SEO Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint 

There are many factors that dictate when a business will see the effects of its SEO efforts. However, most online brands have a long road ahead when it comes to positive changes.  

At a minimum, it can take three months before results are seen. However, it often takes longer, from six months to a year plus depending on the type of keywords used, competition, and other factors.  

Why Does SEO Take So Long? 

The process of discovering, crawling, and indexing new content by a search engine naturally takes time, and a website won’t see the effects of this process for hours or even weeks. Additionally, businesses must be mindful of how they roll out new content and updates. Search engines may penalize your website if they perceive that these changes are happening too quickly (which calls your reputation into question).  

What Can You Do to Ensure Your SEO Strategy Is Successful? 

Having a strong marketing company in your corner helps, and SonicSEO.com provides clients with the benefits of our knowledge and experience. From web design to app development, we do it all. And when it comes to our SEO services, we use effective strategies that get results as quickly as possible. Call (505) 821-2000 to schedule a consultation or contact us to learn more.  

On-Page SEO

Much like the name implies, on-page SEO involves strategies you can use on your website to increase its rank in search engines. One example is utilizing keywords in content effectively, particularly when it comes to titles. Unique content creation is also important for SEO, as search engines may penalize duplicate content on sites. Other examples of on-page SEO include using high-quality images, creating relevant meta descriptions, and linking between pages on the site.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO involves tactics that take place elsewhere on the internet, and these tactics are key for boosting the reputation of your website and brand. Garnering high-quality links from other sites that direct to your website is an effective form of off-page SEO. Similarly, using social media to advertise your brand is another strong off-page tactic.

Is On-Page SEO More Important Than Off-Page SEO?

While both SEO strategies are crucial to your site’s search rank, on-page SEO can be more useful because you exert greater control over it. Consider that you can easily make changes to your website to improve its rank on search engines, but it may be more challenging to obtain quality links from other sites.

That doesn’t mean that off-page SEO should be neglected, as reputation matters when it comes to search rank. In this case, building a strong presence on social media and ensuring that your Google Business Profile is up-to-date and accurate are two off-page tactics that you can control.

We Know SEO – And We’re Here to Help

Most business owners don’t have the time to develop impactful marketing strategies, which is precisely where our team at SonicSEO.com comes in. When it comes to search engine optimization, we offer a range of strategies that can increase the visibility of your website, which is crucial for brand awareness. We also offer many other online marketing services to fully meet the needs of our clients. Contact us to learn more or call 505.821.2000 to schedule a consultation.

Understanding Ranking Factors

Ranking factors are the criteria used by search engines to evaluate search results. Understanding ranking factors is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO), which increases the visibility of your business online. Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa all pull their information from different sources, which means they use different ranking factors to prioritize search results.

For example, Siri pulls information from Yelp when answering user questions. Alexa also sources information from Yelp, as well as Bing, Microsoft’s proprietary search engine, and Yext, a data management tool. Google Assistant pulls information from your Google My Business listing, which includes contact information, reviews, hours of operation, and more.

What This Means for Voice Search SEO

Because each virtual assistant is deriving their information from different data sources, the answers provided also differ. That means establishing a single SEO strategy for all voice searches will be less impactful than optimizing content to meet the criteria of each virtual assistant.  

When it comes to Siri and Alexa, establishing a solid presence on Yelp is a must. The first step is to ensure your Yelp business profile is not missing any vital information, which can lower your rank. Keyword use is also important, as using relevant keywords improves your chance of being included in search results.  You must also ensure you’re engaging your customers when it comes to reviews. Use social media and other channels to put out a call for reviews and respond to them appropriately when they’re posted.

As for Google Assistant, pay close attention to your Google My Business listing. Once again, make sure the listing includes all relevant information about your business. Also, make sure the information provided is accurate. When it comes to the content itself, the more conversational, the better.

Voice searches are more conversational than text searches, which is why Google is so highly invested in its BERT algorithm. This algorithm provides context to the words and phrases used when a person is searching for something on the internet, which provides a greater understanding of the user’s intentions and ensures more accurate results.  

What This Means for Your Business

Developing the proper SEO tactics for different virtual assistants can give your business the boost it needs. SonicSEO.com is always happy to talk with our clients about marketing endeavors to ensure they meet and exceed your expectations. We stay on the cutting edge of digital technology, including voice searches, to provide the most accurate and effective guidance possible. Contact us today to discuss your strategy.

For a HUGE share of internet searches, to get top organic ranking, your site needs to match search intent.

Search Intent Defined

Search intent is what it sounds like—it’s the intent motivating the human user to perform a search.

Search intent has been classified in a number of ways. The categories we think are most useful are:

• Navigational (sometimes called branded searches)—users conducting these searches are trying to get to a specific web location like “Chase credit card login” or “Reebok”.
• Informational—users conducting these searches are looking for information. These types of searches can be further broken down:
  • Broad research—searchers are gathering general information on a topic. Many “how to…” and “what is…” searches fit in this category.
  • Specific research—searchers are moving closer to making some type of decision, so they are carefully examining their options. Searches for reviews, ratings and comparisons fall into this category.
• Transactional—users conducting these searches are ready to purchase a product or service, so they are looking for platforms that allow them to do that. “Buy…” and “near me” searches are popular transactional search formulas.

How to Implement Search Intent

Search engines want to deliver the results that meet their users’ needs. To determine search intent so that results can match it, search engine algorithms now incorporate behavioral analysis and context signals. These highly evolved algorithms are ranking your website, so if you want to appear at the top of organic searches, your content needs to match more than keywords; it needs to match user intent.

How do you do that?

By developing content that anticipates users’ needs and questions and provides the answers. This isn’t done on a single page. It entails developing dozens, maybe even hundreds, of pages or online assets (like downloadable white papers, brochures, infographics, etc.), each created to answer specific user questions.

Here’s just one example to illustrate how you can develop intent-based content:

Say you’re a hot air balloon company. You want to increase awareness and sales of private hot air balloon tours. To use search intent to improve rankings, you:

First, imagine your target audience and what kinds of questions might they have.

If they are completely new to hot ballooning, they might ask or search for:

• Are hot air balloon rides safe?
• What is the history of hot air balloons?
• What are hot air balloons made of?
• What training do hot air balloon pilots need?
• Places to get hot air balloon rides

If they know they want a hot air balloon tour, they might ask:

• How much do hot air balloon tours cost?
• What to wear on a hot air balloon tour
• What to pack for a hot air balloon tour
• How long are hot air balloon tours?
• What will I see on a hot air balloon tour?
• Best hot air balloon rides in Albuquerque

Once you have exhausted all the questions you can think someone might ask, then check to see if your website has pages or assets that answer those questions. If you do, these pages may still need some tweaking to more clearly match a user’s informational or transactional intent.

If your site doesn’t have assets to answer users’ questions, then you will need to create the blogs, pages, infographics, etc. When you craft your content, also make sure that the snippet (meta description) for your page also clearly summarizes the answer the user is seeking. Google and other search engines prefer links with snippets that match user intent without requiring the user to actually follow the link. (Even if the user doesn’t click your link, you still got the visibility, which may be all that’s necessary to make your site the site they search for when they are ready to buy.)

SonicSEO.com clients, of course, already have websites engineered for top search intent performance. Identifying your target market, their primary motivations and ways they may search to fulfill their intent are all part of our process. If your target market expands or shifts, contact us, and we will adapt your content to maintain top search performance.