Are You Aware of This Threat to Your Google Maps Listing?

Last Updated: January 19, 2017

Do you have a Google Maps listing for your local business? When was the last time you checked it? Google Maps listings are under constant threat of being altered without the manager’s knowledge or consent. In this blog post, we’ll examine what’s behind this chronic problem, how it can impact you, and what you can do to protect yourself.
Let’s jump in, shall we?

Anyone Can Edit Your Google Maps Listing

First things first: How can your listing be changed without your say-so? It’s surprisingly easy these days.
Google essentially allows all of its users to edit other business’s listings with the simple click of a button. When a user clicks “Suggest an Edit,” they submit proposed changes to Google regarding any piece of information, such as phone number, street address, business hours, website URL, and business name. Google then decides whether to accept the changes or not. Typically, Google keeps a suggested edit when multiple people submit the same one, but there doesn’t appear to be a hard-and-fast rule for how it makes its decisions. However, no matter the case, Google does not involve the listing owner whatsoever in its decision. Furthermore, when Google decides to sustain an edit to your listing, it will not notify you.
Making matters worse, these community edits don’t show any information about the user who made the change. In other words, Google offers no accountability for random, unsubstantiated edits from anonymous users. Desperate businesses can easily sabotage their local competitors with zero consequence.

It Can Happen to You

In fact, a nightmare scenario played out back in November when nearly 60 listings for insurance companies all had their phone numbers changed to the same one—which had no connection to any of those companies. Instead, this new phone number directed callers to a lead provider, who would then sell these leads back to the insurance companies who owned the edited listings. Effectively, the victimized companies now had to shell out money for their own leads.
You can read all about this debacle over on Search Engine Land. Hopefully, it proves to be an extreme fluke. However, it’s a cautionary tale of the damage that can happen when you’re not paying attention to the information on your Google Maps listing. Your listing may be displaying the wrong information to your visitors while you’re none the wiser.
When Google shows users the wrong information about your business, they won’t be able to get in touch with you. You’ll lose customers as a result. Plus, since this information will now conflict with the rest of your business information on the web, your rankings could be negatively affected. When your listing is edited by another user without your knowledge, the damage can be far reaching.

Protecting Yourself Is Easy

The above example is exactly why we urge business owners to actively and regularly check on their Google Maps listings. If you check your listing just once a day, you’re likely to catch any incorrect changes, fix them, and minimize damage to your rankings and daily business operations.

1. Don’t Google Yourself

But beware: Do NOT google yourself to check your Maps listing. Few people know this, but regularly googling yourself actually causes significant problems for your search rankings. As we explained in our blog post, “The Ins and Outs of Googling Yourself”:

In your own, individualized Google results, you can drive your placement down in the listings by repeatedly searching for—and not clicking on—yourself. This certainly happens for your own personal search engine results, but if you do it enough, it’s also conceivable that you could impact your rankings when other people search as well!

Googling yourself is equally damaging to any PPC or AdWords campaigns you’re running. When you google yourself without clicking on anything, you spike your number of impressions without adding to the number of clicks. This lowers the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads, which drives down your Quality Score as a result. Read more in our blog post, “When Pay-Per-Click Becomes Pay-Per-Search.”

2. Use Your Google Account

Thankfully, getting around this problem is fairly easy: Just sign in to your Google account and peek at your Maps listing through the dashboard, instead. The whole process only takes a couple of minutes, and it’s well worth the effort when you consider the alternative and its downsides.
In addition, the majority of small business owners rarely ever check on their Google Maps listings. This is what leaves so many of them vulnerable to sabotage. So if you start checking yours on a regular basis, you’ll be way ahead of the competition!

No Excuses

Too busy or can’t remember to check your listing every day? For less than $10 a month, Prospect Genius can do it for you! Check out our MapTrax™ service to learn more.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Now that you’re aware of this problem, which is facing local business owners everywhere, you have what you need to prevent it from hurting your business. Good luck!

Do You Know What Siri and Voice Searches Mean for Your Website?

Last Updated: January 11, 2017

When we shared our online marketing predictions for 2017, we detailed how Google is doubling-down on catering to its users’ expectations and experiences. And as virtual personal assistants like Cortana and Siri become more prominent in users’ lives, Google is seeing a significant increase in voice searches.

What Do Voice Searches Have to Do With You?

You’ve probably seen someone use voice search on their smartphone. Maybe you’ve even used it yourself.
With voice searches, users speak in complete questions. For example, they’ll say out loud, “Hey Siri, what’s the best kind of floss to use?” instead of manually typing “best floss brands” into the search box. The assistant sends these questions to Google. Then, it’s up to Google to process the question and deliver relevant, informative answers at lightning speed. This is why Google continues to hone its algorithm so it can process natural language and find precisely what users are looking for.
To aid in discovering webpages that are relevant to users’ questions, Google has adapted a new system called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). By using LSI, Google actually analyzes the content of individual webpages, assessing synonyms and context instead of just scanning them for identical keyword matches. This produces search results that satisfy a search query in a more specific, helpful way.
So, now that you have a basic understanding of how voice search has impacted Google’s nuts and bolts, we can get to what you really came here for: How will the voice search trend impact you?

Target Your Content

Because of the dominance of voice searches, your website needs to be chock full of valuable information that pertains to people’s pressing interests. This was always the case to a certain extent, but now it’s even more urgent.
If you want Google’s LSI system to capture your content and present it in the search results, your content needs to demonstrate crystal-clear relevance to the user’s query. A few well placed keywords aren’t enough anymore. This means there’s a strong chance you’ll need to rewrite—or, at the very least, expand—the content on your webpages. There’s really no way around it.
We suggest starting with a free tool like Answerthepublic.com. When you input a keyword relevant to your business, the tool will show you all the questions users are asking about it. For example, some of the popular questions related to the keyword “floss” are:

“How to floss back teeth with braces?”
“When to floss toddler’s teeth?”
“What does floss do?”
“Which is better, floss or mouthwash?”
“Who invented dental floss?”

The tool gives you hundreds of questions to choose from. To keep this example going, if you’re a dentist or orthodontist, you may want to consider writing a blog post about how to floss with braces or why floss is better than mouthwash. Or you may even want to have a whole page dedicated to flossing and answer some of the most popular questions there.
The point is, your efforts in promoting your business will go much further if these types of natural language questions influence the content on your site. This is the kind of content voice searches are targeting.

Use Keywords in Moderation

This is another rule that’s been around for a few years now. However, many business owners and some marketers still haven’t embraced it. Keyword stuffing is out.
A surefire way to make your content look like spam is to jam as many keywords as possible into it. Not only does this read terribly to humans, but it also lowers your Quality Score with Google. Search bots will recognize that your keyword-laden content isn’t bringing any informational value to the table.
Obviously, keywords are still important. However, keep your focus keyword density between 0.5% and 2.5%. Any more than that will read poorly and degrade your content’s value. Additionally, sprinkle in a variety of other relevant keywords, too, because Google’s LSI will now recognize them as synonyms in the context of your page. This means you can write naturally and still score big SEO points.

Above All, Make the Content Good

The goal of your online marketing efforts is to attract new customers. While it’s certainly important to rank well with search engines and their mystical algorithms, you ultimately want to gain the trust and interest of real people. So whatever you do, make sure you write your content in a clear, compelling way.
If you cringe at the idea of writing all your content yourself (What? You’re not a nerd like me?), you do have some loopholes available. Mainly, you can have someone else write your content for you! Many marketers and freelance writers offer ghost writing services.
A large number of business owners find ghost writing worth the small investment because it means:

They get high-quality content that appeals to both search engines and humans.
They save their energy for other projects.
They spend evenings with their families instead of on the computer.
They avoid bone-chilling flashbacks to high school essay assignments.

So whether you choose the DIY route or the ghost writing route, our advice is still the same: Create content your audience wants to read, write it naturally, and don’t overdo it with the keywords.
Good luck!
And just for fun, here’s a quote from Search Engine Land’s report on an April 2016 keynote address by Google’s director of conversational search:

Google’s goal is to emulate the Star Trek computer, which allowed users to have conversations with the computer while accessing all of the world’s information at the same time.

The future is here.

Looking Ahead: Our Online Marketing Predictions for 2017

Last Updated: December 8, 2016

At the end of the year, we find it useful to take stock of all the industry developments we’ve observed over the past 12 months and try to predict what trends the new year will bring. Understanding the industry’s online marketing predictions for 2017 is the best way to make sure you start the new year on the right foot.
So let’s get right into it. Here are the most significant online marketing predictions for 2017 you need to know about.

1. Putting a Premium on User Experience

Industry experts widely agree that search engines like Google are putting an increasing premium on user experience. Google is shaping its algorithms to accommodate what search users want and expect from their web browsing experience.
And here’s how Sam Oh of Entrepreneur.com describes the expectations of today’s users:

People are no longer satisfied with good speeds and reasonably navigable sites. They now expect websites with nigh on instantaneous load times and sites that are easier to navigate than the back of your own hand.

Oh adds that Google is showing “clear favoritism” toward websites that fulfill these expectations. Google prefers sites that have a low bounce rate and more time spent on each page, which indicate that a site loads quickly, is optimized for mobile devices, and provides whatever information the user is looking for. We’ll discuss these points in depth in the next two online marketing predictions for 2017.

2. Favoring Mobile Usability Even More

Google has already shown a preference for mobile-optimized sites this year, as the volume of mobile searches overtakes desktop searches. What you’ll need to look out for in 2017 is how the definition of “optimized” has shifted.
“Mobile optimized” used to mean your webpages were formatted to shrink and fit a mobile device screen with relatively easy navigation and readability. Now, it means your mobile pages must load super fast and bear very little resemblance to your desktop pages. They must be streamlined with menus and buttons that can be easily found and tapped on a small touch screen. Frankly, design elements left over from a desktop page have no place on a mobile page. Desktop elements will only encumber the usability and speed of a mobile page, thus lowering its SEO value.
These new, ultra-fast mobile pages are referred to as “accelerated mobile pages,” or AMPs for short. And they’re all the rage.
Writing for Forbes.com, R.L. Adams says that, as a result, you’ll want to start designing webpages in 2017 with a “mobile-first” approach, rather than adapting a desktop site for mobile after the fact:

By building a mobile-first design, you’re looking into the future and ensuring that you’re conforming to Google’s wishes. Those wishes are steeped in reality because mobile devices have become so important in our lives, that you simply can’t overlook mobile usability when thinking about SEO, especially when talking about SEO for the future.

Therefore, giving users a faster, more satisfying mobile search experience is at the top of Google’s priorities. Make sure you factor this into your online marketing in 2017.

3. Relying on Natural Language in Searches

Furthering its drive to deliver a better user experience, Google introduced an algorithm (called Hummingbird) that uses natural-language processing to match the meanings of similar words and phrases in search queries. Known as Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), this system places more value on content and natural language over exact keyword matches.
Why are keywords taking a backseat to natural language? Because more people now use their smartphone’s voice commands to search rather than manually type searches into their browser. People tend to ask complete questions instead of speaking in disjointed keywords.
For example, a couple of years ago, if someone was looking for a local restaurant, they would manually type their search term into the browser using keywords. It would look like this: “restaurants Albany NY.” But now, people are more likely to vocally ask Siri or their Android devices to do their searching for them. The same search for a restaurant now sounds like this: “What are the best restaurants in Albany, NY?” This is what we mean by “natural language.”
What impact will this have on your website? Essentially, your content must be detailed, dense, informative, and generally well written. This has always been the case to some extent, but it’s truer than ever now. In order to be favored on search results pages, your site needs more than a bunch of matching keywords. It needs lots of relevant and valuable content so it can be picked up by Google’s natural language processor.
While Google was already moving toward natural language this past year, you can expect an increasing emphasis on it in 2017.

Give Users What They Want

Again, our online marketing predictions for 2017 boil down to one thing: user experience. To enjoy online marketing success in the coming year, you’ll have to help search engines like Google improve user experience. Accelerated mobile pages and natural language processing are two very significant ways Google seeks to do this. Adapt your online marketing to fit these trends.
Good luck!

5 Ways You Waste Money on a New Online Marketing Team

Last Updated: November 17, 2016

Your goal for online marketing should be to get more money out of it than you put into it. Simple, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out this way.
See, you typically want to limit upfront expenses on your new online marketing so you can ensure you get a profitable return. However, when starting a new online marketing program, some business owners make mistakes early on that cause them to waste money instead of saving it.
In this post, we’ll highlight some of the most common ways business owners waste their money when starting a new online marketing campaign. Plus, we offer suggestions on how to avoid them.

1. Not Communicating With Your Former Marketer Before Leaving Their Program

It’s not uncommon for business owners to decide they want to switch gears and take their online marketing in a new direction. However, sometimes business owners make the mistake of not communicating this desire with their current marketer. Seeking to avoid potential conflict or discomfort, they suddenly quit their program and sign up with a brand-new marketer without any notice.
In many cases, though, the old marketer could have accommodated that new direction—or, at the very least, made the transition to a new marketer much less damaging to the client’s web traffic and rankings. If you talk to your marketer about your goals, chances are, they’ll have a satisfactory solution for you. Then, you can continue to work with them without any added risks. Alternatively, they can help you set up for a new marketer.
However, if you suddenly jump ship without talking to them, you’ll have to pay to start a new campaign with a new marketer all over again. You may also leave without getting all the information you need, including access to your business listings. It would be like switching to a new dentist without getting all your X-rays and medical history from your previous one. If you did this, your new dentist would have to spend the entirety of your first appointment taking X-rays and interviewing you about your medical history all over again. This eats up valuable time and increases your bill.
In other words, it’s better to just admit to your old marketer that you need a change. Even if they can’t give you what you need, they can at least ensure you hit the ground running with your new online marketing campaign.

2. Not Planning an Exit Strategy From Your Former Marketing Team

If you’re transitioning from one marketer to the next, you need to have a solid plan in place. You need to know exactly when you’re going to quit your former program so you can establish your new campaign as effectively as possible.
If there’s too much of a time-lag between when you end your previous program and when you begin your new one, your web presence will fall off substantially. On the other hand, if your programs overlap too much, there’s a real risk of conflict between your marketers and resulting Google penalties. Conflict and penalties can do even more damage to your web presence.
These dips in web presence will cost you jobs, and therefore money. Instead, you want to set everything up so one campaign transitions seamlessly into the next.

3. Not Cleaning Up Your Company’s Online Trail

A new marketing campaign means a new website. A new website may mean a new URL, phone number, address, etc. If you don’t correct outdated information or redirect old URLs once your new campaign begins, then your campaign is going to suffer. As a result, you’ll flush a lot of money down the drain on a campaign that’s flailing from the get-go.
If you don’t know how to clean up or redirect old links, ask your new marketer. They’ll be happy to do it for you, as it will ultimately make their job a lot easier and set you up for success.

4. Not Knowing What You Want Your Website to Look Like

If you aren’t clear about your vision for your website, then how will your marketer be able to create the appearance you want?
You don’t need to have every exact detail decided, but you should think about basic things like color schemes, photo subjects, and general layout themes. Take a look at some of your competitors’ websites to get an idea of what you like and dislike. Then, convey your general preferences to your marketer.
If you don’t give your marketer any guidance or direction, they’ll invest a lot of time on your site, but still come back to you with one you don’t like. Then, you’ll have to pay for multiple rounds of alterations while they try to guess what you want. These extra charges will add up quickly. You’re much better off taking some time and thinking about what you want before you get started.

5. Not Vetting a PPC Provider for Transparency

The amount you pay for Google AdWords or Bing Ads is largely dictated by your provider’s billing structure. If you don’t thoroughly vet whoever is handling your accounts, then you may get stuck with a provider who isn’t totally upfront about where your money is going.
If there’s no transparency, then your provider can charge you unspecified management fees, show you misleading metrics, and unilaterally decide how and when your ad money is spent. When a company keeps you in the dark about how your ad money is being handled, there’s a reason they don’t want you to know.
To gauge their level of transparency, ask your provider specifically about their management fees and how much input you can have in your ad schedule. If they dodge your questions, you have your answer.

Read more about how to handle PPC providers here: Four Ways Your PPC Services Could Be a Rip-Off

Start Off on the Right Foot.

Now that you know which behaviors lead to wasted money, you can more carefully navigate your new relationship with your marketer and get exactly what you want out of your program.
And, as always, feel free to use us as a resource if you have any questions or concerns moving forward. We look forward to helping you reach your new online marketing goals.

How to Create an Infographic Quickly and for Free

Last Updated: November 9, 2016

If you’re at all familiar with what it takes to increase your business’s visibility online, then you know two things:

Informative content matters.
High-quality images matter.

What if we told you there’s an easy way to make content and images work together for your benefit? Combining the value of an informational blog post and the instant appeal of a brightly colored image, we give you: the infographic.

What’s So Special About Infographics?

Infographics are images that contain short, simple, easy-to-digest pieces of information. They help you provide valuable information to your audience while typically requiring less than a minute’s worth of reading. Grabbing attention and then delivering useful, actionable information? No wonder infographics are the perfect images for businesses to share on social media!
Luckily, infographics are relatively easy to create. You can take advantage of online tools that offer free templates so you don’t have to build them from scratch. This is particularly helpful for business owners without much spare time or many design skills.
In fact, to show you how easy it is for beginners, we had one of our writers create an infographic for this blog post. Keep reading to discover how she did it and how to create an infographic of your own.

How to Create an Infographic

1. Choose a Topic.

The subject of your infographic should be something you’re knowledgeable about, something relevant to your business, and, most importantly, something your audience wants to learn about. Ultimately, it must add value to their lives before they’ll want to share it with others.
Topics can be anything related to your business that will provide your audience with information they can actually use. They’re often tutorials, explanations, and presentations of data. Some examples:

How to change your furnace’s air filters
10 things to know about tax deductions
What to expect during your first Swedish massage
5 most popular car accessories
3 reasons to floss your teeth every day

The possibilities are endless.

2. Keep It Brief.

Remember, since this is a visual representation, all your text should be short, sweet, and to the point. Organize your ideas ahead of time into bullet points and short sentences so you can get all your ideas across succinctly.

3. Use a Striking Layout.

Eye-catching design is what makes your infographic stand out. The idea of designing one from scratch may seem daunting if you’ve never done it before, but don’t worry: There are plenty of free templates online that you can take advantage of.
For our infographic, we used Piktochart, a company that offers an assortment of free (as well as paid) template options. This platform was super helpful because it allowed easy customization. Changing background colors, writing our own text, and swapping out graphics were all simple to do. The thorough tutorial at the beginning certainly helped, too.
Another option available to you is to download free templates from companies like Hubspot. While they don’t have a whole program to assist you in creating your infographic, they give you a variety of templates you can use with Microsoft PowerPoint and customize on your own.

4. Share the Finished Product.

Now that you’ve created an attractive infographic you’re proud of, it’s time to share it with your followers. Upload it to a page on your website, then share it with a link in your social media post. (Including the link may encourage especially interested parties to click over to your site.)
Now that you know how to create an infographic easily and affordably, you’ll be an infographic-creating machine in no time. Good luck!
Here’s our finished product, made possible by Piktochart.

Prospect Genius