SEO Strategy – Voice Search and its Impact in 2021

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How many times have you said ‘Hey, Google?’ today? You would most certainly not be the only one. Voice search is not only on the rise, it’s becoming second nature for everyone in their day to day lives. It’s not only questions being directed at smart speakers, but there’s also a massive surge being used for mobile. With that being said, if you aren’t optimizing for voice search in 2021, that is likely to have an impact on your ranking in the future. Experts at Onimod Global are here to help you discover more about voice search and how your keyword decisions could make all the difference.

As usual, data is very telling. Almost one-third (27%) of the online users globally use mobile voice search. Those numbers will be considered minuscule in the future as they’re bound to double in the next few years. The big pressing question: why is this the case? Is it just because it’s practical, or because it’s convenient, or maybe just because it’s trendy? One thing is certain: it’s gaining popularity as it is for sure easy to use, fast, and conversational compared to conventional typing. 

Voice Search 101

By definition, voice search is voice recognition technology that allows users to perform searches by speaking directly to their supported devices. These range from smartphones like your iPhone and Samsung to your computers to any home assistant devices such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and many more device assistants. In total, Google voice searches have skyrocketed over the past several years, so how you incorporate voice search into your digital marketing strategy is a must. 

Whether you’re working as an SEO consultant or working on building a website right now from the ground up, we advise you to ensure your site and all pages are optimized it for voice search. 

Website Voice Search Optimization in 2021

You may still be asking yourself, what are all of the benefits that come with optimizing for voice search in 2021?

  • More revenue: More visitors mean will in turn result in more conversions, and more conversions will of course equal more revenue.  
  • Higher rankings: Almost always these queries will rank in the top 3 positions on search engine results pages (SERPs).   
  • Higher authority: When you start ranking for voice searches and increase your audience, you boost your website’s authority. 

There is of course a catch, and that catch is called keywords. So in order to make your voice search optimization work as planned, you need optimized content. As always, keywords are the key.   

Voice search SEO requires:   

  • Question-based keywords: Queries should be in the form of questions, as that is also how the query is typically formed
  • Long-tail keywords: Really think about user intent and focus on action queries 
  • Conversational content: Natural-sounding language is key

Your Google My Business Page Is Important

More often than not, most users finish their queries with the words “near me.” The determining factor for where your page will rank for those types of searches is the Google My Business listing. This is by far one of the easiest ways to get noticed by your target audience via voice search, but one important key factor is ensuring your content and all contact information are complete and on point. 

Google needs to know where your business is located when someone asks to display similar businesses in your area. Include your name, address, and phone number (NAP) in the listing and choose the right business category and area code. 

Additionally, you can try to rank for those “near me” queries by targeting local keywords that contain location-specific phrases that generate results related to the same geographic location. 

Final thoughts

In addition to voice search SEO strategies and other digital marketing tips, we will continue to share case studies and the latest digital marketing news and tips to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to optimize for voice search or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

  

3 Steps for a Successful Holiday SEO

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A holiday season simply wouldn’t be complete without frantic shopping, especially online shopping. Regardless of if people are shopping on Black Friday, Cyber Monday or completely throughout the holiday shopping season, millions of customers rush to get their hands on gifts for friends and loved ones. That means retailers must be well prepared for your holiday SEO strategy.

One way to really stand out for e-commerce business owners and marketers is a top notch holiday SEO strategy. If your brand is looking to optimize for holiday-specific website traffic, here are the three main steps to take to make sure you’re ready.

A good indication of where to start for keyword research is with trends from 2020. You can find this in the Search Terms report in Google Search Console. First ask yourself:

  • Which pages generated the most traffic last year and likely to gain lots of traffic this year as well?
  • Which search queries were the most used to discover your products and deals?

After you’ve gathered this information, analyze data from other channels that your company is active on. In particular, definitely research the top referral sources — affiliates, social media websites, email campaigns. Determine which channels drove you the most conversions and prioritize them for this year’s strategy.

Google Search Console is much more suited for providing you with technical website data versus Google Analytics. Long explanation short, this tool reports how search crawlers ‘view’ your website and interact with it to explore and attempt to determine its value for users.

Identify keywords relevant for holidays

In order to have a successful SEO strategy, keyword research is an absolute must. Irrelevant keyword targeting or those with no purchase/product research intention translates to budget waste. Going after overly-competitive keywords that every other online store is after means low chances for success. To create your holiday keyword plan, we again recommend to search into historic data from last year. Did you see any interesting keywords that shoppers used to find you? A great place to look is the Google Search Console for these specific queries.

When it comes to holiday keyword research, make sure you are careful about which keywords you want to battle and win. During the holiday season, you’d need to rank fast. So don’t go after overly-competitive broach keywords such as “buy cosmetics online.” Why’s that you ask? The reason is because your company would be competing for shopper attention with carousel ad results, Amazon product listings and category pages from other national retailers.

Create landing pages for special launches

This will give you a significant leg up on SEO holiday queries. To increase your chances of showing up during the time of your holiday offers such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday-related search queries, it’s important to create pages that target relevant keywords. (That you’ve discovered during the previous step). In order to discover the best prices available for their query, users will often search for keyword combinations with “[brand name] or [product] deals, discounts, promos”.

You can research which options are trending in your product vertical using historical results from Google Trends. Depending on the industry your business is in, it may be beneficial to create a Black Friday or Cyber Monday page for each product you plan on offering at a discount.

Final thoughts

In addition to holiday SEO strategies and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to make the most of your SEO during the holidays or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

 

Long-Tail Keyword Guide: How To Use In 2021

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Are you exhausted of trying ranking for the same highly competitive keywords as your competitors? Here are two and a half words that will help you solve this problem: Long-tail keywords.

There are so many benefits of highly targeted search terms packed with intent. Onimod Global experts are here to help break down the definition of long-tail keywords and how to use them to your advantage.

What are long-tail keywords?

By definition, long-tail keywords are longer and much more specific keyword phrases that users will likely use to guide them to their desired destination faster. This usually also occurs when they’re closer to a purchase or when the visitors are using voice search. Long-tail keywords can be extremely valuable if you know how to use them.

Here’s an example to explain: if you’re a furniture company, most likely the odds are that your pages won’t often rank or appear near the top of an organic search for “furniture” because there’s too much competition (this is particularly true if you’re a smaller company or a startup). But if you specialize in, say, a specific type of vintage furniture, then keywords like “vintage victorian style desk” are going to reliably find those customers looking for exactly that product on your page.

Managing long-tail keywords is essentially just a matter of establishing how you communicate the product or service you’re selling between your business and the customers who are already out there that are actively searching or shopping for what you provide.

Note that the actual length of these keywords technically isn’t relevant. Long-tail keywords tend to be at least three words long due to their specificity, but precise low-volume searches that are only one or two words long (such as many brand names) are also considered long-tail keywords.

How to use long-tail keywords in 2021

Standalone broad keyword strategies are a matter of the past. Years ago, hunting for long-tail keywords with a seemingly low search volume probably seemed and felt like a waste of time and effort. However, long-tail keywords contain so much opportunity in order to connect with your audience which are likely to be converting and paying customers.

In 2021 (almost 2022), the combination of Google’s increased focus on user experience and search intent, and the steady increase of conversational search and voice search, means that long-tail keyword SEO strategies are more important than ever before. Incorporating these can be a real game changer for your company.

Long-tail keywords are also a crucial part of optimizing for ensuring your content is connecting with your audience by showing them exactly what they’re searching for. We live in an age where 55% of millennials use voice search daily. When these users query these platforms, they use long-tail keyword phrases such as questions (what are the best cafe’s with matcha lattes nearby?) and commands with clear intent (compare the price of the blazer from Zara and H&M).

Put yourself in the shoes of the customer to predict the intent behind naturally spoken and voice search questions so that you can provide the most clear and direct answers about your business and services and better target these long-tail keyword phrases. Even better than guessing what your customer’s are guessing, we suggest to do market research and ask a group of people in your target market for their Google searches relative to your content and product and/or service.

Final thoughts

In addition to long-tail keyword strategies and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about Facebook advertising or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

 

 

 

3 B2B LinkedIn Marketing Strategies That Work

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Ever since the beginning of the platform, B2B businesses and their marketing teams have been trying to crack the code for B2B LinkedIn marketing success. Millions of professionals all in one place that are dream targets for your business, there must be some way to open up and flood in leads, right? There is, but the standard LinkedIn advice isn’t detailed enough: 1) Join. 2) Be active. 3) Get leads. So… how do you actually get leads in a strategic way?

Experts at Onimod Global are here to help you with 3 B2B LinkedIn marketing tips that actually work and you can implement today.

1. Your company page should turn into a lead generation page.

Being intentional with how your company page is organized is one of the top benefits for your company to make leads from LinkedIn. Unfortunately, quality leads don’t just fall into your lap. You have to work for them, especially in B2B.

The best way to do this is to turn your business or company page into a lead generation page. This is a course reversal from the typical company page, which shows basic information and facts about the company. Who reads that stuff anyway?

Your company page is a pipeline for LinkedIn leads to visit your actual company website.

Structure your company page in such a way that it leads up to an actionable conversion. A conversion action would be, for example, a click-through to your website, either in the company description or your recent updates.

 

2. Save your LinkedIn searches

Most likely you have used advanced search on LinkedIn, which is an amazing way of identifying the exact type of people you are targeting. So when you go through the work of creating a highly specific and targeted search, you’ll want to save it.

Saved searches create a way to stay active in your prospecting. You know that getting B2B leads isn’t a one and done activity. You have to maintain consistency in order to have a steady pipeline of sales. Directly from your advanced search, look for the “Save search” option in the upper right corner. Then when you have created a saved search, you can also set up a way to find that exact search again, but you can also set up alerts.

One note about this point: please keep in mind that without an upgraded subscription, you can only save three searches.

3. Publish content

As basic as it sounds, it is one of the most important factors in terms of being successful on the platform. LinkedIn as a platform is very powerful in the form of content publishing. When you’re serious about B2B LinkedIn marketing, you need to be using this tool to its fullest extent.

By creating quality content, you can turn your strategy from outbound marketing—drawing attention through ads—and start building an inbound strategy where you draw in users interested in what you have to offer.

There are two ways to do this effectively—by publishing both as an individual and as a company.

Final Thoughts on Facebook Ads

When there’s even more to take into account in terms of improving in your B2B LinkedIn marketing, it’s important to know how each will benefit you and drive results. We will continue to share case studies and considerations to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things B2B LinkedIn marketing, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about B2B marketing or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

How To Improve Facebook Ad Performance and Measurement

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Per ususal, the last quarter of the year is a busy one and a very important time for businesses like yours. For 2021 in particular, you are most likely attempting to execute paid social media strategies with Facebook ads and digital marketing plans while navigating through a sea of privacy and platform changes across the entire online advertising industry.

Facebook estimates that in aggregate they are underreporting iOS web conversions by approximately 15%. however this is an overarching number with a broad range for individual advertisers. Facebook claims that the conversions occurring in the real world, like sales and app installs, are higher than what is being reported for many advertisers. Onimod Global experts are here to help you understand these changes, specifically in Facebook ads, and optimize performance in this new environment.

Actions to Improve Facebook Ad Performance and Measurement

As you build your campaigns, try to keep these Facebook advertising best practices in mind:

  • Before you analyze performance, allow some time: Delayed data is a real pain. Due to the fact it’s almost inevitable as well as modeled reporting, we advise waiting a minimum of 72 hours or the full length of the optimization window selected before evaluating the performance for campaigns that are optimized for conversions. Daily assessment is of course still possible for campaigns and should be monitored, but waiting to analyze and report will ensure you get the most accurate picture of performance.
  • Analyze at the campaign level, not the creative level: Where it’s possible and makes sense for your analysis, analyze reporting at the campaign level. While you can always assess performance at the ad set and ad level is possible, some estimated conversions are aggregated and reported with a delay. We advise to take this into account when assessing ads performance.
  • Enable Aggregated Event Measurement: This essentially means to choose the web events (like a sign-up or a purchase) that are most aligned with your core business outcomes and are frequently used as the events to optimize against in your campaigns. If you are running ads optimized against events that have not been prioritized in Events Manager, it may potentially effect your results negatively.
  • Set up the Conversions API: The Conversions API creates a simple, reliable and privacy-safe connection between your marketing data, such as website events and offline conversions, and Facebook. Adding the Conversions API to your existing setup will help you optimize your ad campaigns, decrease cost per action and more accurately measure campaign outcomes while offering the same privacy protections we’ve put in place across our other Business Tools. Many advertisers are already seeing success with Conversions API, and you can check out their stories here.
  • Use the learning phase help Facebook discover the best way to deliver your ads: One tip we recommend to be able to exit the learning phase sooner is to consolidate your ad sets, expanding your audience or choosing an optimization event that occurs more frequently. Another way you can make the most of the learning phase is reducing the frequency of manual edits or expand your audiences, so there are more opportunities for people to complete your optimization event.
  • Take all available tools into account: You may also want to consider all measurement solutions available to you, on Facebook Ads platform and off. During this period of transition, it’s crucial to review all measurement solutions to identify potential underreporting that may be occuring for your business.
  • Continue to test and learn: Through testing new bidding, format and audience strategies, you can identify what is working today and evolve over time as Facebook Ads continue to improve. Testing new creative and marketing strategies is essential for improving your performance over time.

Final Thoughts on Facebook Ads

When there’s even more to take into account in terms of making your Facebook Ads perform better, it’s important to know how each will benefit you and drive results. We will continue to share case studies and considerations to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things Facebook advertising, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about Facebook advertising or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

Google Ads Will Combine Smart and Standard Display Campaigns

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As your trusted Google news source, here’s the latest update: Google is set to combine smart and standard display campaigns into a single option, announced yesterday Wednesday September 15th. And to add another change into the mix, Google also announced they will be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.

 

Smart and Standard Display campaigns 101

Smart campaigns were unveiled four years ago, and they were created to help users have a simpler way to reach your audience across millions of sites and apps. Smart Display campaigns are set apart from other forms of campaigns through using automation to find new and existing customers, tailor your creative and set optimal bids.

Following up Smart campaigns, the standard Display campaigns have beneficial features such as responsive display ads and automated bidding. The point of combining the two types of campaigns means that advertisers will have the opportunity to test even more types of ads.

The new Display campaign overview

Bonnie Pericolosi, the director of product management for Google Ads says, “In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences.” Now while setting up campaigns, advertisers will have the ability to choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.

Ginny Marvin, Google’s ads product liaison, discussed the update on Twitter, “No action is needed: Existing Smart & Standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time. Once this update is rolled out in your account, you’ll see the new Display campaign type option and workflow when you create a new campaign.” 

 Targeting update for Google Ads Display campaigns

In addition to this change, Google Ads will also introduce optimized targeting, which treats audience settings as signals to find audience segments that may improve campaign performance, to Display campaigns. Previously, this option was only available on Smart Display campaigns.

Why advertisers should care

There will be just one option to create Google Ads Display campaigns very soon. The new Display campaign type will have the same controls for bidding, ads and audiences that standard Display campaigns currently offer. And, as Marvin stated, existing Smart and standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time.

More From Onimod Global

As certified Google experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO and Google Ads, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

 

 

3 Crucial SEO Tips for 2021

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Search engine optimization, SEO, by definition is: a strategy in digital marketing which aims to improve your ranking on search engines.

Sounds easy to conquer, but we all know it isn’t so simple. It’s extremely difficult to keep up with Google’s 500-600 algorithm updates annually. That means there is at least one update per day every year. Experts who dedicate their careers to unlocking the secret to search engine ranking optimization still are puzzled at the end of the day. Fear not, we are here to help guide you with the top 3 SEO tips for 2021 that will get you on the right track to ranking success.

1. Understand your website’s core vitals

Maybe you’ve never heard the phrase before, but the philosophy behind it is becoming more crucial to your SEO and ranking. In May of 2022, Google will roll out Page Experience, which is a brand new algorithm ranking pages based off of their “core web vital” scores. A brief overview of what to look out for here is: 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – Measures page speed. This is the time it takes for a page’s main content to load. The ideal LCP is 2.5 seconds or faster.

First Input Delay (FID) – Measures page responsiveness. This is the time it takes for a page to become interactive. The ideal FID is less than 100 ms. 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – Measures visual stability. This is the amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. The ideal CLS is less than .1.

2. Focus on featured snippets
If they aren’t already, featured snippets should be a priority to include in your SEO strategy for 2021. Also commonly referred to as the holy grail of search, featured snippets appear at the very top of search engine page results (SERP), or in position zero, in a rectangular box. You can’t technically “select” the content shown in a featured snippet, but you can optimize your content so it’s more likely to appear in a featured snippet. Here are a few recommendations.

Use questions: all content that you write needs to be composed with the user in mind. What would they search in Google in order to come across your content?

Long term keywords: the longer words in a search query, the higher chance it will return a featured snippet. Only 4.3% of single word keywords resulted in a featured snippet as compared to 17% of keywords made up of 5 words, and 55.5% of keywords made of 10 words.
Keep formats in mind: When it comes to featured snippets, there are four different formats: paragraph, list, table and video. While writing your content with the goal of achieving a featured snippet, keep these different formats in mind. Also remember, Google wants to display information easily and distinctly to searchers looking for a fast answer. So format for the speed reader.

3. Focus on user experience
 In 2021, user experience is more important than ever in terms of SEO. As mentioned in tip #1, the new focus on core web vitals is all about user experience. In addition to that, Google also takes into account bounce rate, dwell time, and click-through percentage. The goal is to have a user click on your result, spend time clicking on different pages, and spend at least 3 minutes on your site.

More From Onimod Global

As certified SEO experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

Google Maps Marketing Strategy 101

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Google Maps is one of the first things that people think of when you hear the phrase “local SEO.” When we think of any business that will have what I need, whether it’s furniture or food or office supplies, Google Maps is the go to. I know that the search results have plenty of information to pick the best option with Google reviews, star ratings, photos, and location information.

We’re here to give an overview of Google My Business and how you can move up in Google Maps rankings. These tools will give your Google My Business posts the ability to get additional reach locally. 

 

Google My Business Overview

First thing’s first, you need a Google My Business listing. Here is a simple checklist with everything you’ll need to include: 

  • You’re using your legal business name
  • You’ve chosen the primary category most relevant to your business and have added additional categories (if applicable)
  • Correct address is shown (if you’re not a service area business)
  • Address is hidden if you’re an service area business and service areas have been designated
  • Hours of operation have been added
  • Local phone number is being used
  • Website link is correct 
  • Appointment link has been added (if applicable)
  • Products have been added (if retail)
  • Services have been added (if you offer services)
  • Applicable attributes have been added
  • Business description has been added
  • Opening date has been added

This is going to be the first impression anyone has of your business, so it’s important to have all information accurate and up to date. Mike Blumenthal even coined the phrase “Google My Business is your new homepage” back in 2015.

 

Increasing Google Maps Rankings

Now that the basics are out of the way, you can begin a strategy for increasing your Google Maps rankings. Although marketing on Google Maps is free, you can boost your business’ visibility in search results with local search ads. 

With the use of these ads, you can push your business listing to the top of search queries for keywords relevant to your business. Google Maps ads use location targeting, so the most relevant audience in your near vicinity will show up for location-relevant searches. These ads appear in desktop and mobile searches. We recommend implementing these ads into your Google Ads strategy if you haven’t already done so. 

 

More From Onimod Global

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including all Google Ads, because our goal is to make your business more successful. To get in contact with an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here. 

Google To End Expanded Text Ads in 2022

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You heard it here first, Google is officially set to sunset their expanding text ads, or ETAs, in July of 2022. According to an announcement from Sylvanus Bent, Product Manager, Google Ads, advertisers will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads beginning in July 2022. “Your existing expanded text ads will continue to serve alongside responsive search ads, and you’ll still see reports on their performance going forward. Additionally, you’ll be able to pause and resume your expanded text ads or remove them if needed. You’ll also still be able to create and edit call ads and Dynamic Search Ads,” said Bent.

 

What to do in the meantime?

We know this news is coming pretty far in advance. What we recommend for now is to use ETA info for RSAs in the transition, which is also recommended by product managers at Google Ads. “To prepare for this change, we recommend that you have at least one responsive search ad in every ad group in your Search campaigns by June 30, 2022,” Bent suggested. Google’s announcement also has already included ways that advertisers can repurpose their ETA content for RSAs. Recommendations from Google’s team include the following:

  • Look through your ads and evaluate their success based on incremental impressions, clicks, and conversions your ad groups and campaigns receive
  • Repurpose high-performing content from your expanded text ads and focus on Ad strength
  • Pin headlines or descriptions to specific positions in your responsive search ads

This new Google update will mainly affect anyone in highly regulated fields.These are currently the industries that benefit from ETAs and will be the most impacted starting next year. 

 

Why this Extended Text Ads news is relevant 

This new update from Google is the latest move in order to make a big push in the automation through their ad products. In the announcement from Google, their team explains, “15% of search queries every day are new searches we’ve never seen before” and therefore “Automation is key to keeping pace with these trends.” While RSAs are in use by many advertisers, we also understand the control over ads that ETAs provide as well as other capabilities. The future phase-out of ETAs means advertisers are moving even further away from direct control over their accounts and having to work with the Google Ads machine learning and AI.

Before the full phase-out is complete, our experts recommend testing your ETA ad pieces in RSAs and figure out what works best so you’re not cut off completely from new ad creation when Google Ads stops allowing new ETAs. 

 

More from Onimod Global

As this is news almost a year in advance, the story is evolving and our experts at Onimod Global will keep you up to date on the latest information regarding expanding text ads and any other Google Ads updates to come. At Onimod Global, our experts have endless expertise when it comes to the latest news on Google updates. We’re here to discover what is the right and relevant information to make your ads successful. Got questions about ETAs, Google Ads, or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.