“Hey Siri, remind me to invent you in 30 years”

In 1987, Apple came up with the idea of a “Knowledge Navigator”. You can see the full video online, but it’s a concept that’s remarkably – and perhaps, not coincidentally – similar to our modern smart device assistants, Siri among them.

Its features included a talking screen, reacting to vocal commands to provide information and sort calendars.

In theory, we’re there, 30 years later – though the reality doesn’t always exactly match up to the dream.

Even when it does work, voice hasn’t always been precisely what people were looking for. The thing most adults said they wish their voice search systems could do was find their car keys (though teens said they most wished it could send them pizza).

Although we’re getting to the stage where that’s possible now, the majority of developments in voice have been voice search – talking to your phone to find out information.

Showing search results for “Why can’t you understand me, you silly phone”

But while talking to a device can be a better experience than playing around with a virtual keyboard on a phone or a physical one on a computer, there are two major issues with voice search.

The first is that it’s still clunky. Half the time you have to repeat yourself in order to be understood, particularly if the word you’re trying to get across is slang or an abbreviation of some sort, which is to say, the default sort of language you’d think would be fitting for “conversational” search.

It doesn’t feel smooth, and it doesn’t feel effortless – and that actually removes the point of it.

The other is that it simply doesn’t add value. A voice search isn’t achieving anything you couldn’t do by simply typing in the same thing.

But recently, we’ve seen developments to the voice control industry, starting with Alexa. At this point, everyone’s familiar with the Echo and its younger sibling, the Echo Dot – it’s been in adverts, our friends have it, maybe we have it ourselves.

The Alexa devices were among Amazon’s best-selling products in 2016, especially around Christmas, and the trend doesn’t show significant signs of slowing. But if we’ve had Siri since 2011, why is Alexa picking up so much traction now?

The answer is that it’s not voice search. It’s voice commands. Alexa is more exciting and satisfying for users because it provides an action – you speak to it and something happens. You now can order a pizza – or an Uber, or a dollhouse.

That’s what people have been wanting from their devices – the ability to control the world around them by talking to it, not just have an alternative to a keyboard.

Ultimately, the commands are more personal. You can go on a website and order a pizza, and you can customize it and pay for it and it’ll show up, but talking to Alexa is akin to saying to your friend “Order a pizza?” (Except Alexa won’t stop mid-phone call to ask you what the other topping you wanted was).

Where the majority of mobile voice commands are used for search, Alexa’s use cases are dominated by home control – 34% of users have Alexa play music, just under 31% get her to play with the lights, and 24.5% use it as a timer.

While Siri and the Google Voice Search system are both examples of narrow AI like the Echo, they make much more limited use of its capabilities – compared to Alexa, Google is not OK, and Siri can say goodbye.

“OK Google – who would win in a fight, you or Alexa?”

Alexa’s success has put Google into catch-up mode, and they have been making some progress in the form of Google Home. Early reviews suggest that it might actually be the better product – but it lacks the market momentum of the Amazon product, and it seems unlikely that the sales will be on an even footing for a while yet.

However, Google does have the advantage of some high-end technology, namely Alphabet DeepMind.

DeepMind itself is the company name, but the more familiar connection is the technology the company produces. DeepMind is responsible for the program AlphaGo that beat the world’s foremost Go player 4 – 1, as well as a neural network that can learn how to play video games with the same approach as humans do.

DeepMind can offer Google systems their machine learning experience – which means that Google Home technology might have more room to start leaning towards Deep AI in the future. Your device will be able to start adapting itself to your needs – just don’t ask it to open the pod bay doors.

“Watson – what wine would you recommend with this?”

The other major contender in the AI race has only just started dipping into the B2C commercial market, and not nearly to the same scale as Alexa or Google Home.

IBM Watson has, however, won Jeopardy!, as well as found places in healthcare, teaching, and weather forecasting – essentially, absorbing a great deal of information and adapting it for different uses.

Watson is now used by The North Face, for example, to offer contextual shopping through conversational search. Users answer questions, and Watson suggests products based on the answers.

Likewise, Bear Naked uses Watson to “taste test” their customized granola system for the user, so once you’ve designed your meal, it can tell you if you might want to cut back on the chocolate chips.

AI is a competitive market – and it’s a market synergizing with conversational and voice search to bring us ever closer to the computer from Star Trek, and even beyond it.

For now, however, narrow AI is the market – and that means optimizing sites for it.

Voice search means that people are searching more conversationally than they used to. The best way to accommodate that in your SEO strategy is to give maximum attention to your long-tail keywords, especially the questions.

Questions are opportunities best met with in-depth, mobile-friendly guides that offer information to your customers and clients.

But this also applies when it comes to using apps in the way that Alexa and Google Home do. People aren’t just making voice searches now – they’re also making voice commands.

With that in mind, to rank for some of these long-tail keywords, you need to start optimizing for action phrases and Google-approved AI commands like “search for [KEYWORD] on [APP]”, as well as carefully managing your API, if you have one. And it is worth having one, in order that you can integrate fully with these new devices.

You can break down the structure of common questions in your industry to optimize your long-tail keywords for devices.

You’ll also need to look into deep-linking to optimize your apps for search. Deep-linking allows searchers to see listings from an app directly on search, and open the app from those search rankings, making for a smoother user experience.

Search results show your app data and link directly into the app

This is only going to become more important over time – Google has recently announced that they’re opening up their technology, “Instant Apps”, to all developers.

Instant Apps mean that if the user doesn’t have the app, it can “stream” the page from the app anyway. It’s not a stretch to imagine that before long Alexa won’t need Skills to complete commands – so long as you’ve properly set up your API to work with search.

Siri, likewise, already has SiriKit, which allows developers to build markup into their apps that Siri can read.

“Alexa – What’s the Best Way to Deal with AI?”

Voice search is a growing part of the search industry. But it’s not the biggest opportunity of it.

Rather, companies should be focusing on integrating voice actions into their strategy – by deep-linking their apps, ranking for long-tail keyword questions, and making sure everything they want a customer can do, they can do with their voice.

The Internet is filled with countless business opportunities. If you want to learn how these opportunities will benefit your working life, contact ABCO Technology. You can reach our campus by telephone between the business hours of 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday. Call us at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all qualified students.
Benefit from the Internet today!

When you analyze aspects of improving your SEO, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Maybe you contemplate rewriting your web copy to rank better for certain keywords, creating new posts for your blog, or making sure your website is structured in a logical format.

All of these are important aspects of ranking well in search engines, but they aren’t the only ways you can optimize your web presence. If you want to rank better and get more traffic, you need to improve your off-page SEO, as well. This guide will help you get started.

So, what exactly is off-page SEO?

In the simplest terms, off-page SEO encompasses all the aspects of SEO that occur outside your website (yes, it’s true). You can think of it as your reputation. Off-page SEO includes the things you do as well as the things other people say about you. Your social media activity, your customer service practices, and the online reviews customers leave for you on other sites are all examples of off-page SEO.

Many people think that off-page SEO is just about link-building. It’s true that, at its central base, the objective of good off-page SEO is to drive traffic to your site by earning plenty of high-quality links.

But if you just think of your strategy as a way to get more link juice, you’ll be missing a lot of the potential nuance of this topic.

Getting started with off-page SEO

Instead of focusing strictly on links, it’s better to improve your off-page SEO by working on your reputation, your authority, and your popularity. In a nutshell, your objective should be to provide excellent value and connect with as many people as possible.

This is a long-term strategy, but your patience will pay off down the road – your business will gain recognition, you’ll establish your expertise in your field, and eventually you’ll start earning links from respected sites.

With that said, there are two main ways you can start improving your off-page SEO: connecting with your target audience and networking with influencers.

#1: Connecting with your target audience

Interacting with the people who might need or want your product or service is smart, both in terms of making more sales and thus improving your SEO because of the traffic that comes with it. However, it’s important to connect with people the right way.

Consumers are savvy, and they don’t like feeling pressured to buy things. Instead of focusing on what you’re selling, which can come across as spammy, grow your following by finding ways to help other people without asking for anything in return. A few ideas include:

Stay active on social media the right way

It goes without saying, but social media is one of the best ways you can connect personally with people who might need or want your service. Figure out where your target audience spends time online (this article covers how to do so in more detail), and make sure you have accounts on those platforms.

In general, the more accounts you have, the better, but keep ROI in mind – there is obviously no point wasting time on an obscure platform most people don’t use.

Furthermore, if you don’t have the resources to manage a lot of social pages, that can end up hurting your reputation, so start with the ones that matter most, post regular updates about your business, product, or service, and engage with your customers every chance you get.

Always remember, people like to know there’s a human behind their favorite business.

Share your knowledge on forums and message boards

If your target audience spends time on sites like Quota or Reddit, create accounts there and start posting. Join interesting conversations and answer other people’s questions. Aim to provide value instead of just increasing your post count.

It’s okay to mention your business if it’s pertinent to a question – for instance, you might tell a story about how you solved a problem with a customer. Just don’t push your product or service.

Your strategy on forums should just be to build up your reputation as an authority in your field. Over time, people will start to recognize you and come to you for advice.

There are tons of people online doing a great job of this. The example below from a personal trainer is just one example of someone who answers a lot of questions, has gained followers because of it, yet doesn’t focus on self-promotion but rather just making those connections:

Be on the lookout for opportunities to create useful off-site content

You might already do content marketing with your on-site blog, but why stop there? Consider incorporating various types of content, like videos, images, and infographics, into your social media marketing and your forum posts.

It’s rare these days to see an infographic on a forum (except for maybe something like Reddit or Tumblr), but when you do, it stands out. Guest posting is also, of course, another great way to do off-site content marketing, but more on this later.
#2: Building relationships

Connecting with your target audience is essential for good off-page SEO, but it will only take you so far. To become a recognized authority, and to start earning valuable links from experts in your field, you’ll have to network, too. Here are some tips for building strong relationships.

Guest post on other people’s blogs

Guest posting is a tried-and-true strategy for getting links back to your site. But while it’s a useful way to build your link profile, that’s not the main reason you should offer a guest post.

Instead, think of guest posting as a way to forge new relationships and help people who aren’t in your circle of regular blog readers.

The problem with guest posting for links is that you might be tempted to go for quantity over quality. But writing a lot of low-quality posts on blogs that don’t get much traffic won’t actually help you that much, and depending on where you’re published, it could even damage your reputation.

Instead, pitch guest posts only when you think you have something useful to say. Choose blogs you’d be proud to appear on, and make sure your idea is a good fit by studying the style and content of the blogs you’re pitching to.

Of course, not every blog you write for has to be a household name. In fact, if you’re just starting to guest post, they almost certainly won’t be. Still, you’ll get better results (and you’ll be able to publish on the big-name blogs sooner) if you focus on making genuine connections with other bloggers and saying something of value every time you write a guest post.

Leave comments on the blogs you read regularly

If you find certain bloggers helpful or inspiring, let them know! Bloggers love it when readers leave them thoughtful comments, and commenting on a blog post is one of the easiest ways to connect with someone you admire.

Keep in mind that there’s a right way and a wrong way to comment on blogs. Take the same approach here as you would for a guest post – focus on connecting, not just on commenting for its own sake. Don’t leave generic comments, don’t link to your website or blog, and don’t comment on a post if you didn’t actually read it.

Instead, say something relevant to the post itself. Greet the blogger by name and tell them why you liked this post. Was it helpful? Thought-provoking? Tell them how you implemented their ideas, or ask a question inspired by the post.

When you interact with bloggers this way on a regular basis, they’ll start to notice and remember you. The Wired.com community seems to do this well:

Look for avenues to connect with thought leaders in your field

Leaving comments on blogs is a great way to build relationships, but it’s far from the only way. Remember those social media accounts you made? Use them to follow thought leaders and experts in your field.

Twitter, in particular, is a great way to reach out to others – it’s simple, professional, and brief enough that you don’t have to worry about bothering anyone.

Don’t forget to take advantage of offline networking opportunities, too. That’s right – your off-page SEO efforts don’t even have to involve the internet. Cyberspace makes it easy to reach out to people, but in-person networking events can be far more useful since you’re more likely to be remembered if you connect with someone in real life.

Put yourself out there by looking for some interesting conferences and meetups to attend. Start hanging out where your target audience hangs out and see how far it can take you.

The takeaway

On-page SEO is important, but it’s only half the battle if you want to maximize your success. Off-page SEO plays a huge role in building your reputation, bringing in traffic, and encouraging your target audience to choose you over your competitors.

Improving your off-page SEO is an ongoing task. Whether you’ve been working on your reputation for years or you’re just getting started, there are plenty of things you can do to connect with more people and expand your brand’s reach.

Focus on helping people out, providing useful information, and cultivating a strong network of peers and mentors. Along with a great reputation, you’ll build a profile of high-quality links that will drive more traffic to your site than ever before.

What are your favorite off-page SEO strategies? Let our class know the next time we meet.

Building powerful E-commerce websites is your key to success. A good website will improve sales for all products, services and causes. Call ABCO Technology today if you believe you want to learn this important career skill. You can reach our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all qualified students.
Build your high return site today!

What Is a Computer Repair Technician?

A computer repair technician resolves issues like hard drive crashes, hardware conflicts, and malfunctioning software. You major responsibilities will include repairing broken computer equipment and installing newly purchased electronics. In order to be effective in this career, you should have an extensive knowledge of how to work with many different kinds of common office technologies.
These technicians may sometimes conduct their work over the phone, walking users through issues, but hands-on repair and installation is usually completed on-site.

The table below outlines the general requirements for a career as a computer repair technician.

Education Required High school diploma; associate’s degree or certificate to specialize, with some advanced networking positions requiring a bachelor’s degree

Education Courses basic Math, physics, and computer science
Key Responsibilities Resolve computer hardware and software issues, troubleshoot potential problems, repair broken parts and equipment

Certification Professional certification optional
Job Growth (2016-2026) 12% (computer support specialists)*
Average Salary (2015) $38,990 (computer, automated teller, and office machine repairers)*

Source: *U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

What Will I Do as a Computer Repair Technician?

Computer repair technicians resolve common issues, such as crashed hard drives, malfunctioning software, and hardware conflicts. Technicians also deal with computer installation. When you work in the field, you are mostly responsible for repairing what is already broken but must also troubleshoot for potential problems and critical errors. This may include working on printers, modems, computers, software, hard drives, and memory cards.

If you are hired to work as a computer repair technician for a particular company, you might maintain your employer’s networks and computer systems. Additionally, you could help to make the company’s network more secure, assist with Web development and keep all of the operating systems running up to speed. You may also be in charge of buying and installing software, equipment, and computers.

What Salary Can I Expect to Earn?

Computer repair technicians have an employment outlook for the years of 2016-2026 that represents faster-than-average job growth when compared to all occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov). An anticipated 12% increase in job opportunities is expected in that decade for all computer, ATM, and equipment repairers. This could result in approximately 88,800 job openings. Advanced diagnostic technology, which allows technicians to troubleshoot issues from remote locations is decreasing the need for on-site service calls, according to the BLS. Also, when a computer has a major malfunction, consumers are more likely to replace an older version of a computer rather than hire a technician for repairs.

In May 2015, the average annual salary for computer, ATM, and office machine repair technicians was $38,990. In the District of Columbia, repairers could see an average salary of around $49,150. The other top-paying states in 2015 were California, Washington, Rhode Island, and Alaska.

What Should I Study?

High school courses in math, physics, and computer science can begin to prepare you for a position as a computer repair technician. Many employers require formal training for hires. A computer repair technician certificate program, an associate degree in computer science, or a bachelor’s degree in information systems can provide you with advanced skills in the field and can lead to more opportunities and possibly career advancement.

Where Can I Get Certified?

If you live in or near Los Angeles, California, you can get certified for computer repair at ABCO Technology. Call our campus between 9 AM and 6 PM Monday through Friday at (310) 216-3067. Email all questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu

Financial aid is available to all qualified students
Learn to repair computers today!

CCNA has grown to become a widely popular information technology certification in 2017. The certification’s primary focus lies on developing relevant role-based modules to match the rapid deployment of technologies in the current sophisticated networking environment. Companies both large and small are investing in new tools including infrastructure to ensure they keep up with current technologies.

As the sophisticated network process increases, there will also be a strong need to increase the level of skills, which include: security, voice and wireless. A CCNA certification means that you will have the capacity to build on the core networking skills you have acquired in network administration thanks to the highly specialized concentration paths developed by Cisco to springboard your career in both current and developing technologies. The CCNA certification will benefit the employee as well as the employer. Thanks to the valuable learning processes provided by the state-of-the art modules in networking systems offered by Cisco.

CCNA certification concentration paths

The CCNA certification concentration paths consists of three distinctive learning tracks that will equip you – the learner – with tools, skills and resources to help you work with ease and possible earn more money. Namely:
•CCNA Security
•CCNA Voice
•CCNA Wireless

CCNA Security certification involves troubleshooting as well as monitoring network devices to ensure the availability, integrity and confidentiality of data. When you become A certified CCNA Security expert, you will be qualified to work as a security administrator, network security specialist or a network support engineer. Since the rapid increase in demand for cybersecurity, Cisco has taken the lead in designing technologies to combat cyber-attacks. Network equipment manufacturers understand this fact. When companies purchase or lease computers, they are informed about Cisco’s products and technologies.

CCNA Voice certification is a course that equips networking professionals with skills in VoIP, which includes IP telephony, IP PBX, handset, voicemail solutions and call control. Some available roles that you might be hired to do could be a voice manager, voice administrator and voice engineer. Saving money through the use of a strong Internet based phone system is a major priority for organizations and businesses both large and small. This certification path creates true value for any employer who needs this set of skills.

CCNA Wireless involves using Cisco equipment in configuring, implementing and supporting wireless LANs. A wireless expert is qualified to work as a WLAN project manager and also as a wireless support specialist. WIFI is now a marketing tool for companies who are building strong customer relations. Understanding this technology creates a valuable employee.

All of the above CCNA concentration paths require that you have a basic CCNA certification together with additional networking certifications and work experience in computer repair and junior level network administration . Many students ask me if passing the CCNA Certification is really worth it for networking professionals? The following are reasons why the answer to this question is a resounding Yes!

CCNA certification concentration paths will separate the networking chaff from the wheat.

A recent survey completed by Cisco through Forrester Consultants showed that training and certification programs are a critical part in recruiting and hiring the right candidates for specialized roles in a company’s networking system. It was later noted that professional certifications tie many four-year degrees as a requirement for specific job qualifications. Vender certifications were 51% whereas four-year college degrees 49%, which makes CCNA certifications one of the determinants that employers use in the United States to separate the technical chaff from the wheat.

Would you like to learn more about how a career in network administration with Cisco certification will change your working life? If so, it’s time to contact ABCO Technology. You can reach our campus by telephone from 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.
Email all questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all students who qualify.

Join the group of networking professionals who are Cisco certified today!

Optimizing webpages for user intent.
basic strategies

User intent. Also known by marketers as searcher intent, is a theory that actually stands up to the more primitive pre-Penguin and Panda tactics of optimizing purely for keywords.

User intent and optimizing for it has come into being via a combination of three key important factors:
◾Latent Semantic Indexing, Hummingbird, Rankbrain. All have fantastic and mysterious sounding names but all underpinned by the fact that Google’s algorithm is made up of much more than high school algebra. Google is clever, very clever. The algorithm understands more than just the specific keywords that a user types into the search bar.
◾As a result of the aforementioned ability, people trust Google. They may not trust them as a business that will pay their fair share of tax but they trust the search engine to understand their query and as such will ask more complex questions rather than utilising pure keywords. To ‘Google’ is a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary!
◾The internet and Google (among other search engines) have made unfathomable amounts of information accessible to the masses. As a by product, Google is often the first port of call for more than just purchasing actions. More on this later.

Voice search has further raised the bar for user intent with more types of unseen searches due to the conversational nature of voice search. As such, if you are still basing your SEO strategy around keywords you should probably start to think much deeper about user intent.

Finally, and this is an important one. Optimizing for user intent is not just about providing solutions or using synonyms. The majority of SEO campaigns are built around driving revenue and whilst rankings are great and indicative of campaign success, in reality you won’t retain clients without providing ROE and ROI.

Fully optimizing for user intent requires an understanding of how your potential customers buy via your inbound marketing channels. As a result, make sure that you have identified these sales funnels as they are crucial for capitalizing on optimizing your website for user intent in search.

User intent: An overview of the basics

What is user intent? In short it is the reason why someone is searching for something in Google. What are they actually trying to achieve as a result of typing (or saying) that search term?

Traditionally, the intent has been categorized as either navigational, informational or transactional although some like to define commercial intent or use different terminology such as ‘to buy something’, ‘to do something’, ‘to find something’, ‘to learn something’, ‘to go somewhere’ and so on.

These questions or intents can then help you to identify your Buyer Personas and the stage that they are at within your inbound funnels. Again, various inbound funnels utilize different terminology, but I am a fan of Hubspot’s methodology:

How do you figure out what the user intent is behind a search term? Honestly, it’s pretty easy. Just about everyone uses Google. Put yourself in the searcher’s shoes and ask yourself, “if I used that search term, what would I be looking to do?”

Also look at the types of search results that Google returns for a given search term; this is a great indicator of the user intent that Google itself attaches to that particular query.

Focus on VALUE for the user

Even if you don’t read on, here is a very simple tip that should permeate your entire SEO strategy. Ask yourself this question:

Does what I’m doing here add value for the user and if so, how can I make it as valuable as possible?

If you are taking into account what your user is looking to achieve and therefore providing as much value for the user as possible (forget SEO and rankings for one second), you will put yourself in a great place to have a successful campaign both now and into the future.

It is the primary focus for Google as a search engine, so you should make it your focus as well!

An easy place to start is evaluating each piece of content that you are writing. Does it complete the journey that the user is taking? If not, are there quick call to actions to pages that will make your customer perform the action you want them to perform? Your content will preferably be the former, providing solutions and value directly to the searcher.

In addition, if you continue to put the user first (instead of being keyword-focused) you will naturally create better, deeper, more complex and solution led content, thus satisfying the aforementioned LSI, Hummingbird and Rankbrain. Write for search engines first and you run the risk of lowering the content quality, in turn lowering the quality of your results.

How to align your SEO strategy with user intent

Targeting transactional search terms

For years SEOs have focussed on the sharp end of the funnel. and for good reason: the search terms with transactional intent bring in revenue. Let’s be clear, these search terms should remain a staple of any website focussed on ROI.

However, there are a few optimization tips associated with transactional search terms. As above, they are all focused around value for the user:
◾How easy is it to make a purchase from that specific page?
◾Are the call to actions clear?
◾Have you provided the user with all the information required to make that purchasing decision?
◾Is the language used focused around the purchase?

As SEOs, we have to make it abundantly clear to Google that if someone types in a purchase based search term, that our page is the best result for that particular search term.

I hate to hammer it home, but it is the webpage that will complete the desired outcome for the user and therefore offer the most value.

Targeting informational search terms

This is where a sit down with your stakeholders and the drawing up of a content strategy that is aligned to your user intent (and therefore inbound funnels) can unlock serious content marketing magic.

Real results you say? Surely informational searches only result in you giving away free information? Exactly.

Let me take you all the way back to the inbound methodology and the fact that people use Google as a source of information. Creating great informational content can have the following impact:

Providing value earlier in the consumer buying process

They may be wanting to research a product or service prior to making that buying decision. The more awesome information you give them the more aligned with your brand they become. When the time comes for that purchasing decision guess who they will lean more favorably towards? Of course there is a little caveat in that all other things are equal.

Earning links

Even if no sales come as a result of your informational content (unlikely), if it is good enough it will earn links as people reference the content…actually enough to provide further value for their own users. These links will subsequently improve the authority of your website and help you rank for transactional search terms. It’s a warped digital version of karma.

Understand your user flows

This is particularly relevant for transactional and informational search terms. Top notch SEO incorporates more than just onsite optimization, content creation and link building. It should pull in all marketing channels, including design. It’s all well and good generating traffic, but it counts for nothing if the website does not convert them.

Identify your key user flows and actions that you want your users to complete on your site according to where they are in the funnel. Are they an informational searcher? The website needs to encourage them to continue their hunt for information on your website or start to transition them further down the funnel to a purchasing decision.

Really understanding user intent and user flows will only help you with your conversion rate optimization.

Adjust your appearance in search

In the same vein as design supporting CRO, your appearance in search should be aligned with the user intent. The two standard influencers here are your title tag and meta description, although additional factors such as schema markup can also be implemented.

For example, if the search term is transactional make sure that the metadata is enticing and is communicating purchase driven vocabulary. Whereas if the search term is informational make sure that it hints towards how the information on the corresponding web page will solve the searchers’ problem.

Use your outreach skills

I thought we were talking about content here? Yes, on the whole we are but there are opportunities within link building as well. Some users will turn to Google not simply to provide them with the best result, but also a list of the options available to them. Common examples of how a small change to the wording can result in this alteration to user intent are as follows:

Tailor New York City > Best Tailor New York City
Or
Tailor New York City > Tailors New York City

The addition of an adjective or the plural version of a keyword can often result in lists being supplied by Google. Not all of the results will be these lists, but for those not already in the top results they do offer an opportunity.

Contact these sites to get listed – we saw a considerable increase in conversions by doing this for a software platform client recently.
Don’t forget local search

Mobile search vs desktop search is a mainstream conversation nowadays, with some stats showing that mobile search has a 75% chance of action being taken by the user.

With this in mind, don’t forget to optimize your local listing in order to sweep up all of the traffic (over 50% globally now) using Google via mobile devices.

Some useful tools

Keyword research is critical in identifying valuable search terms, whatever the corresponding user intent is. We have listed a few options below, hopefully you are already using these tools alongside Google’s Keyword Planner, Moz’s Keyword Explorer or whichever tool you use to look at traffic. These tools can provide content ideas that will drive your campaign:

Answer The Public

Using a who, what, when, why, how style format, Answer The Public will give you a list of search terms. Use these prompts to create content ideas.

Keywordtool.io

In a similar vein to Answer the Public, Keywordtool.io will display search volumes (if you pay for it) and commonly asked questions that relate to your keywords.

Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo allows you to view the most shared pieces of content via social for a given subject. Don’t just rely on data fed to you, check how popular these subjects are in real life!

Google Autosuggest

Use Google’s own user oriented functionality to understand the commonly asked questions and search terms for a given subject. Start typing and let Google do the rest.

Impressions via Search Console

We always warn against purely using Search Console and Google Analytics data as the basis for decisions moving forward, purely because it is reactive data.

However, you can look at search terms for which you are gaining impressions but potentially a low CTR and adjust the content accordingly. It may be as simple as making your metadata more attractive in the SERPs.

Horses for courses

The base theories will have to be adapted slightly to suit your particular needs. Some businesses may focus on impulse buys where others are deemed comparison goods and will benefit more from informative, longer sales processes. It is a ‘horses for courses’ scenario.

If you understand what you are trying to achieve via your SEO campaign, the journey taken by your user during the buying process, the various relevant searcher intents and align your strategy accordingly, it will place you in a great position to increase organic traffic and also your conversion rate.

ABCO Technology offers a comprehensive program for Certified Internet Webmaster, which includes SEO and Social Media strategist. If this is an area of information technology that interests you, contact ABCO Technology. Reaching our campus is easy. Call us by telephone from 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday at: (310) 216-3067.

ABCO Technology is located at 11222 South La Cienega Blvd. in STE # 588.
Los Angeles, Ca. 90304.

Email your questions to: info@abcotechnology.edu
Financial aid is available to all qualified students.
Learn to build highly successful webpages today!