Marketing managers and executives faced with marketing decisions should pay more attention to voice search – a hot topic in today’s world of digital marketing.
Reaching a wider audience has always been the top goal of any business, and the latest trends in search optimization make this possible. Today’s world of smartphones and interactive technology has created new challenges for digital marketing.
When Siri first appeared, it was a striking novelty in 2011. Little did we imagine that it would become a major trend in the world of digital technology.
Understanding how to integrate voice search into your SEO and a content strategy can give you an edge over your competitors.
What is Voice Recognition Technology?
Devices with voice recognition technology use artificial intelligence (AI) to interpret spoken commands and perform relevant actions.
Before the introduction of this technology, interaction with devices has been possible for consumers through the use of their hands and text. Requests, reminders, and easy tasks can now be accomplished faster and hands-free while enabling a person to multi-task.
Voice-activated technology has grown with the use of the smartphone and has entered our homes with lightning speed.
Did you know that more than 420 million voice assistants have been sold at present? These include:
- Alexa
- Cortana
- Google assistant
More than half of U.S. households are expected to own a smart speaker or a digital home assistant by 2022. With a growing consumer base, marketers cannot afford to ignore the potential impact of voice search for business success.
How Voice Search Is Changing the Marketing Landscape
Voice search is reshaping the customer experience when it comes to looking for answers on the web.
In a traditional search, the results are displayed in a list that requires interaction, refinement, and choice. With voice search the decision is made for the user; it is all about the single best answer.
The way the search queries are constructed is also different. The consumers now use full conversational sentences to look for answers rather than a compilation of keywords. The questions have a narrow focus often including specific details, like movie times, and geographic location.
Smart speakers and voice-activated devices are making an impact on eCommerce. Simple integration with payment accounts makes it convenient for consumers to shop using voice search.
How to Optimizing My Website for Voice Search
These radical changes in consumer behavior require marketers to reevaluate their tactics and optimize the website content to meet users’ expectations and secure a search engine’s trust.
Know your audience.
To deliver relevant, timely answers you must know who you are talking to… or more precisely who is talking to you. The audience in the 18-39 age bracket uses the voice search most frequently with other demographics catching up quickly. 20% of all mobile searches come from voice search, so make sure your website is optimized for mobile users.
Rethink your content.
Voice search is a dialogue system driven by user intent. This is an especially important fact that will help you reevaluate the structure and substance of your content. Think about the flow of a natural conversation and use it to restructure the content and improve readability. Short, jargon-free sentences work best.
Use schema metadata.
Schema markup helps search engines better understand the meaning and context of your website content. For example, it can help identify event information, location address, and product details. With schema, you can also add Rich Snippets – hyper-intentional data that identified specific information and may be displayed at the top of search results when it meets relevant search criteria.
Optimize keywords.
Going back to the conversational language, focus on long-tail keywords that include question words like “where, how, when” and filler words like “I, mine, of, the, etc.”.
Update Google My Business listing.
To get in front of more local customers when someone searches “near me,” make sure the information in your Google My Business profile is current and relevant. Enhance your listing with images, Q&A, and posts.
Improve webpage load time.
Website loading speed has a direct impact on the bounce rate. If your site loads slow and visitors abandon it often, Google sees it as an indication of low value for the user and, hence, will not rank it as high as you wish. Just as the website users will not wait for your web page to load, your content will not be used to answer consumer voice queries.
To Wrap It Up
Remember that voice search returns only one answer, as opposed to a regular search which has a list of results. In a regular search, the second result may generate traffic, but in a voice query the number one, best-optimized result gets all the attention.
Voice search is happening NOW with 50% of all searches being voice-activated. And the popularity of this technology keeps spreading like wildfire.
The key here is to make your website content as relevant as possible to users’ specific voice queries. This entails revising your content strategy to address the needs and expectations of your prospects and customers.
Need Help with Your Content Strategy?
Contact the digital marketing experts at Directive Group to find out how we can improve your marketing strategy to expand your digital presence.
