Voice search is a relatively new medium which has been growing in popularity over the past few years. It is projected that voice searches will make up half of all online searches by 2020.
The accessibility of being able to conduct voice searches from your phone to the speakers in each room, even to your fridge means that people are increasingly using this feature.
All marketers know that consumers are driven by convenience and the convenience of voice searches and smart speakers are winning over consumers. They can find answers to their questions faster by asking them out loud than typing them into their phones and laptops. Which means that finding new services, products and adding to our to-do lists is just a comment away.
What does this mean for the digital marketer and SEO Specialist?
- Digital marketing agencies should be seeing this as a huge growth opportunity and as such will need to ensure our content marketing strategies are optimised for voice searches. Google rankings will become increasingly competitive, so it will be important to optimise our clients’ sites and products in order to allow for organic growth.
- Keeping this in mind we have compiled some tips for optimising your content:
- Use long-tail keywords. This is how people will be searching, so you will need to adapt your strategy to include them. Traditional keyword searches are concentrated around 1-3 words, with the most important information at the beginning. Voice search terms are longer and more conversational which will be an important adjustment to make when researching keywords.
- Add question keywords: what, where, why when and how.
- Include filler words like I, of the, on the, to and for. The queries are going to be more conversational so filler words will become more important.
- Following from this, using conversational language in your content will allow for an increased chance of matching to the verbal questions captured by voice searches. Think about your target market and their tone of voice in order to capture the most frequently used search terms more easily.
- Restructure your content to include succinct question and answers. This should be captured in google searches. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) are a great format to do this.
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly. 31% of smartphone users worldwide use voice searches at least once a week and 20% of queries on google’s mobile app and android devices are voice searches. This shows how crucial adapting your website is. If you overlook making your website mobile friendly you will be losing business.
- Focus on local listings searches. A very high volume of voice search requests includes “near me” search terms. This means including locations and times and ensuring your site is optimised for
- Google location queries. With “near me” searches leading the pack to ensure your page has a Google My Business listing. This will improve your rankings and allow you to become more visible in local searches.
Source: emarketer / semrush
