As a business owner, it is important to understand where your referrals are coming from.  Tracking sources is easy with the electronic tools available.  Many companies run a multi-media campaign that involves social media, email blasts, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) opportunities that send potential buyers to your website.  If you have unlimited resources (human and financial), you should continue with all forms of marketing.  But if you have limitations by budgets or available personnel, you need to concentrate on the source that brings in the most business.  If that is SEO, then you need to keep up with the latest techniques so that you can remain ahead of your competitors.

Featured Snippets

Featured snippets is content that is pulled from the company website, most frequently definitions, lists, tables, etc.  The user gets the information immediately without a second click onto the site.  If your snippet is good enough the user will research further toward a purchase.  Video snippets are proving very successful since they can operate with very few keywords.  Graphs can display brand logos and details that can draw the customer to your order page.

Google Lens

Google Lens is one of the hot new options.  It lets you point your phone at an object and then ask the AI assistant what it is.  You will get the answer and pertinent information about it as well.  In addition, Google can offer links to the item or related products.  For the buyer, it is a streamlined process and the business benefits with visibility.  The user can be redirected almost immediately to Amazon to make the purchase.  To improve marketing, look at alt text for keywords and add infographics (those are the graphs and charts previously mentioned).

AI

AI assistants are growing in popularity and it is estimated that in 2022 about 55% of homes will be using this service.  As people inquire about “near me” facilities, you may want to consider backlinks, which are site-to-site connections and sometimes called one-way links, and schema optimization to help the search engine understand the question and offer you as an alternative.

Indexing + Crawlers

You may want to check on your indexing crawler.  Crawling is where the search engine follows links to the most relevant entries.  Indexing is storing information about the pages so that they can be accessed at another time.  Ranking in the search engine’s list of how well the search criteria and the sites match the query.

This is just a sampling of the advances to expect.  There are a number of good, reliable publications that will give you more details.

It is good to keep on top of the pack when you are talking about technological advances that will enhance your opportunities to convert clicks to dollars.  Since you will soon be drafting a budget for the next year, this is a good time to discuss your current status and projected needs for the next six to twelve months.  Working with your IT and marketing departments, or your marketing firm, you will have a better chance in the marketplace.

If you’d like to further enhance your SEO strategy, contact our team today.