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!

5 Examples of Google Not Caring About Your Best Interests

Last Updated: June 15, 2017

How many times have you heard Google claim its most recent update is designed to improve user experience? We hear this claim so frequently, it’s fair to call it Google’s M.O. However, when Google refers to users, is it really referring to advertisers?
The truth is, for many users—particularly small business owners who seek local visibility on Google—their best interests often do not align with Google’s. At the end of the day, it’s a corporation, and its bottom line is all about revenue. You have to expect Google to be self-serving on occasion. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
In this blog post, we’ve outlined some of the most recent examples of how Google doesn’t always have your best interests at heart. While you may think we’re just venting here (and you wouldn’t be totally wrong), we want this to function as a kind of PSA. It’s a reminder to always take Google’s actions with a grain of salt and a strong dose of skepticism.
Now, let’s rant.

1. Google Only Allows Businesses to List One Phone Number for Every Physical Location.

On Google Maps, there’s often a major discrepancy between a company’s real-life operation and Google’s strict guidelines.
For example, Google only allows businesses to list one phone number for every physical location. But as many business owners know, that may not mesh with the way a company actually operates. There are countless reasons to have more than one phone number for the same primary address, particularly if you have different branches or you serve multiple area codes.
However, it’s much simpler for Google to create an algorithm that only allows a 1-to-1 scenario. Google wants to prevent spam wherever possible, and allowing for too many human variables would overwhelm its algorithms. So, essentially, instead of creating a system that’s influenced by how businesses operate in real life, it’s trying to create a system that influences how businesses operate. As you may know firsthand, this means a lot of headaches for business owners.

2. Google Maps Service Areas Are Often Too Rigid for Businesses Without a Storefront.

Google also makes it difficult for local service providers to operate out of their own homes (which many repairmen and handymen do). It’s not impossible, as Google does allow these types of businesses to list a service area instead of their home address, for privacy’s sake; however, the implementation of these service areas is not always helpful for businesses.
For example, a handyman who lives 20 miles outside of a big city may not have the option of listing themselves as serving that city, even though that’s where they primarily do business. This restricts their visibility precisely where they want to be visible.
Again, this comes back to Google seeking to crack down on spam and simplify its algorithms. It’s too much work for Google to accommodate all the legitimate ways companies do business. Instead, it sometimes draws a hard line and creates another obstacle for you.

3. Google Now Allows Ads to Crowd Out Real Content on Webpages.

In spring 2017, Google announced it is lifting its restriction on 300×250 ads appearing above the fold on mobile webpages. In other words, big advertisements may now crowd users’ screens before they even see any of the content (headline, images, or text) on the page.
According to Google’s official announcement, this update will be done in a “user-friendly way” that won’t “annoy, distract, or result in ad performance issues.” However, that seems unlikely, as Google itself previously restricted this exact ad placement due to concerns about user experience.
Indeed, in a TechCrunch article outlining the new guideline, Sarah Perez points out:

After all, this restriction was originally put in place because it was not user-friendly. A medium-sized rectangle, by its very nature, will push much of the page’s content below the fold, as the ad itself takes up a good chunk of the screen.

Clearly, Google’s concern isn’t user experience. If it were, it would prevent paid ads from overtaking content. Instead, Google is favoring the desires of paying advertisers over its users.

4. Google May Edit Your Business Listing Without Your Knowledge or Consent.

When Google decides a piece of information on your listing needs correcting (based on data it collected elsewhere or input from other users), it just automatically makes the change. It’s up to you to check your listing regularly and catch any edits that aren’t actually true.
Compare this to how Facebook operates: When another user suggests a correction to your page’s information (e.g. phone number or store hours), it notifies you first. It asks whether you want to make this change instead of making the change unilaterally.
Our guess is that Google makes these changes on its own because it wants to provide users with the most up-to-date information possible. However, if it also wants that information to be accurate, then it should probably wait until it receives verification from business owners. And let’s not forget the impact this has on businesses. Competitors can sabotage other businesses by suggesting different phone numbers or addresses, and Google will be an accomplice.

5. Google’s “Featured Snippets” Directly Take Away Traffic From Top Search Results.

First, let’s clarify what a featured snippet is. You’ve most likely seen one in your own searches. When a user asks a question in Google Search, Google pulls the answer from a webpage and presents it to you. In other words, it gives users what it thinks they want, without users having to click anything.
From one perspective, featured snippets are super convenient. However, a couple problems exist. First of all, the snippets often take an “answer” out of context and deliver flat-out misinformation.
Second of all—and this is more troubling for website owners—a recent study by Ahrefs shows featured snippets take a substantial amount of traffic away from the rest of the search results. According to Barry Schwartz’s article on Search Engine Land:

Without a featured snippet, the first result gets a 26 percent click-through rate. With it, it only gets a 19.6 percent click-through rate, and the featured snippet gets an 8.6 percent click-through rate.

This is a clear attempt by Google to keep users on its own website. Not many people click on the snippets because they believe they’ve received the information they were looking for. And, of course, they don’t bother scrolling below the snippets to look at the list of search results. As a result, businesses lose significant traffic and potential leads.

And There Are Still More Examples…

Google completely reversed its policy on customer review kiosks. It actually used to recommend having a kiosk or some type of computer setup in your storefront for customers to leave you a review right then and there. This helped lots of businesses get the customer reviews they needed for success. But then, suddenly and inexplicably, Google reversed its position and started penalizing businesses for this practice instead.
For years, Google used to say they would never allow advertising in the Google Maps realm. Now, of course, they do.
Google Shopping is 100% powered by AdWords. Only paying advertisers appear in the results. There’s a huge lack of transparency here. Users don’t know they aren’t seeing an exhaustive list of results.

The list goes on and on.
Please bear in mind, we aren’t trying to paint Google as some sort of evil corporation from an ’80s sci-fi flick. Rather, we just want to encourage you to think more critically about some of Google’s practices and realize that you can’t always trust it to do what’s best for your business. That’s why you need to be proactive and take an educated approach to all of your online marketing efforts.
Can you think of any other ways Google might favor advertisers over users? Reach out to us and let us know what you think!

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!

12 Reasons Using Multiple SEO Companies Is a Terrible Idea

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

You’ve heard the saying, “Two heads are better than one.” You’ve probably heard it too many times to count. It’s so ingrained in our minds, in fact, that we apply it to virtually every situation we find ourselves in.
However, there are many scenarios in which two heads are NOT better than one. Online advertising is one of them.
If you’re working with one SEO company and decide to hire another one, you won’t be doubling your chances at success. You won’t promote your business twice as fast. You won’t get twice the number of leads.
All that happens is you waste your money and destroy the performance of your campaign. Truly, using multiple SEO companies is a terrible idea. Here’s why.

1. You’re paying for overlapping services.

Why pay for services from multiple companies that are all doing the same thing?

2. You’re paying twice the cost for half the result.

Working with more than one SEO company at a time will weaken your online presence. So not only are you paying double what you need to, but you’re also getting very little out of it.

3. You’ll draw suspicion from Google.

With multiple companies working on your advertising, your listings will be updated very frequently. This looks fishy to Google. Nothing good happens when Google is suspicious of you.

4. You could be penalized by Google.

Google will likely view your listing as spam if there are frequent updates from several different locations. And, as you know by now, Google takes spam very seriously. This could lead to your business plummeting in rankings or even getting suspended entirely.

5. You could end up with multiple Google listings.

With more than one company advertising for you, there’s a risk that one of them will create a new Google listing for you, even if you already have one. This may sound like a win, but it’s not. Unfortunately, “The more the merrier!” does not apply to Google listings. In fact, Google is highly suspicious of businesses with multiple listings. This could lead to suspended listings and lost customer reviews.

6. You’ll confuse the people who find you online.

If you do wind up with multiple listings that contain different information, then your customers will probably get confused. They may not be able to tell which listing is the real you. Instead of calling you, this uncertainty will just cause them to move on to the next company they find.

7. Constant battling means no one’s in control.

Since your SEO companies will be battling each other for control, there’s no prevailing strategy for your online advertising. With no clear route mapped out, where is your campaign going? And how is it going to get there?

8. Your SEO companies undo each other’s work.

It’s impossible to get fast results when your SEO companies keep undoing each other’s work (whether they realize it or not). When players on the same team work against each other, winning is pretty much out of the question.

9. Fighting makes your advertisers grumpy.

Who wants to fight tooth-and-nail just so they can do their job?

10. In fact, NO ONE is happy.

It frustrates Google because you look like a spammer. It frustrates your SEO companies because they’re trying to do their jobs with one hand tied behind their backs. And it frustrates you because you’re getting poor results.

11. Your rankings drop.

Whether it’s because Google penalizes you or there’s a bevy of conflicting information floating around, working with more than one SEO company will cause your rankings to plummet.

12. It’s one GIANT headache.

Even if you ignore all the above facts or you somehow avoid any negative consequences (e.g. dropped rankings, suspensions, and penalties), it’s still a massive pain for all parties involved. Life is a lot easier when you work with just one SEO company at a time.

Even though we’ve covered this topic with funny gifs, it’s a serious issue. Using multiple SEO companies can drain your bank account and tank your web presence. Please heed our advice and think twice before doubling up.

Top 3 Behaviors That Will Hurt Your Web Presence

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

At Prospect Genius, we’ve spent years and years perfecting our online advertising services and adapting them to meet Google’s changing standards. We do this so we can provide the most effective advertising possible and produce satisfying results. However, our efforts can only take a client so far if that client is doing things that are inadvertently sabotaging their online advertising campaign and web presence.
Man With Computer
To keep your campaign successful, stay on Google’s good side by avoiding these three behaviors at all costs.

1. Duplicating Content

Having duplicate content on your website is a major crime in Google’s world. If your site contains content that’s been copyrighted to another company, you have duplicate content. This is in direct violation of Google’s guidelines. Google’s bots are constantly indexing and scanning through webpages, and sooner or later, they’ll detect that your content is identical to someone else’s. When they do, Google will decide which page is the original source; the other page, presumed plagiarized, will be removed from Google’s index, never to be shown to users.
So while it may seem like you’re taking a shortcut by “borrowing” someone else’s content—or content that was written by an advertiser like Prospect Genius—you’re actually creating a situation where the duplicated pages will never rank for any search. Obviously, this will do serious damage to your web presence in the long run.

2. Using Fake Addresses

Some business owners think they can get away with using a fake address on their Google My Business listing. In doing so, real businesses are trying to put themselves in prime locations for local SEO, while shady businesses without a physical location are making up addresses out of thin air to seem legitimate. Regardless of your motivation, if you use a fake address on your Google My Business listing, you will be caught.
That’s because Google has a variety of tools, including cars and satellites, used to verify that businesses are actually located where they claim to be. When Google discovers that your business is not at the location listed, you’ll be slapped with a hefty penalty. Your listing will plummet in ranking or it might be suspended completely.
It’s a much safer bet to just stick with your real address. In fact, in 95% of cases, business owners will get good rankings just by following the rules. That means using a fake address is not only risky, but it’s also unnecessary.

3. Hiding Information

Some business owners have a tendency to hold their cards close to their chests. They’ve learned from years of competition that they don’t want people having access to sensitive information about their businesses. Fair enough—but this behavior does not mesh well with Prospect Genius’s online advertising services.
When you hire us and don’t give us a full history of your web presence or you lock us out of key resources like your Google My Business listing, you’re stunting your own advertising efforts. We not only need to make sure your Google listing is working in harmony with the other work you’re paying us to do, but we also need to know where else your business is listed and what types of behaviors you’ve engaged in previously. For example, if you have a history of bending, breaking, or ignoring Google’s policies, or you worked with a different advertiser before hiring us, we need to know. If there’s something in your history that you don’t tell us, then we might end up making matters worse by spreading conflicting information about your business. (And as you know, Google despises conflicting information.)
When you hide this kind of crucial information from us, it’s like hiding the level from your kitchen renovation contractor. Sure, they’ll be able to get the job done without it, but all of your cabinets are going to be wonky and crooked, and your kitchen might end up being unusable. You’re essentially hiring someone to do a job for you and then taking away their ability to do that job effectively. Simply put, you’re wasting your own money.

Conclusion: Don’t Lie

That’s the general rule when you want to stay out of trouble online. Don’t lie to Google. Don’t lie to your advertiser. Don’t lie to your customers. Just don’t do it. It may seem like a simple white lie, but Google’s punishments don’t always fit the crime. You have no way of predicting or controlling the consequences. Google might delete all of your reviews, penalize your rankings, suspend your listing, or even mark your business as “closed.” The potential consequences simply aren’t worth the gamble. Help yourself and your web presence by remaining honest at all times.

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