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Author: Jeremy Brown

Only 4 Percent of Businesses Are Voice Search Ready—Are You in That Number?
At the beginning of 2019, over 66 million people in the United States were uttering the phrases “Ok Google,” “Hey Siri,” or “Alexa!” to find information on the internet. When you consider that the adult population of the United States is around 253 million, that means that around 25 percent of people are using voice search to get answers to their questions. As marketers, we need to start to pay attention to this, and make sure that we are present to help them answer their questions. According to a recent study conducted by Uberall, only 4 percent of businesses are “voice search ready,” which means that there is opportunity to show up in searches for businesses that are prepared.

25 Percent Is Not That Significant, So Why Should I Care?

In 2016, the number of smart speaker users in the United States was estimated to be 16 million. So, between 2016 and 2018, the segment grew by four times. But in order to really understand the impact, we need to understand usage. Thanks to a recent study conducted by Bright Local, we know that 58 percent of consumers have used voice search to find local business information in the last 12 months and that 46 percent of voice search users seek out local business information on a daily basis. This behavior has big implications for local brick and mortar businesses. So, although 25 percent may not seem like a huge number, the growth in adoption and usage make voice search a channel worthy of the attention of local businesses.

Ok, So, It’s Here, How Do I Take Advantage?

The good news is that right now, voice search optimization looks a lot like regular SEO. If you are answering questions and providing valuable information to the searcher, you will be fine. If you are a local business, there is a silver bullet that many of your competitors are not using. Remember, 46 percent of voice search users are using their device to search for information about local businesses on a daily basis. If you couple that with Uberall’s finding that less than 4 percent of businesses have the six key elements of voice search readiness complete and consistent across the important platforms, you can see that with a little work, your business could show up in intent-based voice searches like those that end in “near me” and “near me now,” which are on the rise, according to Google.

What Does It Mean to Be “Voice Search Ready”?

Voice search readiness has a lot of parallels with local search optimization, especially for local businesses. To put it another way, if you have done the right things to optimize for local searches, your local business should perform well in voice search, especially for bottom-of-the-funnel (more likely to lead to conversion and store visits) searches. Uberall’s study identifies 37 directories that feed directly into voice search platforms. The good news is that not all of them may be relevant to your audience. Uberall found that 90 percent of the impact on Voice Readiness Score comes from the directories that we are all familiar with: Google, Yelp, and Bing. I would add Apple Maps, as well. Uberall states that Siri’s search is powered by Google, but I was not able to replicate that on my iPhone, and according to a recent article by Eric Shanfelt, Siri gets its business data from Apple Maps Connect and reviews any other information from Yelp, or sometimes other sources.

What to optimize is pretty simple. Think about what users need to know about your business when they search:
1. Address: Potential customers need to know where they can find you, and Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant need to know what local searches to serve your business up for.
2. Opening hours: How frustrating is it to show up to a place whose map listing asserts that it is open, only to find that it’s closed. BONUS: Remember to update any special hours that you have around holidays or any other periods where your normal business hours do not apply.
3. Phone number: This is an easy conversion point.
4. Business Name
5. Website URL
6. Zip Code
This may seem pretty basic, but these attributes need to be consistent across all directories that you have out there to get the maximum benefit.

Putting It Into Action

If you are a local business and want to put this into action, there are three approaches that you can employ:
1. Do it yourself: If you have the time, you can go to the four major platforms directly, claim your business (we have created step-by step-directions for claiming your Google My Business Profile), and input the information listed above. If you choose this option, you will want to review these periodically, as sometimes listings get changed with community edits, and you will also want to update the platforms when anything changes with your business—think holiday hours.
2. Use a listing distributor like Vendasta or Yext: There are other aggregators out there as well, but the idea is this—put your information into one platform, and let them handle getting it to the directories in a consistent manner. This approach can allow you to go beyond the four major platforms, but still requires some manual effort on your part. Regular monitoring is still suggested, although this can be done in the aggregator, and not all directories have “two-way feeds,” which could mean that you will need to log into the directory platform to make the updates.
3. Hire a digital marketing agency to manage your online presence: If your time is better spent on other areas of your business, or the prospect of managing listings overwhelms you, hiring an agency can be a great option. When selecting an agency, ask if they are using a listings distributor, which will help them keep your listings accurate, and can provide you with a dashboard to monitor their progress. The main benefits here are that the agency should be familiar with the listing’s distributors and directories, and they will know who to contact when there are any problems with consistency.
Voice search and its intersection with local search is still in its infancy and is constantly evolving. With the increased adoption of both the devices and behaviors, this tactic is ripe for exploitation by savvy local businesses. If you’d like help building a dynamic marketing strategy that encompasses these trends, reach out to Search Influence to request your free marketing analysis.
April 29, 2019
Are You Being Productive Or Just Keeping Busy?
Over two months have passed in 2014, and like most of you, I can honestly say that I have been very busy. I would be willing to bet that 50+ business days into the year, I, like a lot of you reading this have logged 150-200 hours of meetings, and have received and answered well over a over a thousand emails. Doesn’t that sound busy? This past weekend, as I was doing my weekly review, I found myself wondering, have I been productive as well? Have I been focusing on the projects that will make Search Influence a great place to work? What about the things that will allow us to serve our customers better? How much time have I (and the teams I support) put into developing the Internet Marketing products that will help our customers succeed online tomorrow?

If you find yourself wondering the same thing, or worse, in an honest moment, answering no to that question, here are three things that you can do to avoid being busy, yet unproductive.

1) Review your long-term initiatives or goals on a regular basis

In the book Getting Things Done, the author David Allen challenges readers to undertake a weekly ritual wherein they will review and process everything in their inbox, their to-do lists (that’s right, lists), their previous and upcoming calendars, and their projects or “larger outcomes,” I find that this review of my long-term projects and initiatives, or “larger outcomes” allows me to ask myself if I gave each of these areas the attention they deserved, and to make sure that I have some actions or meetings teed up to assure that I keep moving toward success in the upcoming week. Think about it, if you move the needle on the 4-5 of the most important things every week, in 3-6 months, you will have made a significant impact on some areas that are important to you.

2) Be ok with saying “no” occasionally

Remember those thousand emails that you have processed so far this year? Or the over 150 hours of meetings? Chances are, in a few of those, someone has asked you to take on a small project or task. If you have a reputation for being someone who can get things done, you might get asked for help in more than a few. I completely get the urge to tell everyone “yes.” In fact, I think that you should be looking for ways to tell people “yes” whenever you can. Sometimes, the best way to support the people who are asking you for help is to tell them “no.” Two potential benefits immediately come to mind:
- Hopefully the initiative you chose to prioritize over helping someone will have a positive impact on all parts of the organization you are working in, including theirs.
- By telling them “no,” you may be empowering an employee to try to complete the task or solve the problem on their own.
There are also other ways that you can say “no,” while offering to provide some support:
- Offer someone else in your part of the organization as a resource. Who knows, the task or assignment may even be a good developmental opportunity for someone more junior.
- Ask if your support or action is needed right now. If not, perhaps you won’t have to tell them “no,” just “maybe later.
3) “Unplug” To Focus

How many potential communication inputs do you have to distract you during the workday? Here are mine:
- Email
- Chat
- Text
- Phone
- Face to Face
- Social Media
Those are six ways that anyone who needs me can get in touch with me at any point throughout the day. Those are also five potential distractions if I am trying to work on something that needs my undivided attention.

When was the last time that you set three hours aside to work on something extremely important, but three hours and six interruptions later, your three hour window was shut, and you had barely made a dent in your project? Now, I will be the first to admit that as a manager, it is hard to take actions that make it seem like I am not available to support my teams.

Availability
One thing that I have come to realize is that being available to others does not necessarily mean being available every moment of the day, or even workday for that matter.

And how available are you in these meetings you are in anyway? I have found that there are times when I need to eliminate (ok, minimize) the potential distractions by unplugging from all communication devices (except my cell phone, of course).

If anything is important, but not urgent, it will be waiting for me when I plug back in. And if anything is urgent, I let my teams (and my family) know that in an emergency, I can be reached via my cell phone.

Then I turn to whatever it is that needs my undivided attention and try to knock it out. Again, hopefully, whatever it is I am working on will have a significant impact on those that I have chosen to unplug from for a few hours, so in the long-run they will benefit, too.

In short, its very easy to stay busy these days. There is always a meeting to go to, a text we could respond to, emails to deal with, and unplanned, “urgent” work to be done. And all of that has to get done. The challenge is making sure that you are handling the things that are not extremely urgent, but are critically important.

How do you make sure that you are getting to the things that matter most to your organization and the people who depend on you?
March 19, 2014
6 Tips for Preparing for a Job Interview
Searching for a new job can be a daunting project for most people. First, you must figure out what types of opportunities that you are qualified for interest you. Then, you need to create a resume that sells your skills and craft a cover letter that not only outlines why you would be a great fit for the position, but also why this position is the perfect fit for you and your ambitions. That in itself can be a lot of work. But many successful job searchers will tell you that the real work begins after the company has reached out to you for an interview. Below are six tips designed to help increase your chances of having a successful interview.

1. Read the job description/posting thoroughly

Most employers have taken a great amount of time to develop a job description that outlines what they are looking for. Although they do not think of it this way, they have given you some of the interview questions ahead of time. They have outlined the skills, behaviors and characteristics that the successful candidate will possess. Now its your job to deliver a story that convinces them that you have demonstrated that skill, behavior or characteristic in the past. My advice here is:
- List out all of the potential questions.
- Create your best STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) story for each question.
- Practice delivering the story.
- Get feedback if possible.
- Go back and practice it more.
When you get the question, you will appear confident and comfortable as you wow your future employer. Additional tip: Write down your answers. You will be surprised how often skills, behaviors and characteristics are repeated across employers, especially for similar jobs. You may be able to recycle these stories during your next interview.

2. Know your resume

This should really go without saying. If you come across this question during an interview, you can consider it a freebie. I cringe every time I ask someone to walk me through their resume and they pull it out to read it to me. I cringe for two reasons:
1. You can assume that I read it.
2. You should know it, as it is your experience.
This is another area where a little practice can go a long way. The great thing about this is that you can recycle this for every potential employer. After you get this down for one interview, you will only need to review it briefly before your next interviews, to ensure that you are highlighting the experiences that are most relevant to the position.

3. Do some research on the company

One of the best ways to show that you are truly interested in a company is by showing that you took the time to find out what they do, who they do it for, and how long they have been doing it. Here are some places that you should look:
- Their website – This is perhaps the best place to find information on your prospective employer. Here you can learn about the company history, what they do, who they do it for, and in some cases, who is on the team. Additional tip: If you cannot determine what they do from their website, do a quick Google search on their industry. Wikipedia or a competitor may have explained the industry in deeper detail.
- Google the Company Name – This can be a good way to find a great deal of useful information:
  - Company Reviews – What are their customers saying about them? Does it tell you anything about their competitive advantage?
  - Company News – What have they been up to? Have they received any awards? Recruiters are generally proud of the companies they work for. If you can bring up a recent headline during the interview, you may score extra points. Additional Tip: Try working this research into a question (See Tip 4 for more on this).
4. Prepare some questions

At the end of almost every interview, you will be afforded the chance to ask some questions. Not only is this a chance to get some information about the company, but it is a chance to show off how thoughtful you are. One caveat here, know your audience. You may want to avoid asking the entry level recruiter a question about the high level strategy of the company. Although they may be aware of the company’s direction, if they are not, you run the risk of embarrassing them.

If you really want to impress the interviewer, develop a question from the research that you did on the company. If you are able to ask a question about the impact of some recent company news, it will not only remind them that you did your research, but will also show that you have done some critical thinking on the topic. It may even give them the chance to do some bragging on their own company, something most interviewers love doing.

5. Do a Google / LinkedIn search on the interviewer

See above. If they love talking about their company, imagine how much they love talking about their own background and accomplishments.

6. Follow Up

Ok, so this is not really preparation, but it can still be important. As with everything, timing is paramount, and sooner is much better than later in this instance. A well written thank you will not only show your gratitude for the meeting, but it can also reaffirm why you are a strong candidate for the position. The key here is to personalize it. You just spent upwards of 30 minutes with this person, and hopefully you connected on something. Use that to your advantage. Be sure to tie your letter back to some of the questions that they dove deeper on and sell yourself. This may be their last impression of you before they decide on the next steps.

These steps may have seemed basic as you read them, and to an extent they are. That said, you would be surprised at how many of them are often overlooked. Don’t get overconfident during your job search. Put in the time, and ensure that you are prepared. If you do, your search will be much more successful.
September 27, 2013