Most nights I’m trying to sleep with a million things running through my head. I know most of the adults in America can relate to this. One of the things I’m always trying to do is stay ahead of trends so I can better position my clients for marketing success. It’s not an easy task but it’s worth it. Of course, the Internet is an ever changing landscape and just when you think you have a handle on it, Facebook develops a new policy or Google changes the way its crawlers work. Now we are faced with something called segmented search and that’s what I want to talk about today.
Throughout the years, the Internet has gone from 1 dimensional to more of a 3-dimensional platform. From just looking at interesting sites and aiding us with a never ending source of data, to providing social networks where we can share content and hang out with friends. In the beginning, it was all about the businesses. You went to their websites to look at their products and most of the information provided about the business was created by the owners. Today’s Internet is all about the consumer and with segmented search, that’s about to become even more true.
Word of mouth proves to be the most powerful form of marketing year after year. You can find multiple studies about buyers trusting the word of their friends and family over advertisements shown throughout the forms of media. Segmented search makes searching for information much more social. You will now be able to search a phrase like “I want to buy a Chicago style pizza for under $20 from a place in Detroit”. Your search will now deliver you results of places that meet your criteria. The twist is, these results will come to you starting with pizza places in Detroit that have been reviewed by friends and family first. Maybe they have “checked in” with their Facebook profile or reviewed it on Yelp. Now you can read business reviews from the people you know and trust BEFORE making a decision of where to go.
This is going to change the game for how you rank within search results. Now everything is personalized and focused on the consumer and their interests and behaviors. If you’re going to rank amongst your competitors then you will need to receive reviews and even the bad ones can help to your advantage. Encouraging your customers by offering discounts or something special in exchange for a positive review will help boost your SEO and limit the bad reviews.
Don’t let your business fall behind the current Internet trends. Keep your business one step above your competition and let LeadPlan Marketing help you with a strategic marketing plan that keeps your customers engaged.
