Today’s message is a friendly reminder that the Internet is one of the most dynamic places in the world. Yes, we may realize millions of people make legitimate searches on it every second of every day, but it’s easy to forget unscrupulous individuals and their malware are right beside them in significant numbers, too.

Keeping your website healthy and secure are the most essential maintenance and marketing issues in 2019, and a little preventive maintenance is worth a pound of cure.

Clients who come to me with a broken website, or a site that has poor performance, are often surprised to learn that…

their website has been hacked or compromised in some way
a lack of web server maintenance exposes security vulnerabilities
web server updates often break site plugins creating an increase in security vulnerabilities and performance issues
web server firewall setup and updates have been neglected, meaning your website is now exposed to vulnerabilities and direct attacks
improper installation and configuration of the web server have made the site vulnerable to malware and direct attacks.
There are a variety of professional tools web developers use to measure the specific health of your website. For website owners, one of the more popular tools for a quick overview is provided by HubSpot. Their Website Grader provides useful insight as to where improvements can be made concerning your website’s health in general.
While you are checking your website for security vulnerabilities and performance issues, take a few extra minutes and put your marketing hat on to ask yourself this question: What is my website’s search ranking? Besides being essential for obvious reasons, you may not realize that your website’s search ranking is partly formulated by certain factors that are directly related to its overall health-so they are inextricably intertwined. To review one without the other can quickly lead to a misdiagnosis of your website’s overall health.

Search ranking is the best indicator of your site’s visibility on given search terms and phrases that match your products and services. It’s not difficult to learn if you have the right tool, and this tool is a free service we offer to all website owners whether you’re a customer or not.

For sure, your website’s search ranking is a very complex and dynamic process. Since Google has at least 80% of the search market in North America, we are most concerned with the Google ranking number, which is based on over 200 factors! It’s the best way to know the probability that your website will be visible to any number of related searches. And since your website ranking is dynamically factored, your ranking at a given moment is a snapshot according to present conditions. A high search ranking is the Holy Grail of search engine optimization (SEO).

If your search rank is not where you want to be according to your SEO Score Card, no worries. Even if you are graded low for given keywords (<70), my SEO experts can help improve your ranking month-by-month.

As previously mentioned, some of the more weighted SEO factors are related to your website’s performance, responsiveness, and security. Here’s how it’s related.

For example, an experienced web developer can analyze and mitigate any performance and security issues related to,

Un-optimized programming
Un-optimized page responsiveness (viewability on mobile devices)
SPAM hacks
Slow host server
Host server too far away (slow page loads)
Improperly sized image files
Too many unnecessary plugins
Outdated plugins
Unnecessary redirects
Outdated CMS
… and, we’re just getting started!
If any of the mentioned reports or information provide you with motivation to improve your website ranking (SEO), performance, and/or security, please contact me for a no-obligation consultation. I’m here to help you take advantage of business opportunities by utilizing the best and most affordable website design techniques along with expert-level services in Kansas City and beyond!
David Little is the owner of Buzz Marketing specializing in affordable website design with an emphasis on factors that generate buzz, sales leads, and new business, respectively. David has a diverse background in emerging digital technologies as a product engineer during the advent of digital video before becoming involved with marketing in the high-tech industry for the last 18 years. Today, he focuses his efforts on helping small businesses to be more successful with marketing because mistakes are costly. David is also a partner at Fox Web Creations, where you may view additional examples of how Little and his team can assist you.

Unfortunately, this is not that doom and gloom article announcing that PPC and SEO are no more. Rather we’ll discuss how audio search has shaken things up for the digital marketers.

In the world of search, the voice is an emerging trend and of course something that should be kept an eye on.

Google algorithms change once or twice in a day. But rarely do we experience major ranking fluctuations in it. Those are the updates marketers are concerned about.

One such important trend that may rule the SEO is:

Voice Search on Mobile

Google and Siri might have come in the picture long ago, but it is now that this search has got the ball rolling. Initially, consumers were not at all thrilled with this technology. It was a fun voice recognition gimmick that everyone may want to have fun with. According to research performed in those initial years, 83% of iOS users stated that they didn’t use Siri at all. But today, Google and Siri are leading the way.

With adaption to this new search, you can think of it growing exclusively.

Are you ready to learn more about it?

What is VoiceSearch?

It can be termed as a speech recognition technology allowing a user to perform a search through voice command. It is a two-way communication that assists the users to complete their tasks in real time.

Users nowadays expect a prompt and direct answer when they perform any search. And it is an ideal. In fact, if you dig a little deep in the context of voice queries, you will find it totally different from the specific keyword text search in the search engine.

Voice Search Gaining Popularity

Voice recognition is obviously nothing new, but to date, the practical application remained limited to shouting with anger at a phone to make it understand things or to bring it in exercise to create humor.

However, changing search trends have shown that practical voice interaction is finally a real thing.

It may be hyped as the “coming” technology, but the fact is that 40% of the users have made it today’s technology. Every adult user performs a voice search at least once in a day.

Remaining 60% started using it in the past year, and 40% in the past six months only. With these statistics, we can have an idea that “coming” technology has arrived.

So why are smart speakers and voice-activated search engines gaining such a momentum? Voice has become the opening door for innovation as it provides an appealing and personal and really natural means of interaction. Just think of playing music, ordering a pizza, getting breaking news and in fact turning on your light just through your voice. This is enough to explain why 40% of users have replaced their textual search with voice search seamlessly.

This is one of the massively growing markets and it won’t be wrong to say that Amazon Echo and Google Home are leading the show.

It started with Siri back in 2010 and ever since it started gaining success in the digital world, the market boomed up with the software offering a refined voice search facility. Today we have a big list of voice recognition systems:

Siri (2010)
Amazon Alexa (2014)
Microsoft Cortana (2015)
Google Assistant, Amazon Echo (2016)
Alibaba AliGenie, Samsung Bixby (2017)

Every year this voice search worked on the systems and headed towards success. And eventually, it has grounded its reputation in the market. Today the biggest reason behind the increasing rate of voice searches is a better voice recognition system.

Before getting in how voice searches impact SEO and digital marketing, let’s pay a look at related statistics:

46% of voice search users think of a local business daily
58% of the consumers used voice search to find local business information during last year
27% visit a local business website through voice search
76% of smart home speaker users search for local businesses once in a week with around 53% performing daily searches
The voice recognition market will hit $601 million industry by 2019

Impact on SEO

If voice search is the future, is it leaving any impact on SEO? Well, the answer to this is “Yes, it is”.

With a conventional search, a user types a question, or some keywords more commonly like “CA coaching Classes” or “Indian Cuisines”. With this you see a list of relevant sites helping you out. SEO here plays the role of bringing your site to the top of the list for such relevant searches.

And when a user asks the same to his or her digital assistant, two things come to a picture. Firstly, the search becomes more journalistic and secondly you won’t see any big list of results to choose from. It gives a very clear answer to a clear query.

However, this does not mean that SEO is no longer playing any role in it. In contrast to this, when a search gives just one answer, it makes the optimization even more critical. This is to make sure that your business is chosen from among so many. But with this, it is not like you need to determine a new pattern that is voice search.

Marketers just need to ensure that all the content is conversational and natural. This will help meet the Q and A pattern of voice search. There are a lot of tools like Schema Markup to make sure that Google has got most of the details of your business. Blogs were and will always be an important method to make your voice search successful. So, it is important to remember that voice search is equal to mobile search and portraying a mobile-friendly website is thus more crucial than ever.

Since voice search is the next big thing, brands will rapidly catch up with it. And obviously, these should! In fact, all the massive tech players have started to invest in personal assistant and voice. So, the question is:

Why is Voice Search an Important thing for the Brands?

Since the voice recognition system is working wonderfully in all the areas, how brands could be expected to stay at bay from such advancement. Voice searches will shortly take away all the search methods. And here are the top reasons why it is important for huge brands:

a. Natural Speed -

The fact is, there is no other platform as fast as this voice search system. You just say out and have the concise results among you. For brands, it is one of the most required assets. You execute a command and your task is done there and then. You do not have to spend time looking for the alphabet on a keyboard and then enter your query.

b. Enhanced productivity -

Speaking is faster than typing. Rather than using a touchscreen or keyboard to get an answer to your query if you switch to speech, you will save a significant amount of time. And when you save time, you ultimately increase your productivity.

c.Time is Money – Save it

Since the frequency of speech is faster than writing words, it saves plenty of time. And when your consumers get their work done in seconds, you will be their only choice. When brands partner with the voice search, they are likely to stay above their competitors.

d. Massive Access -

One of the best things about voice recognition systems is these can be accessed by one and all. Like most of the users skip using search engine systems because they do not know the language to type in. However, everybody knows the art of speaking. And because voice searches are available in almost all the languages, the reach maximizes to infinity. This factor certainly increases the consumer ratio.

e. Increased Brand Attention with User Attention -

Are you a brand more concerned about your consumer’s comfort, their requirements, and tastes? Well, if yes, you can be the next big player. More you will take care of your consumer’s ease; more will be the user attention. So, it is better you step into the voice ecosystem as soon as possible.

How to Start in the Voice Search? -

With so many different platforms to operate and perform your voice search on, you may get confused about operating it. Well, there is a very simple solution to it. Voice searches are far easier.

Voice Search Anywhere -

No matter you are sitting inside your cabin or traveling out, speak out your query loudly and get back a relevant answer to it.

Simply tap the mic on the Google search bar and start speaking. This works on Android, iOS, windows and chrome browsers for mobile phones, laptops, and desktops.

For example: Say something like, “Who designed Eiffel Tower?”
It is easy and displays very relevant answers to your queries.

Apart from this Siri works well if you are an Apple device user, Google voice search goes well for the Android devices and Microsoft’s Cortana is useful when it comes to your PC and smartphone using their app.

Tips for optimizing for Voice Search

1. Page Speed -

Page speed plays a vital role in voice search SEO. According to Backlinko, an average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds which is certainly 52% fast if compared to an average page.

2. Answer Length -

Google looks concise and to the point answers for search results. A standard voice search result is just 29 words in length.

3.Reliable Domains -

Reliable domains are likely to produce voice search results extensively more than non-reliable domains.

4. Social Sharing -

Content that has a higher level of social engagement perform better in voice search.

5. Simplicity of Language -

Simple and easy to read content is easily optimized by the voice search engine. An average Google voice search result is written at a 9th-grade level.

6. The featured Snippet -

If your business appears in featured snippet it helps you a great degree to rank in voice search. 40.7% of the voice search answers come from a featured snippet.

Different Optimization Strategies of different Voice Search Engines -

*Google Assistant – Focus on a local pack and featured snippet. Together with this, Google play optimization is also taken into consideration to offer relevant results.

*Alexa – Pays attention to Bing places, featured snippets and Yelp.

*Cortana – Do better optimization for Microsoft App store

Siri – Optimize according to Google Assistant and also develop Siri compatible applications.

Bing Plays a Key Role -

We can see in all the four voice search processes, three of them Apple’s Siri, Cortana, and Alexa take in Bing search for basic information rescue. Facebook is also joining the league and Google obviously powers its very own Google Assistant.

In fact, voice searches may become a standard very soon. According to 2016 data, Bing represented that 25% of the searches conducted via windows 10 taskbar were all voice based. And if we talk about this number in 2018, it must have increased a great degree, considering the popularity of voice searches.

No matter the search engine you give value to, there are two main areas to pay attention to local listings and featured snippets.

On-Site SEO Optimization is Vital -

Despite all these strategies, old SEO is obviously the king. You cannot skip doing SEO optimization like interpreting page content, make users understand about your webpage, answer relevant queries and find out if your page is well optimized to rank on the search engine. Page authority has got a big role to get the featured snippets.

Is this the end for search? -

The most important question that strikes is: if this is the end for search or if old SEO will be dead soon? Well, voice search has been here than you probably think of it. It dates back to 2002. It is just that it became getting popularity with a rise in the use of smartphones. The digital assistants like Siri and Cortana grew increasingly. But SEO did not go out in any case.

Speech search is simply an additional interface and is not expected to replace old SEO in any case. This may change the technique or add some tasks to SEO optimization but won’t kill the good old SEO of course.

The key aim is to design a channel strategy and a perfect method for researching typed and voiced opportunity as a part of the entire process.

There are certain tips that you can use to stand out in the influx of searches. These will hit the airwaves soon and will help you rank in the first voice environment.

Google is just making a move to mobile marketing and sound search but that does not mean the end of desktop search obviously.

voice-enabled may complement what is already in place. Marketers will now pay attention to mobile, desktop and voice. And when there are lots of search engines handy to users, it increases the Google reputation undoubtedly.

As far as content marketing is concerned, your blog or website should be optimized for search engines. Although SEO techniques are changing with time, SEO is still important for better ranking. However, while optimizing your site for SEO, make sure you avoid some common mistakes. Given below are a few common SEO mistakes that most people make.

1. Choosing Wrong Keywords

Content optimization boils down to getting your website ranked for specific keywords. Therefore, it’s important that you opt for the relevant keywords. You may not want to ignore the importance of long-tail keywords.

Before you get started, you may want to do your research. For this purpose, you can use a few useful tools, such as Moz, SEMrush, Google Trends, and Google AdWords Keyword Planner, just to name a few. Opting for the wrong keywords is a major mistake.

2. Stuffing Keywords

Another common mistake is to use the keywords excessively. Using the same keywords too many times in a piece of content is considered spamming by search engines. So, it will hurt your rankings in search engines.

Ideally, the keyword density should be 0.5 to 1%. Google can detect excessive use of keywords with a technique called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).

3. Creating Irrelevant Content

Another common mistake is to produce content that is irrelevant to your content. Search engines, such as Google only serve those pages to online searchers that contain relevant keywords and content. So, if people land on your site but don’t find the content they searched for, your website won’t get ranked.

4. Publishing Unoriginal Content

This point is about the quality of the content you publish on your blog or site. The content you are going to publish on your blog should be original or your site will be penalized by Google. So, it’s not a good idea to copy content from another site and use it on your site.

Duplicate content won’t be useful at all. Therefore, it’s better that you invest in original content. If you can’t write articles yourself, you can hire a freelancer.

5. Not using Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions and title tags are quite important for SEO. Ignoring this aspect of SEO will be bad for your website ranking. Another mistake is to forget adding image tags. The problem is that search engine bots are not programmed to read text on pictures. Therefore, you must include alt tags to help search engines know what your images are about.

6. Getting Low-Quality Backlinks

Today, content marketers should understand the importance of getting quality backlinks. However, they make the mistake of getting a lot of low-quality backlinks instead of a few quality backlinks from authority websites.

In other words, you should get backlinks from sites that have a good reputation and high ranking.

7. Using too many Internal Links

Internal links are also important for better ranking. What you need to do is link your blog posts or articles to the top-performing pages and vice versa. However, make sure that the articles you are linking are relevant. Again, you may not want to overdo it or you may get penalized.

In short, make sure you don’t make these mistakes while following SEO techniques.

Determine the origin of traffic.

Driving valuable traffic to a website is not that simple and does not happen by itself. It is crucial for business owners to know the keywords and theme that are relevant to their products and/or services as well as the most popular search terms.

Keyword research lets them understand where traffic could possibly come from and therefore, help them create a strategy that is most likely to succeed.

Use this research to arrange web content.

They should consider the highlighted keywords and themes in their search in planning the design of their website and use these as a guide in choosing the pages that will be presented on the domain.

The site’s navigation, accessibility, page hierarchy and folder structure can be enhanced to be successful in ranking high in search engines. Following these steps when building a website will attempt to increase chances of opportunity.

In addition, user experience teams can make use of search insights in constructing smooth UX experiences throughout the site. In the last few years, SEOs have observed that organic visibility has increasingly been linked to healthy user experience signals.

Perform pre-launch obstacle analysis.

When developing a new website, it is crucial to take repetitive SEO technical analysis into consideration.

Search engine indexing will be based on the web code and scripts that are free of obstacles. Though websites may look clear from the point of view of users depending on the way they are coded, it may be hard to crawl from a search engine’s perspective, which may result to a unfavourable performance in the organic SERPs.

When carrying out pre-launch analysis of obstacles, SEOs are able to cooperate with development teams before the launch of a website, to make sure that problems are corrected in a staging environment. This means that new websites have everything they need to perform efficiently when launched and this also avoids costly repairs later on.

Reduce risks while there is still time.

When a website is re-launched instead of building it from scratch, it is important to follow the right steps to maintain historic SEO visibility prior to pushing the button to “go live”. In the long run, search engines develop an element of history and trust with a website’s old pages.

In case these trusted pages are renamed or changed in the process of redesigning the site, search engines may find it difficult to understand these changes and figure out the correlation of the new pages with the previous pages. Usually, this will bring about a decrease in organic traffic and visibility, affecting the site’s performance and in certain instances, the business revenue.

When the SEO team is involved in the build and redesign process, they will consider this earlier in the process and make sure to take the required steps including 301-redirect mapping, submitting new XML sitemaps plus notifications in Google Search Console done completely to avoid the risks involved.