbor the same question. Google makes an average of 500 algorithm changes per year, so it is very important you work with an SEO specialist that can maintain and make changes to your website. After all, your website should be the best salesman and marketer in your entire company!