Google announced at their Inside Search event on June 14 that they would be rolling out Google Voice Search for Desktops in the coming weeks. Well the coming weeks are here and I’ve been messing around with it for a few days. Voice Search for the desktop is a feature of the Chrome Browser (signed in or out) and is pretty simple to operate. You just click the microphone icon in the search box and speak into the computer’s internal microphone (or headset or what-have-you).

Is This Thing On?

I’m assuming that at its core, Google wants to capitalize on the on the rise in voice search for mobile.  I just don’t see that happening. It makes sense that you want to do a voice search on your mobile device because the keyboards are about 4 inches wide.  And, it’s a phone, so you should be talking to it. When I’m at a desktop or laptop (usually at work), I have a normal-sized keyboard and can just as easily type my query into the search box. I’m also pretty sure, actually, POSITIVE, that the people around me don’t need to hear me spouting out random words at my screen.

At home, it would most likely be the same deal, except a little more fun because I can annoy my wife by blurting out random nonsense without the risk of being fired.

It’s not all doom and gloom from me though.  There are times when this could be very “handy”.  Like when your hands are full or you are in a big rush and typing is just not an option.

Google also has some ideas as to why this is useful, and I tend to agree with these because they are fun:

• It makes searching for words or phrases that are hard to spell a lot quicker and easier
  • Bolognase sauce
• You can search very, very, very long queries.
  • Easier to say “Where is the bathroom, I really have to go in Spanish” than type it
• Sometimes, it’s more fun to say stuff out loud than type it.
  • Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is WAY more fun to say (and impossible to type)

The SEO Factor

There isn’t one.  The voice commands behave the same way as the typed commands.  I haven’t seen any change in the SERPs between the typed word and the spoken word. Whatever keyword you “say”, ultimately gets “typed” into the search bar and those same results are served.

The Wrap Up

It seems the overall theme throughout this post is that Google Voice Search is fun. While I don’t think that this will be adopted by the masses or, most importantly have any effect on SEO, it’s still a neat little feature and could potentially bring hours (or minutes) of joy to your day. And you can annoy your co-workers. (see below)

Big Fun

When doing a voice search for my favorite R&B song, I get exactly what I’m looking for:

When I do a search for my favorite internet marketer (Bill Rowland), this is what I got:

Although Bill is a whirlwind of SEO knowledge, this is not my intended result. I have to point out that this result and my accelerated, Philadelphia mumble are highly correlated.

Speak clearly, people.  Google is listening.

End Transmission.

Anthony Moore

As SEO Manager at TrueAction Network , Anthony builds and executes sound SEO strategies for large e-commerce clients. While well versed in all aspects of natural search optimization, his true passion lies in SEO analytics and reporting. Anthony also enjoys taking pictures and the occasional slice of pizza.

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It’s surprising that most real estate companies still aren’t taking advantage of the QR (“Quick Response”) Codes. With smartphone sales skyrocketing one would think that the usually aggressive and marketing savvy real estate companies and agents would cater to mobile users.

Real Estate Listing with Yahoo! search code

The above real estate listing gives strollers/potential customers “instructions” for how to view property details and photos online. While I like this offline and online “interplay” I think asking potentially  interested people to go to Yahoo! and type in a meangless string of numbers is unrealistic.

Why not add a QR code which would land smartphone users on a mobile optimized page with property details.

I know that some will say that awareness of QR codes is still in its infancy in the USA, but I would argue that in 2011 QR codes will become very popular. Also, the early adopters of mobile technology will draw in the more technologically savvy customers (usually the ones with fat wallets).

Sometimes you have to be first and show your customers how the latest technology will make their lives easier. They will love it!

Peter Wyspianski

I’m a Search Marketer living and working in Philadelphia. SeoinPhiladelphia.com is my social hub where you can read my opinions and observations, find out what I read, or connect with me on a professional level.

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I often get asked by clients whether it is better to have a blog as part of the site or use a 3rd party blogging platform such as Tumblr. Personally I feel there are advantages to both, but I always recommend having an on-site blog.

An on-site blog, such as one at www.yourdomain.com/blog (this is always better than blog.yourdomain.com), helps with link building efforts since:
- The blog will have fresh content regularly updated
- Any backlinks will seem more natural to the search engines, since fresh, share-worthy content naturally will generate more links
- All links built to the blog will help the overall main site
- Can promote the brand and expertise without the hard sell of product/service pages
- Makes getting links from social media platforms much easier

Thus, I would say, make sure to keep up a good internal blog, 1-3 times a week is sufficient for updates, and help your site. A good way to promote a new blog is sharing some valuable or interesting content. Provide value and share with others in the community, and the links will build up!

Purna

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Yesterday morning while I was looking for a dentist in Philadelphia, Google “served” me its new tested layout for the Google Maps 7-Pack (universal search with  7 results from Google Maps).  In general the new layout gives local results more prominence on the search result page.  Mike Blumenthals, who probably knows more about Google Maps than Google itself, reviewed the layouts with me and pointed out that he first heard about this more integrated local search  SERP on July 5th.  In both cases the new layout “surfaced” for medical related queries.

Below you can compare the current Google Maps 7-pack layout for “dentist philadelphia” with the tested version:

• Current 7-Pack  Layout:

Current Local Search Layout main Features:

Click to see Large Image of "normal" 7-Pack

• 7 links straight to the local  websites
• the name of the business is a title of the listing
• phone number is displayed, no address
• some of the  “web” results are still above the fold
• below the Google Maps results you can see 10 “web” results
• take a note of the site rankings

• Tested Local Search Layout (Maps 7 Pack results are more integrated)

Tested Local Search Layout main Features:

Click to see a large image of the "new" (tested) Google Maps 7-Pack

• The HTML titles are used as the titles of the listings (instead of business names as it is currently)
• in addition to the phone number the full address is displayed
• you can see that the ranking order of the business was reshuffled a little bit
• the description from the home page meta tag was used in the local snippet
• notice however that the last three results do not display any descriptions.  We initially  thought  that the listings with descriptions do not have meta tags (which is the case for dental.upenn.edu), however emergencydentist24/7 and demeonline have them.  Not sure how to explain this inconsistency.
• below the Google Maps results we can see 6 “web” results” (mostly IYPs)

Also, in the first screen shot (the current layout) below the 7-pack we still have 10 “web” results (a few local dentistry websites and a few internet yellow pages). In the tested version you can see only 6 “web” results. In the tested version the business listings (i.e demeonline  centrecitydentist) appears in Google Maps 7-Pack, but they don’t appear in th “web” results. In the current version, however, the local dentistry listings appear in both the 7-Pack and “web” results.

I wonder how this will play out. We will have to wait and see the fate of the new local search layout.

Peter Wyspianski

I’m a Search Marketer living and working in Philadelphia. SeoinPhiladelphia.com is my social hub where you can read my opinions and observations, find out what I read, or connect with me on a professional level.

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I love learning more about the thought process that goes into a purchase and finding new ways to increase conversions. A way to make calls to action even more effective is to ask yes/yes questions. What I have found helpful in increasing conversions is to give people a choice between two actions we would like for them to do, which increases the likelihood of them taking action in the first place.

For example with an e-commerce site, rather than giving them the choice of would you like to buy now (yes) or not (no), we say would you like to buy now (yes) or learn more about how you will benefit (yes)?

Adding more persuasive elements on to a page can serve to increase the likelihood of a purchase.  Any of these following options would be great to add on as an additional choice:

-          Case Studies

-          White Papers

-          A video on the product or benefits of the service

Each of these could then steer the visitor in the direction of making a purchase.

Purna

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A far too common occurrence I come across is clients having the same keyword in multiple ad groups or campaigns. Why compete against yourself or rely on Google to choose? It’s important to ensure every keyword appears in the account only once.

Save your money and retain control over your AdWords campaign by performing a simple duplicate keywords test.

You can do this in two ways:
1. Use AdWords Editor: By far the simplest and fastest way to do this. Under tools, choose Find Duplicate Keywords and then delete from the list it provides.

2. Within the AdWords Interface: In AdWords Interface
i. Under all campaigns, select Keyword tab
ii. Sort keywords alphabetically
iii. Manually scan through

I make it a practice to run the test every time I make a major update to an account or add in multiple closely-related ad groups. Google AdWords can be an invaluable tool for businesses if used correctly, and I will continue to share more tips.

Purna

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Two different approaches for using a popular event in local search strategy.

Philadelphia Restaurant Week is a popular event where participating restaurants offer a multi-course menu at a fixed price (much like other restaurant weeks around the world). Obviously this popular event is searched for locally (click on image to enlarge it):

Google Search Trend

Example 1.  Google Maps Spam

The other day I was looking for a list of the restaurants  participating in “Philadelphia Restaurant Week” and naturally I headed to Google and typed in “Philadelphia Restaurants Week”.  Among the organic listings Google “threw in” universal search listings from its local index (click to enlarge):

"philadelphia restaurants week" in Google

Also, this rather irrelevant listing shows up in Google Local index  in the 1st position- before the “real” Philadelphia restaurant  listings:

Whoever set this up in Google Local Business Center had a clear plan – get the seasonal traffic/online visibility  from the local event -  ‘Philadelphia Restaurant Week’.  Not sure how much qualified traffic this “cell phone text messaging” company  receives from the search term ” philadelphia restaurants week” but I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only Google user unhappy with this result.

The “business owner” of this local listing has clearly taken advantage of the well known Google  Local index weaknesses.  Unfortunately, for the end users,  it was  easy enough for somebody to game the system by adding the “Philadelphia Restaurant Week” in the listing titles and purposefully assigning the listing to the wrong categories:

From Google Local Listing Quality Guidelines:

Represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website. Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business into the business name

Example 2. Bing Local

After encountering  the above spam in Google I headed to Bing to see if the same result  will display. It did not. What I was presented in Bing was a positive surprise:

'philadelphia restaurants week' in Bing

In this case, the business owner (or the person responsible for online marketing for Moshulu Restaurant) has planned ahead and optimized the relevant restaurant listing in Bing Local for “Philadelphia restaurants week’.   The optimization was very simple, however very effective and most importantly was done in a legitimate way.

Adding  just  “Philadelphia restaurant week’ keywords was enough for Bing to display this listing for the relevant search query.

As a result, Moshulu Restaurant’s  local listing  visibility was increased and the opportunity  of capturing the Philadelphia Restaurant Week search traffic was maximized. Simple but brilliant.

The Bing example can be used as a case study showing that small business should actively use search engine local listings as promotional tools.  The changes you make to your business local listing have a direct impact on its search engine visibility and on your pocket.

Peter Wyspianski

I’m a Search Marketer living and working in Philadelphia. SeoinPhiladelphia.com is my social hub where you can read my opinions and observations, find out what I read, or connect with me on a professional level.

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If  your business is focusing on providing online or offline services to a group of people living in specific part of your city or neighborhood, it is crucial to understand your local customers and “tailor” your  propositions to their unique needs/expectations. In this short post I’ll show how  small businesses can conduct some very basic local market research using freely available online tools .

Let’s say you are running a local fitness club/gym and would you like to open one more studio in Philadelphia.  Some of the most important questions might be : 1) where are competing fitness clubs located in Philadelphia? 2) what are the demographics of Philadelphia major neighborhoods? 3) Are the local residents happy with their current club?  The good news is that by spending very little time and virtually no money you can get the answers to these crucial questions.

Google Maps

where are your competitors located?

Head to Google Maps and type in ‘fintess‘ (remember to set your default location as Philadelphia or type in ‘fitness loc:Philadelphia’ ).

Google Maps result for 'fitness' - as Philadelphia default location

The above  search result map gives you a quick overview of the local fitness market. Each red “dot” on the map represents fitness related business.   You get a good idea about which part of the city is most competitive, and where there are opportunities.  For instance, I’ve marked (with green lines) the south Rittenhouse and Graduate Hospital neighborhoods as locations for potential expansion opportunities. It makes sense to investigate this part of the city further and learn more about its residents.

Local Real Estate Websites

What are the demographics of your local customers?

Knowing the geographical presence of your local competitors  is undoubtedly helpful, however it is equally important to know more about residents of a particular neighborhood.   To get basic demographic information you can use local real estate websites such as PruFoxRoach for example. This popular Philadelphia real estate company lets you check any Philly neighborhood demographic information (to change address click on ‘Revise Search’ button).  Since the source  of the data is the US Census,  you could go directly to census.gov however the real estate  sites tend to be easier to navigate and present data in a more user friendly format.

Going back to our example of opening our gym, knowing the age group and income level of a neighborhood we are looking to break into, will help us with both offline and online marketing efforts. This demographic insight could be considered when designing a landing page for your local ppc adds, creating seasonal promotions or creating creative for ads in local magazines/newspapers.

Social Media

What are the expectations of your local customer base?

Sites like Yahoo! Answers or Twitter are great local market research tools. They enable you to directly ask users from specific a geographical area about their needs, expectations, preferences or feedback:

From Yahoo! Answers

A local fitness club owner could for example use Twitter or Yahoo! Answers to ask residents of Philly’s Graduate Hospital if they are happy with their current gym (if they are not happy- why), which equipment they prefer to exercise  on  or which membership rules are most annoying. On Twitter  to encourage people to participate  in your polls (you can use twtpoll.com) offer prizes or discounts for your services.

Summary

I hope that the above examples illustrate how any small business providing services or products to the local market can easily access online tools which help to make strategic decisions.  The above insights should be included in your local marketing strategy to ensure your  services and products meet customer expectations.

Peter Wyspianski

I’m a Search Marketer living and working in Philadelphia. SeoinPhiladelphia.com is my social hub where you can read my opinions and observations, find out what I read, or connect with me on a professional level.

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While researching car share clubs/programs in Philadelphia I noticed that both main  rivals on local market – Zipcar and Philly Car Share -have to work harder on their search engine strategies (if there are any..). I’m aware that both are very recognizable brands in Philly, nevertheless it should be in their interest to dominate search engine results. This post is all about some very basic SEO issues found on both sites.

Brands’ Local Popularity

Firstly lets look at the brand searches (“zip car” and “philly car share”) Googled in the Philadelphia Metro area (click on the image to enlarge it):

Google searches: "zip car" vs "philly car share" in Philadelphia

Clearly from the Google Insights graph we can see that Zip Car brand steady receives more searches than Philly Car Share.  The latter car sharing club’s popularity has been continuously decreasing after peaking in September 2007. Many factors can contribute to decreasing the popularity of a brand, however in the Philly Car Share example I suspect the customer service and fee policies to be the main drivers of brand decline.

Philly Car Share Ratings on Yelp

Keyword Strategy

Let’s leave brand issues behind us and take a look at the generic phrases both companies are targeting.

Zip Car

I was surprised that Zip Car, a nationwide service, is ignoring the phrase “car share” in their HTML titles in favor of the less popular “car sharing”:

Click on images to enlarge

"car share" vs "car sharing" - Google searches in USA

One could say that since they rank 1st in Google for “car share” it does not matter. Sure but they are not number one in Yahoo! or Bing and with a slightly better constructed homepage HTML title they could improve on this. Optimizing the <title> element of a page is a quick win without draining resources.

Moreover, by building some content around “car share” Zip car could “steal” some mid weight search terms from rivals like CityCarShare or PhillyCarShare who have a natural advantage with their more generic domain name.

The opportunities are lost not only on the homepage but also on the deeper pages.  Having duplicate titles on so many pages (around 68% of indexed pages have duplicate titles) is just bad practice. One quick fix would be adding the location or name of a sponsored institution   i.e  “Occasional Driving Plan for Colby College Students – Zipcar”

PhillyCarShare

Our local car share scheme has even worse “SEO sins”.  Again optimizing the HTML title and meta description are basic SEO on-page tasks which have an impact on both rankings and click-through-rates from the search result pages.  Beside branded “PhillyCarShare” there are barely any other keywords words on their key pages’ HTML titles.  The PhillyCarShare homepage “ignores” search engines completely:

HTML code from homepage of PhillyCarShare

By neglecting basic on-page optimization, PhillyCarShare is hurting its click through rate from search engine result pages as well as the perception of its brand. Would you  click on a listing like this?:

PhillyCarShare search engine listing

With over 10,000 external links pointing to PhillyCarShare’s homepage URL, and many of links editorially given (from local blogs), the care sharing club can successfully target and rank for any relevant key phrases.

On a positive note PhillyCarShare does present car locations on HTML titles, however they could extend this by adding zip codes and names of neighborhoods.

Like Zipcar, PhillyCarShare is not targeting mid weight  search terms like: “car share program” , “car share club” , “car sharing  scheme” or “car sharing service”

Summary:

Judging by the marketing push both companies are conducting on the Philadelphia streets, one would think that their search marketing  strategies would be mastered to perfection.  Unfortunately it seems that both Zipcar and PhillyCarShare are ignoring the online channel with the highest return on investment. Tip:  Maybe if PhillyCarShare had analytics tagged on their pages they would be able to make more favorable business decisions.

Peter Wyspianski

I’m a Search Marketer living and working in Philadelphia. SeoinPhiladelphia.com is my social hub where you can read my opinions and observations, find out what I read, or connect with me on a professional level.

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Hyperlocal journalism covers community-level events

Technically Philly has published an interesting  article about “hyperlocal” news sites in Philadelphia.  Because the traditional journalism industry is going through difficult times, trying to adjust to the general offline to online shift, hyperlocal reporting or blogging  is increasingly taking over the streets in major US cities.  The ease and accessibility of online publishing paired with the popularity of cheap digital devices and social media enables both amateur and professional journalists to cover events in a local context instead of national or global issues.

These local modern  “chronicles” provide a big opportunity for small businesses. They become yet another marketing channel for local garages, fitness studios or interior designers.  The physical proximity of hyper-local news site readers to local businesses creates a natural connection.  I hope that here in Philadelphia neighborhood bloggers and reporters will create a new innovative way for local small business to advertise online. This will monetize their news sites and they may become a permanent fixture  in our local landscape.

The online local news sites / blogs are also a great source of “citations” , so include them in your small business marketing mix.

List of Philadelphia neighborhood news sites  (collected by Technicallyphilly.com)

Do you know any other local news sites from the Philadelphia metro area?

Peter Wyspianski

I’m a Search Marketer living and working in Philadelphia. SeoinPhiladelphia.com is my social hub where you can read my opinions and observations, find out what I read, or connect with me on a professional level.

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