What Research Says About This Topic

When a group of 620 people between the ages of 18 – 85 who considered themselves “tech savvy” were surveyed, most of them admitted that they’ve already incorporated voice search into their daily lives. In fact, 70% of them said they use it a few times a week and 27% say they use it a few times a day. This was especially true of people 65-years-old and above with 88% saying they use it a few times a week and 50% saying they use it a few times each day. Any companies who target this age group must find a way to add this to their marketing portfolio.

The lowest adoption rates for this technology were found among people age 55 – 64 with only 32% saying they occasionally use it. This may be due to the fact that the age group is more accustomed to using screens to search for things whereas their elders are less technologically savvy and find voice search easier.

The devices that are most commonly used for these searches are Google Home and Google Assistant (37%), Siri (25%), and Cortana (4%). Most people 65-years and older are dependent on Amazon Alexa though. This is why it’s important for anyone who markets to this group to focus on Amazon SEO.

What all This Means

Although it’s hard to imagine people conducting most of their searches by 2020, 78% of people still believe that in the next 5 – 10 years at least half of all searches will be conducted in this way. Many people also believe that desktop searches will slowly grow irrelevant throughout this time as well. There are also a lot of people who don’t believe that voice search will completely replace searches that are done on other devices. As such, the future is still unclear but in an exciting way. Even so, we shouldn’t underestimate the role these searches will play in people’s lives and thus the impact they’ll have on SEO and other types of marketing. None of this should be cause for alarm either, especially when you stop to consider that a lot of the way these devices is used is for things like turning off the lights in your home or listening to music while you’re on the go. However, it is still something that marketers will want to pay attention to as it’ll change SEO as we currently know it.

Whether you need help with your SEO campaign or getting ready for the influx of voice search, there’s one company you can count on: I SEO U. Check out what their satisfied customers are saying about them then pick up your phone and give them a call. You’ll be glad you enlisted their help.

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Video Marketing has the Corner on the Storytelling Market

Although you might not buy into this concept, there’s a larger point behind it that you simply can’t argue with. All the major upward trends wrap around videos. This is because it has such a huge potential upside. Just look at Twitch if you don’t believe this is true. Other proof here can be seen in how Facebook has made a major investment in Watch and IGTV and the fact that throughout 2018 TikTok underwent major growth. All this makes it clear that developers and marketers both agree that video lies at the heart of all digital communication in the future. This is something that many small platforms are also grasping hold of now.

The consumer insights company Toluna recently surveyed 1,000 digital customers. In doing so they discovered that about 53% of people haven’t watched any brand advertising on social media within the past three months. This means that approximately 47% of those surveyed had watched in. This is something that Unmetric has also discovered. In fact, they’ve tracked billions of views of branded videos on various video platforms.

Unmetric gives Samsun as an example of this. Samsung had a powerful story behind their #VoiceForever campaign, which is why it became the top video on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram in 2018. It received close to one million views. Of course, it also received a lot of promotion to push it towards success, but this still shows that video marketing is important.

Spending Money on Video Marketing

Not every business has a lot of money to spend on this endeavor. You also can’t predict what the future holds in this arena, which is why you must stay on top of what’s currently happening. The good news is that Toluna’s survey also showed that people who watched branded videos watched them in the following places:

• 43% watch them on Facebook
• 38% watch them on YouTube
• 18% watch them on Instagram
• 13% watch them on Twitter

It’s also interesting to note that while 18% of people say they preferred text or photos and about 30% said they preferred video, 52% say they had no preference. Nonetheless, about half of those who do watch video advertising will seek additional information. Of course, only about 20% of those surveyed were between the ages of 18 – 34. This is important because if more people would have fallen into that age range then video watching would have increased. Once again, this proves the importance of knowing your audience before engaging in a video marketing campaign. This will save you both time and money.

This advice really is no different than what we’ve been seeing since 2017. However, it’s something that many businesses still haven’t grasped hold of because they’re already involved in too many other things that are bringing them a good return on investment (ROI). If this describes your situation, there’s good news for you: I SEO U has helped many businesses, just like yours, with video marketing over the years. These businesses’ successes are testament to why you should contact us and let us help you with your videos starting today.

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Be the Best

Many people think that law firm SEO is a set of tricks that makes Google think you have the best content. However, the search engine’s algorithm can see right through this. This is why you should focus on building great content, answering your clients’ questions, and making up for your competitors’ incompetence’s.

Don’t get Fixated on the #1 Position

Google chooses page content that provides clear, concise answers and definitions to search queries. They place these things in small boxes at the top of their site calling them a “featured snippet.” Many search engine experts refer to this as “position zero.” These contain well-written content written in down-to-Earth language (e.g. instead of “Will a grocery store’s premises liability policy help me if I’m injured?” write “Can I sue the grocery store because I slipped and fell, hurting my ankle, on a wet floor?”). Presenting questions and answers in this fashion will help you law firm SEO by encouraging Google to feature you in position zero. This will also help you optimize for voice searches.

Optimize for Voice Search Too

While you may not think that you’d need voice search, the statistics show otherwise. Take a look for yourself:

• About 39 million Americans own a voice-first device (e.g. Alexa, Google Home)
• 2 billion+ people own smartphones with internet connections and either Siri or Google Assistant
• Cortana is available on all Windows 10 and newer computers
• Chrome browsers have Google Assistant

With this popularity comes the growing number of people asking questions that are answered through Google’s featured snippets – something you’ll want to optimize for. To optimize your law firm SEO start with providing the information the user is looking for. Be concise then go into more details later.

Think of Link Building as a two-way Street

Links for law firm SEO are still quite valuable. You don’t want junk though (e.g. links from bulk directory submissions, purchases, exchanges). It’s also important to remember to link to high-authority sites yourself as well. You can become one of these sites yourself by providing well researched articles that are backed by legitimate sources (e.g. articles about car accident rates linking to an insurance industry report; articles about estate planning linking to examples in the law itself). Ultimately your goal here is to show the search engines and your readers that you’re not making information up. You want to clearly demonstrate that your information is based on facts that are well documented by legitimate sources. All of this will go a long way in helping you improve your law firm SEO.

Keep Your Website Updated

When you don’t keep your website updated, there will come a time when you must completely rebuild it. If you’ve reached that point in time, make sure you rebuild it with these tips in mind:

• Use Google’s mobile-first indexing (e.g. schema markups).
• Make sure your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate.
• Offer interactive elements so your visitors are engaged with your content which should range from short questions and answers to longer, more in-depth pieces.
• Clearly describe your firm’s work and results.
• Include a clear call to action and an easy way to contact your firm.

With a little help from ISEOU it’s possible for your law firm to remain competitive throughout this year. We’ll help you focus on your users, provide them with high-quality content, and refresh your website so contact us today.

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Nobody is an “Expert”

Most people view SEO professionals as being trustworthy, confident, knowledgeable, and dedicated. However, this is usually a façade since most of these professionals are too busy to work on their own self-confidence. In fact, some of these professionals will even go so far as to tell you that they’re not really an expert – they just make things up as they move along. When you stop and think about it, this makes a lot of sense since there’s no concrete roadmap available here. Practitioners have simply learned how to adapt to whatever gets thrown at them. This is proven over the years as they’ve been told that implementing various tactics will increase a website’s rankings and visibility but ultimately these tactics don’t hold true to their promises.

Old Strategies are Dead – New Challenges Lie Ahead

• Although promises obviously hold no weight, there are still some important parts of SEO that marketers need to pay attention to, including:
• Google has introduced a variety of SERP features over the past two years. This has resulted in organic results getting fewer clicks.
• It’s getting harder to find new organic results for certain queries. This is why it’s becoming common to see a SERP that only has two ads, one Knowledge panel, related searches, and a total of 6 websites. (In the past, there were always at least 10 available.)
• A growing number of search queries are featuring snippets in their SERPs. Marketers believe this will grow as Google continues to revamp their featured snippets and implement new ones too.
• Recently Google increased the length of meta descriptions from 150 to 300 characters. This may pose a threat to SERPs in the near future.
• Google properties now own a large part of the SERPs in niches like travel, shopping, and videos.
• Voice search is on the rise today. Marketers believe that it will consist of about 50% of searches by 2020.

Seizing New Opportunities

Even with all of these potential threats, SEO is still a good way to invest your marketing budget. After all, search volume continues to grow even though people are clicking on less of these searches. There’s also no doubt that Google is still the top source of traffic online today.

With these things in mind, there are some opportunities you’ll want to take advantage of, including:

• Featured snippets have lowered organic click-through rates, but if you get this position you’ll also get a lot more traffic – including a massive amount of voice search opportunities.
• Google’s “People Also Ask” results are expanding. It’s important for websites to be optimized for these questions.
• It’s important to implement AMP regardless of what type of website you have. This will help increase traffic.

While many parts of SEO remain the same, others continually evolve as Google learns how to give its visitors the best search results possible. It’s important for your business to keep up. Since you’re already doing a lot, you’ll want to hire a marketing firm with proven results. I SEO U will help your business adapt and stay ahead of its competition. With over 20 years of experience we’ll help you seize the moment and bring great returns to your business.

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