Author Archives: JasonHunter Design

Preparing for the voice search takeover

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Voice search is poised to completely change how your customers navigate the internet!

Right now, 39 million Americans own an Alexa or another voice-enabled assistant or so-called “smart speaker,” and that number is poised to grow another 130 percent in the next year! By 2020, half of all internet searches will be conducted by simply talking to your devices — the biggest change to websites since mobile-responsive technologies burst onto the scene to forever change how customers interact with your website on a smartphone or tablet.

This change is positioned to transform how you reach your customers in just a short year or two. The time is now to get ready — we’ll show you where to start.

Preparing your “digital footprint” for voice search

The first and most important thing to do to prepare for voice search is to ensure that you’re in control of your “digital footprint,” all the listings out there which detail basic information about your business. This includes first-party listings such as your website and third-party listings such as social media profiles and chamber directories. The accuracy and consistency of this information is key to appearing in voice search results.

A key part of controlling your digital footprint is ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. After all, 60 percent of all searches today are conducted from mobile devices, with voice search creeping up from behind. By prioritizing the mobile experience, making it easy for them to find essential information and contact your business. Important elements in the mobile-friendly website development process include page load times, data structure called schema and website security through a secure site license (SSL) and updating website plugins.

Optimizing your content for voice search

The way people write is different from the way they speak. For example, someone may type the phrase “coffee shop near me” into a search engine, but someone may ask a voice assistant, “where is the closest coffee shop?” Those distinctions will play out in website content.

One way to optimize your content is to make sure its length is relative to the complexity of the question. Returning to our coffee shop example, asking the voice assistant “where is ABC Coffee Shop located?” should pull up a simple and to-the-point contact page for the coffee shop. Your voice assistant would reply with an address and a follow-up if you would like directions or a phone number. If the inquiry is how to brew French press coffee, the page should include detailed instructions, even with photos or a short video, to thoroughly and properly answer the question.

Finally, content should reflect the company’s unique voice and brand identity. Content needs to be interesting, engaging and informative to hook the customer and rank on search engines, while keeping voice search and conventional search’s needs in mind.

The time is now to prepare for voice search

Voice search may seem a bit too futuristic or too far off to worry about it impacting your business right now. However, you can’t be too early when it comes time to prepare for the future of your business’s success online!

By preparing your digital footprint now, you’ll be well-equipped to catch the voice search surge, way before your competitors begin to even consider voice search’s impact on their business. Appearing in search results takes some time as well, and you want to allow as much time as possible for responses about you to work their way up the search engine ranks.

The team at JasonHunter Design is here to help you every step of the way. Whether you’re ready for voice search now or a few months down the line, our experts are here to keep your web presence on the cutting edge. Reach out today to schedule a consultation!

Phishing warning

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Gone Phishing: Don’t Let Scammers Lure You In!

Identity theft… by now, you’re probably well aware that there is a vast global network of criminals who make their livings by stealing people’s social security numbers and other personal information, setting up false accounts, and essentially ruining unsuspecting victims’ credit and/or draining their bank accounts. Unfortunately, these cybercriminals are highly sophisticated and adept at tricking even intelligent individuals. One of the common and effective methods these scammers use is e-mail phishing.

What Is Email Phishing?

E-mail phishing is the practice of creating an e-mail that looks and sounds like an email from a legitimate company, but that is really being sent by a cybercriminal to try to collect sensitive data such as credit card information, social security numbers, passwords, etc. A cyber criminal may, for example, create an email template that looks like it is being sent from your Internet provider. A phishing email may ask you to validate your payment details, click on a link to confirm your identity, or provide an alternative credit card for payment.

At first glance, these emails may seem legitimate. Scammers often duplicate the graphics and verbiage of the company they’re spoofing. However, if you know what to look for, you’ll be able to identify that a seemingly authentic email is actually a phishing email.

Telltale Clues

Cybercriminals who are phishing want you to believe they are sending you an email from Facebook, Yahoo, Chase Bank, etc. One of the easiest ways to spot a phishing scam is to look carefully at the sender’s email address. Instead of “server.Facebook.com” a phony email may come for “server.Facebook.con”. Or, hackers may license a domain name similar to a legitimate domain name. If a company has a “w” in the domain name, a hacker will use “vv” instead of w – which isn’t immediately noticeable.

Other red flags that an e-mail isn’t what it seems to be? Be very leery of an email that includes misspellings, threats to close your account if you don’t reply, and links you’re directed to click on.

Always Verify and Authenticate Before Clicking or Sharing Data

Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly savvy. The only surefire way to protect yourself is to be suspicious of any email asking you to take action. Scrutinize the sender’s email address and do your own quick online search to make sure it is identical to the company it’s purporting to be from. Better yet, if you’re ever uncertain, conduct your own search for the supposed sender’s phone number and call the individual or person to seek verbal confirmation that whatever request has been emailed to you is legitimate.

2018 SEO Trends

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With the ever-evolving nature of SEO, trying to keep up with all the changes can seem like a near-impossible task. Keeping up with those changes, however, is key to having your desired audience find and interact with your website when they’re searching online. To help you keep up with the SEO landscape, here are the top SEO trends for 2018.

1. Mobile Is Only Getting Bigger

While not there yet, a mobile-first index is coming from Google. Mobile search has been growing consistently over the past few years, with 60 percent of searches now from mobile devices. Not having a mobile-ready site will affect your search engine rankings, and if you run an e-commerce business, your sales as well. Check to see if your pages are mobile friendly and that they are loading correctly and quickly across all devices. Screenfly from Quirktools is a great tool to use to see how your website looks across all mobile devices.

2. Voice Search Is Here to Stay

Voice search may just seem like a cool thing to do, but it is quickly becoming the way to search for what you’re looking for online. According to Google, 55 percent of teens and 40 percent of adults use voice search daily. And more research shows the ratio of voice searches is increasing faster than text search. Since most voice searches originate from mobile devices, having a mobile-ready site is now even more important than ever for SEO.

3. Linkless Backlinks Are Now a Thing

Links have been, and still are, the primary factor determining how a page ranks in the search engines. Entire businesses have been built on teaching people how to get the best and most relevant backlinks to increase their rankings. But links may be losing some of their importance as the primary ranking factor with the rise of linkless backlinks. The idea is search engines can use brand mentions across multiple online sources and determine a website’s authority. Bing has confirmed it is already using mentions as a ranking factor, and there is no reason to believe that Google won’t be doing the same.