Basics of Organic Search Engine Optimization starts with Local search

What is Voice search?

Basics of voice search : conversational search using any device where you can speak your question.  Without a doubt, voice search will become the dominant way people search in the next couple of years. This would include devices such Siri, Google Voice, Amazon Alexa & Echo, Google Home, etc.     About 22% of these searches have local intent (ie where is? near me?)   In order to optimize for voice search, your website should answer these ‘long tail’ questions concisely and precisely as well as having structured data (Schema) to insure that the search engines can ‘understand’ what information your website is providing.   Since people are much more likely to use conversational tone when using voice search, be sure that your website content is optimized to answer a query that your customers might have.

What is Hyperlocal search?

Basics of local/hyperlocal search : a search done in a specific  (local) area to find a local business – for example:  a service business (HVAC company, doctor, dentist, auto repair,etc) as well as local restaurants, retailers and any other local product or service.   These are searches that often start with where? what? or have ‘near me’ in the search query.  Often map results with be the 1st thing that appears on the results page.  Optimizing your offsite listings including Google My Business, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp and the other citations are important for Google to recognize you as a local business.  Have you optimized your website pages with Geo Targeted areas that indicate to Google and other search engine that you are a local business?

If you have a physical location where you would like customers to come visit, the basics of all of your SEO should be hyper local search.  Since most people have locations identified when searching via phone or desktop, Google or Bing will typically serve up the most relevant search by location.