Instead of using keywords, Google uses the information in Google My Business (GMB). This information includes the location category and location address to prompt relevant results. Google does not allow advertisers to request to be a part of the experiment which now currently with selected advertisers only. This is a very recent development but advertisers must think ahead.

Optimizations that are Focused Locally

Right now brick-and-mortar advertisers have only one way to control when the ads pop up when the customer is searching Google map and that is through the activation and deactivation of the local extensions.

There are local services that are available and is usually managed by a local services portal which are currently available in a handful of local cities. Therefore, only local extensions have the power to drive the local ad results for established businesses in most locations.

What are local extensions?

Local extensions have been in existence for many years now and traditionally, they are added in AdWords campaigns for all traditional advertisers. This is the best practice to gain search engine result pages in real estate. It is also useful in giving helpful information to searchers about the store’s location and operating hours.

Google has used them over the years along with active keywords to trigger ad units when searching in local pack and maps.

Getting the traffic reports  

According to Google at this point, there is no clear path to segregate the mapped traffic from AdWords traffic. This is because the get location details clicks are all coming from maps.

Another remarkable finding is that the share of traffic from this click type has increased in 2017. This is mainly on brand keywords.

Locally focused units like an ad in local packs and maps are collected only by Google.com. There is no search partner network. This resulted in the local extension being automatically opted to show in local maps.

This reinforced the fact that advertisers have no control over this traffic except to turn the location extensions on or off coupled with an addition or removal of location extensions on campaigns.

Local-only campaigns and lack of keywords

The promise of local-only campaigns is great because you will be able to manage these searches away from traditional Google searches.

When Google announced that it is running a new campaign for advertisers built upon Google My Business in contrast to keywords, many marketers remain adamant.

Keywords are synonymous with searches, everybody knows it. Just type the keywords and boom here comes the results. Therefore eliminating it from the searching equation is a radical shift in the search advertising sphere. Even though location extensions have as widely deployed as they are it is still not widely accepted.

Improvements on GMB are underway

For the advertisers, the performance result of phrase-free AdWords is not visible. However, according to Google, they plan to deliver the results to the advertisers in due time. Right now it is unclear on what triggers the traffic and how is the performance.

But one thing is for sure, Google is equipping its Google My Business new features. This feature might be instrumental in what triggers relevant ad results, at this point it is unclear.

There are two notable changes done on Google My Business.

First is the introduction of business description in GMB. Businesses are allowed to briefly describe their business to their potential customers in 750 characters. The description may include what their business is all about and other relevant facts about their business. There should be no promotions URLs (universal resource locators) or HTML (hypertext markup language) code.

The second modification is the ability for businesses to describe the specific services they provide. There is a structured combination of the service name, there is the item name within that service and the item price along with the description. These GMB menus were made available for restaurants initially but moved on to businesses in other industries too.

Phase-free AdWords will make keyword centric search look Jurassic

Although there are a lot of reservations about this new strategy of Google, the shift in location instead keywords can actually have significant benefits.

First is it can help in the unsaturation of the search market. The search market is the most competitive advertising market today albeit expensive. Finding ways to increase the market share and improve ROAS is becoming impossible. It is all about picking up trends and always staying ahead of your competitors. By drilling down into location focused campaigns, advertisers and business have more to gain than lose.

Second is this new strategy will expand the location to all searches. Google has done a great job in bringing in location for product specific searches. If you search for a particular item, Google can show you relevant information like ads, deals and pricing in your area courtesy of the Google Shopping local inventory ads.

Since this type of ad has delivered great value for both the advertiser and customer, the new Phrase-free AdWords campaign remove the spotlight away from the keywords and deliver results from location through GMB. By optimizing GMB business data it will be a more location-centric model.

And last, a keyword search will be enhanced, it will be more dynamic, more defined and static set of words unlike what advertisers are doing today. It will be more personalized and will provide more information beyond the level it is giving now.

Rather than focusing on random keywords, search advertisers will adjust to trends and the focus on the circumstances that influence the search. The location has become hugely influential that will predict the movement, for advertisers to adjust the strategies and execute them. Regionally focused information can also reveal so much more.

In conclusion, Phrase-free AdWords campaigns maybe puzzling to advertisers today. Given time they will adjust to it. If this strategy is utilized properly, it is an unsettling force in the search market that many advertisers can benefit from.

The post Phrase-free AdWords campaigns are here appeared first on Vin Moorjani.

Instead, we’re here to help you identify potential growth with the changes in SEO. And yes, we can all agree that SEO is really not dead. Some tactics have faded and changed, but SEO remains an excellent tool for digital marketers and businesses.

Going back to our topic, finding new opportunities in the world of SEO means identifying new and rising trends in the field. We’ve searched for some opportunities and patterns that you can maximize, especially with the help of a dedicated digital marketing team.

Do Not Overlook User Experience

It’s not a secret that, most of the time, our focus is on SEO, content creation, and digital marketing. And we only think of user experience next to these areas.

However, studies have shown that user experience is still the primary reason why people visit or leave your website. Yes, that’s a fact, even if you have the best content among the rest.

Mobile users reported that slow to load sites, error pages, and frozen pages are some of the things they’ve encountered. This could lead to closing or leaving the mobile page. More importantly, a delay on page responses for 1 second had reportedly reduced audience conversions.

So, how can you remedy this? Websites, especially e-commerce sites, must and always put user-experience as your top priority. Always remember to test, test, and test again before launching products, pages, or your entire website.

Maximize Opportunities on Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Currently, focusing mainly on your website isn’t the most efficient tool. Ranking as number one on the results is not the only thing you should focus. Give time on SERP features, too, and these are some steps you can do.

Enhance your feature snippets, especially now that Google had increased meta descriptions to 300 characters. Make sure to target searches on your Meta, too. Optimize the headings questions on your content. This will help you get featured in the “People Also Ask” results in Google.

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Voice Search is Here to Stay
Voice queries have increased since the rise of voice-activated smart speakers and smartphones. People are becoming addicted to voice search because of the ease compared to typing. Therefore, optimize and align your SEO strategies with voice search. Remember that it’s here to stay, so might as well become a leader in your industry.

Mobile will Rise
Google had adapted to this, and so should you. Currently, 60% of the search volumes come from mobile devices and that’s why Google had rolled out a mobile index.

The index focuses on ranking pages based on the mobile ease of use of the pages. So, we highly recommend having a responsive website.

Therefore, we highly recommend that your SEO, both on-page and technical, must also be mobile-friendly. You should also consider your design, navigation, and even information acoustic.

Keyword Intent Optimization

Are you selling products, offering local services, or an up and coming restaurant in the city? If yes, then use keywords with your business intent.

Remember that Google is currently enhancing their search results with AI. This means that SERP doesn’t just show the keyword included in the search. SERPs also factors in user location, search context, historical search and information, and even service intention of the user.

Therefore, we highly recommend using keywords which targets your website intent, whether your selling or sharing information.

So, with all these changes in the SEO climate, you should adopt. It’s not easy, and we know that, so partner with the best and most dynamic team to get your brand out there!

The post The World of SEO is Evolving and So Should You appeared first on Vin Moorjani.

• Building a large volume of quality backlinks.
• SEO focused anchor text.
• Using relevant and reputable external links.
  

Anyone looking to rank favourably on SERPs should definitely consider incorporating the factors mentioned above into their 2017 SEO strategy.

Quality Backlinks

The number of inbound links to your website is an indication of the popularity of your site. Google and other search engines are increasingly using backlinks as criteria for ranking. The more people click through to your site from other parts of the web, the higher your ranking will be thanks to new Google algorithms that prioritize links over other ranking factors. Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy 2017 should therefore focus on building quality backlinks, especially from sites whose content is similar to your own.

SEO focus anchor text

Anchor text continues to be an important part of SEO, and plays an especially important role in helping search engines determine the relevance of your backlinks. Using the wrong anchor text can get you penalized for spamming, while the right anchor text will ensure that you get high rankings on search results. You can optimize your anchor text by understanding the different types of anchors in use, distributing them wisely, avoiding linking to spammy sites and keeping your anchor texts relevant.

Using relevant external links

External links work hand in hand with useful and relevant content. By linking out to credible sites, you help to establish the reputation of your own, and actually influence visitors to return and find out what other reputable websites they can discover on your site. The success to ensuring successful external linking is to follow a few simple rules such as only linking out to sites that offer real benefits to your audience, is relevant to the content you offer and is not spammy in nature.

Quality Link building will continue to be an important SEO strategy in 2017, helping websites rank favourably on SERPs and getting you the audience you need to keep your website going.

The post 3 Key Tips to Build Your SEO Strategy in 2017 appeared first on Vin Moorjani.

The next 10 years we should see growth in the NEW Tech of Virtual Reality (VR) Technology to Augmented Reality (AU). This is a where the future of leading search engines should also follow.

So you must be thinking now? What’s this got to do with the topic of growing traffic in 2017.

ANSWER: To market your business and become a successful brand starting this year, this is the best time for you to think forward into the future of your business.“THINKING AHEAD” will inspire you to innovate new ideas to marketing to dominate your industry.
Now let’s dive into some key factors you can use in 2017 to grow traffic for your website:

1. SWITCH TO MOBILE

Google has shifted into “Mobile Indexing”. Which means, Google is now favouring the search results that appear on your mobile as your desktop search results. One important keynote should be to ensure you get a mobile friendly website that is fully optimised for mobile. Take the Google Mobile Friendly Test to check if your website is considered Mobile friendly.

According to Statista.com, by 2017, more than a third of the world population should own a smartphone. Almost 2.6 billion of the earth’s population, this really is a key measure for your website as most visitors search from a mobile device for products and services.
Number of Smartphone Users worldwide from 2014 to 2020 (in billions)

Image Credit: Statista.com

2. BE ORIGINAL & AUTHENTIC

As Google continues to evolve their systems and algorithms continue to become highly sophisticated, this means that you must be original in your marketing and promotion efforts, do not copy or buy sponsored links from providers who will potentially try to sell you their links that can potentially cause your site to be penalised and removed from the search engine. Use genuine helpful information that represents your business branding. Work on quality, offering valuable high quality content to your audience and your business will start seeing results online.

3. CONTENT WRITING

Have you ever heard about Content being the King! Well it’s seriously true as we all search the internet to find valuable quality information in a few seconds. A key focus you can implement to really boost your digital marketing success online in 2017 is to focus on producing ongoing quality content to help attract visitors to your website. You must offer valuable information about your industry products and services within your content, for example;if you are a real estate industry you can write a content article on “10 Tips to finding the best real estate agent”.

Writing informative quality and helpful content for your audience will enable them to see you as a trust able provider of your brand, this will increase your chances for your visitors to turn into your next potential customers.

4. INFORMATION & CONTACT

If you have a fancy website that has too many images or not enough relevant information, most visitors will leave your site and go to the next one, To improve your chances to generate leads from your website, I suggest you to implement a couple of these simple tips below to your website:

(a) PHONE NUMBER – Have you ever visited a site that has no phone number or email address, how frustrating does that become for you? Solve this problem for someone else and have your contact number and email displayed throughout your website this is usually towards the top on every page but depending on a good website design this can be altered.

(b) ENQUIRY FORM – Another way you can generate leads quickly is to implement an enquiry form on your website. I would suggest you to ask your web developer to place the enquiry form where it can easily seen by your visitors, this is generally on the main homepage, top section of your website, This is the area a visitor will see first when your website is displayed.

The post How to Grow your Website Traffic in 2017 appeared first on Vin Moorjani.

Make a list of your amazing skills. Everyone is good at something better than somebody else.

Ask yourself what are you good at? What is something you can do better than anyone else.

If you are limitless of your options. Think about your interest and something you enjoy the most and that you can potentially turn into a business for yourself.

2. Research Your Niche

Now that you found your idea your thinking now what can I do next? Well it will take some work but its pretty simple, you need to plan and research your idea. Best place is to start is using Google.com, research about the products or services you plan to provide to your customers, check and go through different websites. Every industry has competitors, search within your market and interest, find out what they are doing and how you can act to do something better.

3. Action Plan

Every business requires planning on how to get started, Benjamin Franklin supposedly once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” If you do not plan on what you want to achieve or how you plan to operate and run your next big idea, you are setting up yourself to fail. Therefore, business planning is the crucial part to starting any kind of business.

Now you must be thinking, how do I prepare a great business plan? They are thousands of business plan templates that you can find online. I recommend to use a business plan template by Intuit QuickBooks It’s FREE to Download, you can use this template to plan out your business more in detail.

4. Selling Products & Services

If you are selling any kind of products or providing a service it will be good to plan out where you will purchase these products or services?
If you are starting a business that plans to sell products online via your own ecommerce website and you want to know how you can find low and cheap products that you can sell online you do not know where is a good place to start, I would recommend sites like Ali Baba. If you are unsure about Alibaba I recommend you read this article on how to safely source products from the World’s Biggest Supplier Directory.

Alibaba is a great source to find a list of suppliers from overseas where you can find cheap wholesale products to sell online on your website.

If you are planning to start a business that will provide services to its customers, e.g. a mobile app, software subscription. You must plan how will you provide this service to your customers in your business plan, If you plan to sell online software or coaching service, that will carry a monthly fee. Think about who will build and support your product? Have you got a team who will deliver customer service? These are some great areas of focus you can work on before considering further.

5. Register a Domain Name

Now that you have got your business planned out, you must be ready to hit the GREEN button towards the next stage, you will have to register the name that you can use for your website address, www.mywebsite.com this will represent your brand online, Choose something easy and simple that you and your customers can remember as this will be an ideal brand for your business. If you are not sure visit 10 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name by GoDaddy.

If you are based in Australia .com.au is a preferred option as it will give you a trusted appearance on the google search results and people can also identify if you are an Australian business by using .com.au in your domain name. Whichever country you plan to develop your business it will be a great idea to use the countries domain extension.

You can register your domain name from sites like www.godaddy.com.au, www.hostgator.com these sites can offer some good options that are cheap for registering a domain name for your business.

6. Start Your Online Website

You must have heard that everything is online, we are interconnected to the world by the internet, daily thousands of searches happen online from Google to eBay from customers looking to buying products or searching for services, to researching information.All the attention of the world is online, so your business must have a representation online. Having an online website is the most useful resource for your customers, it can easily be available 24/7, it’s a place that never sleeps!

Now depending on your technical level and expertise you may be able to create a website yourself. I will explain more in the next section, but you can start thinking about building a website. We need to consider setting up Hosting service this is additional add-on to getting your website domain name as stated above, getting a hosting account is not really that expensive if you are starting out your business but also can be expensive depending on the nature of your business. You can visit If you are a beginner you may not know about hosting, basically the easiest way to understand without getting into to much technical web jargon, a hosting is storage space for your website, when your website is built it requires to be stored on a computer or server so it can be accessed when someone goes to your domain name e.g www.mywebsite.com. Godaddy is a great hosting provider to host your website and you can get a hosting for low as $3.99 a month with Godaddy they also 24 hours service incase you need help with your website basic issues and problems.

7. Building your website

Building a website can be easy to difficult depending on your technical expertise, everyone is different though if you are new and unsure on how you can build a website, you can search on Google to finding a reliable website development company in your area, when you hire someone it may incur you some starting costs so you really need to plan carefully about your budget and cost. You may also visit YouTube to learn on how you can build you own website.

8. Get Connected on Social Media

In order to connect your website and build a presence online you will need to setup different social profiles, this is because people use various sites for social media and having your business there can be ideal for you, a good place would be to start building the following:

Facebook Business Page

Twitter Page

Pin Interest

Google + Profile

9. Lets Go Viral & Build Website Traffic

You got your business planned. You got your products/services ready. You have a team support in place. You have got your website online. You have created social profiles now Its time to GO VIRAL with your marketing.

A website that is on the internet and does not promote itself to build a online audience is like a land without people. To be successful in your business you need to work hard at promoting it so your website can drive more traffic. How can the online audience know you exist if your business brand does not SHOUT OUT LOUD to the world. You need to start engaging with your customers on social media. Start writing a blog. Here is a great article on 6 Best ways to build an online traffic

10. Take ACTION& NEVER GIVE UP

According to Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. A whopping 80% crash and burn. This statistics is staggering on how many business can easily fail. We all have a big idea or dream we may wish to achieve but we have to remain persistence and never give up. In order to be successful online you must live and breathe your business. I have seen many businesses fail because they do not simply take action, nothing is perfect but I can truly say if you stay committed every single day and never give up. You will truly reach new heights.

The post 10 Steps on How to Start a Online Business in 2017 appeared first on Vin Moorjani.