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You are here: Home / Archives for bing

How Voice Search Is Changing the Way You Need to Write

Last Updated: September 21, 2017

Are you one of the millions of Americans who own a smartphone? Then you’re probably aware of voice search. You hold down a button on your phone, ask a question out loud, and voilà! In a matter of seconds, your phone gives you an answer.

The New Language of Voice Search

However, Siri doesn’t just magically have all the answers. Instead, your phone’s virtual assistant transmits your question directly to a search engine (most likely Google or Bing, but we’ll refer to Google from now on for simplicity). Then, the search engine bases its search on the exact words you spoke: “Where can I find someone to fix my fridge overnight?” Google can’t just plug in a keyword and a town name anymore and find matching webpages, because that’s not how people are searching. Now, due to the natural, human language of voice searches, it has to focus on context, synonyms, and the overall relevance of a page’s contents. (For our fellow nerds, this process is called Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI.)
This is a major shift in the way search engines operate. We’ve written about the growth of voice searches before, and the issue is only becoming more urgent. Today, fewer and fewer people manually type in the old “[keyword] + [location]” formula to find local businesses. Instead, more people are using their phone’s voice search for complex requests. And it doesn’t even have to technically be a question anymore. Your search could be a casual statement like, “Hey Siri, I need a plumber in Ann Arbor who’s not that expensive.” You can just start talking to your phone’s virtual assistant, and it will find what you need. What a time to be alive, as they say!
But what does any of this have to do with your local business? Let’s just say, you may want to rewrite your website ASAP. Keep reading to see what we mean!

Get Used to Voice Search. It’s Here to Stay.

As flashy and trendy as voice search may seem to some of us, the majority of experts assert it’s not going anywhere. On the contrary, they believe it’s the “next big era of computing.” As marketing specialist Simon Penson recently wrote:

“My view is that voice is not just an add-on, but an entirely new way of interacting with the machines that add value to our lives. It is the next big era of computing.”

So, as exciting as these advances may be, you can’t ignore what voice search means for your business’s website and web presence. Google wants to satisfy its users who rely on voice searches, so it now favors websites that meet new requirements. If you want your website to rank highly in local searches, it must be:

  • Well written
  • Informative
  • Chock full of content

Truthfully, Prospect Genius has always viewed well written content as a non-negotiable trait for high-ranking websites. However, in reality, there used to be some wiggle room. Those days are over. Today, if your website’s content is sparse and only written for a few, basic search terms, you’ll get a fraction of your potential traffic. You simply won’t have the right language to match natural voice searches.

How to Evolve Your Site for Voice Searches

This begs the question: What does the “right language” look like?
Here’s where things get interesting. Ten or twelve years ago, SEO was easy. All you had to do was stuff as many industry keywords, town names, and zip codes into your website’s footers as possible. Then, you could just write a sentence or two on each page with some bare-bones information about your company. If you did those two things, you had a decent chance of ranking. While the keyword-stuffing looked sloppy and spammy to the human eye, it didn’t matter because it appealed to search engines. It was a lazy way to work, but it was often enough to let you squeak by.
However, thanks to the rise of voice search, today’s SEO writing is far more complicated. The language search engines speak is becoming remarkably similar to the language we humans speak. You also get penalized for spam tactics like keyword-stuffing. So, you know that well-written content our team has always prioritized? Well, it’s no longer a bonus—it’s a requirement.
Today, your website must have lots of content that clearly spells out:

  • What your company does
  • Where you’re located
  • How you differ from competitors
  • What your products and/or services entail
  • And much more

Furthermore, each page has to be fully fleshed out (we recommend a 350-word minimum) so it contains as many related words and details as possible. Think of it this way: The more you write, the more opportunities for Google’s natural language processor to find your site.
For example, let’s say you want to show up in the search results for someone’s “overnight fridge repair.” Your content should contain related phrases like “available for emergencies,” “same-day service,” “after-hours appointments,” and so on. You can’t always predict the exact phrasing people will use in their voice searches, but you can vary your language enough that Google picks up on all those helpful synonyms.

To DIY or Hire Professional Writers?

We’ll be totally honest here. These new writing requirements are a lot of work. If you are comfortable with writing, know how to do keyword research, and are fairly confident in your language skills, then you’re probably in good shape to write your own website content.
However, if you’re like most local service providers, you spend your time either honing your trade or hanging out with your family. You likely don’t have the 8+ hours it will take to write your entire website from scratch—never mind the extra time it takes to research local keywords and learn best practices for SEO. That’s why many local businesses hire professionals to build their website or to do ghost writing for their existing site.

Get Writing Services From Prospect Genius

At Prospect Genius, well-written, human-optimized content has been our trademark since day one. When we started 10 years ago, we could’ve taken the easy way out and relied on keyword-stuffing, which is what a lot of our competitors did. But we took the extra time and did the extra work to optimize our content for real people, not just search engines.
The result is that all of our current clients are already in terrific shape for the takeover of voice search. If you don’t have lots of good-quality content on your site yet, give us a call and see how we can help!

Have You Been Duped by Yext's PowerListings Scan?

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Has Yext recently told you there’s incorrect or missing information about your business online?
Yext has been sending reports to small business owners claiming that they aren’t listed on certain sites. These reports contain the alleged “results” of a scan of your business’s directory listings. They are completely inaccurate. Their sole function, at best, is to be a misleading sales tactic.
Yext’s PowerListings scan tells you your business is not listed on major sites like Google, Bing, Yelp, and Yahoo (among many others). However, if you take just one or two minutes to search for your business on these sites, you’ll see that you are, in fact, listed. It’s insanely easy to debunk these reports.
Yext is hoping an official-looking “report”—peppered with big, red letters and intimidating alerts—will scare you into signing up for its services. Don’t fall for it.

What’s a PowerListings Scan, Anyway?

As part of its services for small businesses, Yext submits its clients’ information to a network of online directories. The vast majority of local SEO companies do this, as well, because directories are integral to local search optimization. However, Yext calls its own brand of directory listings PowerListings.
To get you to sign up for PowerListings, Yext will conduct a “PowerListings Scan” for your business. The results appear in a grid so you can see which sites you’re listed on and which sites have accurate information about your business. Unsurprisingly, these results typically claim less than half of your listings are “optimized.”
Here’s an example that came directly from one of our clients*:

yext listings scan

*Business name redacted for privacy.

A representative from Yelp may contact you with this report. A portion of the e-mail might look something like this:

“As you saw, [insert your business name] has a variety of incorrect and missing information on our partner sites. I can fix this for you and offer you some discounts on our services!”

It has the potential to be an effective sales pitch—but only if you fall for it.

Debunking Yext’s PowerListings Scan

Again, it’s simple to prove Yext’s scan report wrong. To show you how easy it is to do for your own business, we submitted a scan of Prospect Genius via our Yahoo listing (Yext and Yahoo are partners).
In the very brief video below, you’ll see our scan results and—gasp!—a few listings Yext claims don’t exist.

In the video, you see us:

  • Highlight where the report says our Google listing does not exist.
  • Navigate straight to our Google listing, which obviously does exist.
  • Do the same thing again with our Whitepages listing.

(We could’ve easily gone into every single listing, but we wanted to keep this video short and sweet.)
To run this check for your own business:

  • Choose any of the websites where Yext claims you aren’t listed.
  • Go directly to these websites.
  • Search for your business name or phone number.

If you’re a Prospect Genius Core or Premium client, or you’ve signed up for Directory Dominator, then your listings should appear with no problem.
Having trouble finding your listings? Don’t hesitate to call us for help.

Shocking News: Russia Buys Google

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

So, this is pretty unbelievable news.
Very quietly, over the last two weeks, some of our country’s biggest search engine companies have moved their operations over to Russia. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing are among these companies. The news hasn’t been publicly announced yet, but we managed to get an early scoop.
Why the move? Our sources tell us it boils down to money—specifically, taxes. The owners of Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other Internet companies escaped to Russia for tax benefits. President Vladimir Putin allowed them to establish operations there and enjoy tax-free status, but only under one condition: that they rename their companies after him.
Here’s a sneak peek at the companies’ new branding.
Google is now “Puugle”:Puugle
Yahoo! is now “Yahpu!”:Yahpu!
Bing is now “Puting”:puting
And we actually managed to get an exclusive look at the new Puugle home page! Check it out at www.puugle.com.
Needless to say, this is going to have unpredictable, far-reaching ramifications for the whole online advertising industry. So stay tuned for updates as this story develops.

Put Your Trust in Online Reviews

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

They say you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet—but try telling that to online consumers. A recent study shows that nearly 80% of consumers in the U.S. and Canada trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
That’s why our blog covers the topic of customer reviews so heavily. With the vast majority of consumers making decisions based on the reviews that they read, it’s clear that reviews are an extremely valuable asset to any business, no matter what industry you’re part of.  

Why Should You Care?

If the above statistic doesn’t impress you, consider this: We’ve seen firsthand what collecting customer reviews has done for our own clients. The below examples illustrate an increase in leads over time as each client’s online advertising campaign continued. These particular clients are prime examples of what can happen when you persist in populating your business listings with customer reviews.
Client A:
performance graph - c+e-appl
This graph shows the slow and steady trajectory of one client’s leads per month. Their leads dipped in March 2014, due to a glitch that caused their listing to all but vanish from Google, but you’ll notice that their number of monthly leads has already climbed back up and exceeded the previous peak. How did they manage that? Simply by cultivating a significant number of reviews on Google+, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, and other platforms.
Client B:
performance graph - conner
This client shows a similar upward trajectory. Again, the success of their campaign is significantly generated by their high volume of customer reviews on various listings.
Take a look at the numbers in both of the above examples. Client A received close to 400 calls in June 2014, while Client B received roughly 280. Wouldn’t you like to see those kinds of results? The best way to do that is to get your customers to leave you reviews online.

How to Get Reviews

The next logical question is, “How do you get customers to leave reviews?” The honest answer is that it’s not easy. It takes a lot of persistence. But if you keep your nose down, work hard, and satisfy your customers, then you’ll get better responses when you do ask them for reviews.
You might think, I’m not getting any reviews because people only write reviews when they have something to complain about. That’s what conventional wisdom tells us, but the facts actually show the opposite: 75% of reviews posted on review sites are positive.
We suggest a tactical approach when soliciting customer reviews so you can be sure that you have reviews on only the most valuable platforms. Get a minimum of 10 reviews on the following platforms, in the following order, for the best results:

  1. Google+ — Obviously, Google+ has the most value in the eyes of Google. Reviews from your company’s Google+ page could appear right on Google’s search results pages, so prospects can see right away what previous customers think.
  2. Yelp — Yelp is a popular tool among local consumers who are actively looking for a specific service. Although it better serves brick-and-mortar businesses, it holds a lot of weight in both Google and Bing’s algorithms. Bing even pulls Yelp pages directly when compiling search results.
  3. Facebook — The vast majority of U.S. adults have a Facebook profile, so it should be the default choice for customers who aren’t as tech savvy as others. And while it doesn’t hold as much SEO value as Google+ or Yelp, it does influence Bing’s search results, and that counts for something.

ASK DIRECTLY
As soon as you complete a job, e-mail that customer and ask for a review. In the e-mail, include a link to your Google+, Yelp, or Facebook page (or all three and let the customer choose) so the process is as convenient as possible for them.
You can even add short URLs or reminders on business cards, invoices, and newsletters—anything that you distribute to your customers. It’s also a good idea to send along instructions so less savvy individuals don’t get lost.
ASK THE SKEPTICS
Steve Young, author of “5 Clever Ways to Get Customer Reviews That Convert,” offers an important tip: “Rather than asking for testimonials from your customers who immediately fall in love with your offering, try to look for those that were first skeptical.” Doing this will address and soothe prospective customers’ concerns and lead to higher conversion rates.
WRITE YOUR OWN
Young also recommends drafting a detailed review (full of specifics about the solutions you provided) on behalf of your customers and sending it to them. If they approve, they can just copy and post it, making their lives a heck of a lot easier. Plus, reviews that contain measurable results pack a lot more punch when prospects read them.
BE STRAIGHTFORWARD
Even casual Internet users these days will recognize that reviewing and sharing experiences is what drives most online activity. And, as we’re all consumers, we know that we like to read reviews and do our research before purchasing a product or committing to a contractor. So just be frank with your customers: You need reviews for your business. They’ll understand.
Nellie Akalp, a contributing writer at Mashable.com, gives the following recommendation:

You can say something as simple as, “Your opinion matters to us and to other customers, so we’d be really appreciative if you take a few moments to review your experience,” or “Do you read online reviews? We do, and so do other customers. That’s why we’d love it if you take a few moments to review your experience.”

Don’t Get Discouraged

Most importantly, don’t get discouraged if customers don’t immediately flood your pages with reviews. It takes time to get an impressive number, but you’ll be all the better for it when they finally do come in. We at Prospect Genius, in our own efforts to collect customer reviews, have to regularly remind ourselves that a page full of reviews doesn’t happen overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Be patient, be persistent, and keep going the extra mile for your customers. Eventually, your business will have the reviews it deserves.

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