In recent years, voice search has taken center stage in the world of marketing.
Today, users make more than one million voice searches each month, and 40% of adults now use at least one voice search per day.
This makes sense when you think about it: voice search is convenient, accurate, and ideal for our on-the-go world. What’s more, the growing number of home assistants (think Cortana, Alexa, and Siri) make voice search even more streamlined.
The big question, though, is how marketers go about adapting their approaches to the voice search revolution. Here’s what you need to know:
One of the first and most notable places voice search impacts marketing is in the world of SEO. Before the rise of voice search, people who wanted to find information or locate a product, good, or service would head to Google and type their question in manually. Today, however, it’s much more likely they’ll tap the microphone and ask the question verbally.
In the world of SEO, these two methods are very different. For one, people write differently than they speak. Here’s an example: say someone is looking for a coffee shop in New York City. If they were to type that query into Google, it would probably say, simply, “coffee shop NYC.”
If they made the query via voice search, though, it’d be more conversational - something like, “what’s the best coffee shop in NYC?”
If marketing is going to adapt to these changing search methods, the first step is for marketers to start responding to the “who, what, when, and how” of new search queries. While short keyword-focused pages made sense in the days when we used our thumbs to find information, voice search requires marketers to arrange content so it focuses on longer, more personalized questions.
Take your voice search preparedness a step further with these four must-dos:
This content should be robust, compelling, exciting, and designed to answer your visitor’s questions and concerns. It should also seek to identify and solve their pain points.
Not only will creating more content help you rank in search listings, but it’ll also ensure detail-oriented voice searchers find what they’re looking for when they land on your page.
Long-tail keywords should be optimized for semantic search and integrated throughout your marketing. While long-tail keywords commonly have lower search volumes, they’re better at attracting qualified leads and voice search users.
This tells search engines what your site is about and can help you pop up in the SERPs in response to voice search queries. If you’ve never used schema markup before, this guide can help you learn the ropes.
Last but certainly not least, be sure to optimize your site for mobile. This is an essential consideration since upwards of 20% of mobile queries are voice searches. Utilizing responsive design ensures your site will function beautifully, no matter what platform your visitors see it on.
While maneuvering to adapt to voice search can feel challenging, these simple tips and considerations are a great place to start ensuring you capture the voice search traffic you deserve.
