Staying on top of online search is a must in my business. Change happens almost daily and it can affect your business if you fall too far behind. In June, I attended Search Marketing Expo Advanced in Seattle. One of the most valuable sessions was a question and answer session with Google’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts. Matt Cutts and his team are responsible for a variety of aspects of Google search including the infamous Panda update of 2013 which affected the traffic of many websites.
Google wants to make sure that they are delivering the best possible search results for the search query entered. This means making sure that spam is filtered out. Many sites use spammy tactics to rank well in search to lure people in. Over the years, Google has gotten really good at blocking out the noise. With that, Google has also made a lot of changes over the last few years in the mobile space. To give you an example, Google has recently added “Conversational Search” into regular Google Search. Google can see the future and the future includes us talking to our devices. We have seen this already with Siri, Google Now and the way people interface with Google GLASS. At the same conference, Bing gave a lackluster demo of their Siri/Google Now competitor Cortana.
Search is changing. I have seen reports stating that Mobile Search will outrank Desktop Search by the end of 2015. At Hill Media Group, we manage websites for local small businesses and organizations. I can confirm that report as I have already seen some of our clients websites receive more traffic from mobile devices that desktop devices.
To give you an example, during a Q&A Keynote, Matt Cutts performed an on the spot demo of Conversational Search in Google using his mobile device. You can watch the video here: http://bit.ly/conversationalsearch (47:45 – 51:00 minute mark)
Ten years ago, it would have been weird to see someone walking down the street staring at their phone. That quickly changed with the adoption of smart phones. It won’t be long before people will be talking to their smart devices rather than thumbing in their search queries or text messages. I have already adopted this as it is much faster than typing in my text messages.
What does this mean for local businesses?
It means that all of us need to step up our game with our websites. Google wants to produce the best possible results in search possible and if the best possible result is your corporate competitor, that is what will be displayed. As local businesses, we have the upper hand because we have physical locations and phone numbers in the cities and towns we do business in. This is not easy for many large corporations who may not have a physical location in your town.
Last year I wrote an article on my blog titled “5 Tips for Thriving in Online Local Search”. I mentioned the importance of keeping data up to date. These days, you will not get customers coming into your business to look around or ask questions. Potential customers want answers and their questions online. They will research what they are looking for before making the trip. We are much busier that we used to be and expect answers to be easy to find. This means that you need to have those answers on your website for your potential customers to find. Failure to provide information will drive them into the arms of your competitors.
It is also important to Monitor Your Web Traffic. You need to know what people are doing when they come to your website. If they are leaving prematurely, you need to figure out why. We recently redesigned a website for a law firm whose website was experiencing a 92% bounce rate. That means that 92% of the people visiting their website were leaving without taking a single action on that website page. Knowing this information helps you make changes. Failure to recognize these changes can lose you business.
In the ever changing world we live in, it is important to stay on top of mobile. We are smart device people now and rely heavily on these devices to research and find what we are looking for. Do your own research. Pay attention to what your competitors and others in your industry are doing. It is important that you produce content that helps answer your potential customers questions. In the next year or two, everybody will be talking to their smart devices. Siri, Google Now and Cortana will be our personal assistants who will help us stay organized, keep connected and research just about anything imaginable.
