Search is presenting the marketing world with a possible shift, voice search.
That’s right, search is finally getting exciting again!
I think about how flawlessly Alexa (the Amazon Echo ) has fit into my life. When converting measurements in the kitchen, to setting a timer while working out, or helping me figure out what network the Falcons game is on, these were all things I used to grab my mobile phone for but the flow and ease of just asking your questions out loud rather than typing them has actually been a very natural progression.
Thanks to new technology, voice search is finally catching up with the needs and wants of our personal life. And now is the perfect time for marketers to start thinking about what voice search can do for them!
That personal level you have been looking to add to your content marketing to the conversational tone you want to have with your target audience. Voice search could start making that a lot easier to achieve. As many marketers continue to make SEO a top priority they need to think about how and why voice should be a part of SEO, here are the three things we want you to consider when it comes to voice search.
1. Adapt The Trend Early
The key to understanding voice is optimizing your SEO for voice right now! This will ensure you are ready as more and more people start adopting this style of search.
The benefit of early adoption is data collection. The sooner you can start tracking search patterns and behaviors the more data and insights you will have while this transition is still going on. When you are monitoring your performance on SEO for both voice and type you will start to understand how your audience is using voice and type search differently. This understanding will be your secret sauce to helping you optimize content and increase engagement for potential and current customer behavior as it changes between different search types. There won’t be any need to guess or hope for the best. You will have the data to support the decisions you’re making for SEO because of the research you did ahead of time.
The sooner you can make voice a part of your SEO strategy the more data you will have and the better equipped your marketing strategy will be.
2. Differentiating Between Type & Voice Search
Just like everything else in marketing you can’t treat type and voice search the same. The way people use voice and type search is entirely different and understanding that is the first step in intergrading voice into your search strategy.
Nearly every study (and life experience) shows that people who use voice search are asking longer questions while the questions we type into the search bar on our mobile devices or desktops is much shorter. For example when looking for a restaurant to eat at…
Voice- “What are popular nearby Italian restaurants?”
Type- “Local Italian”
As you can see voice search is question-based while type search is usually a sentence (if that). When we type, we want to eliminate as much of the fluff as possible. When we are talking we are used to speaking in full sentences and including who, what, when, where, why, and how.
The good news is that Google and other search engines do not treat voice and type services differently, they all return the same results. It’s only the user’s habits that change.
3. Localization
Local businesses have an opportunity to optimize for voice search and see the benefits soon because this is one area where we are seeing people utilizing the voice feature the most.
People are able and willing to get their weather, traffic and local news from these devices. The next step is using the information that impacts our daily lives and make plans for it. That is where voice search comes in for the local business.
Business aggregator sites like Yelp are linked to different voice platforms. So it is time to go on those sites and make sure your business listening is accurate and optimized for those third-party sites.
How easy is it to ask Siri what the weather is, hear that it’s going to be rainy and then ask her to look up local movies times? All in the same breathe, without opening multiple tabs on Google, or having to lift finger. Local businesses will see the impact from voice search first.
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Wrap It Up
When thinking about your own life how are you finding answers to the random questions that come up? Are you typing these questions in a search bar, opening an app or are you talking into your phone or another device? Sometimes we need to take cues from our own behavior and let that guide our focuses for where we should take our marketing strategy.
Google has reported that 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, with this expected to rise in the next few years. Are you going to be a part of the trend or are you going to be behind it?
Now is the time to start measuring your web analytics. Sign up for a free 30 day trial of our Marketing Dashboard here to see how we can help you do just that.
Want to read more about voice? Check out this post-Voice Is On The Rise In PR here.