The world’s most popular search engine, Google, is undergoing some substantial changes that could revolutionize the way you live your life. In this blog, we’ll discuss one of the changes, voice search, and how it’s affecting the way you market to your customers.
Voice Search
Although it’s difficult to determine exactly how many search queries are voice-based, we do know that the general trend is rising. Voice search is the growing tendency for users to rely on vocal commands and personal digital assistants to manage their search queries. Voice search is convenient because it allows users to search on the go.
Accordingly, voice search will sharply increase with the rise of smart speaker sales. As the technology behind voice search services like Siri and Cortana improves, it will also become increasingly reliable.
Because these speakers are activated and controlled by voice, users are beginning to treat interaction between man and technology as a norm. In early 2018, it was revealed that there are over one billion voice searches per month and that approximately 40% of adults use voice search at least once per day.
With the pace that voice search is revolutionizing the current Internet, it could drastically change the types of queries we see and also reshape the way businesses think about search engine results page (SERPs) as they may no longer be as visual.
How Voice Search Will Transform the Future of SEO
Undoubtedly, the rise of voice search will affect and shape the future of SEO. The following are some ways you can be prepared for the voice search revolution.
1. Use of Natural Speech Patterns
Obviously, most people don’t type the way they speak. Spoken language is far more colloquial and casual than typed text. When a user wants to ask Echo what the weather is like in Vancouver, they will ask “What’s the weather like in Vancouver?” However, when a user wants to know the same thing from a Google search, they will enter “Vancouver Weather.” With the differences that these keywords embody, it’s important for voice search and SEO to understand users’ natural speech patterns.
As the technology behind voice search becomes more refined, it becomes more experienced in understanding the colloquial tones in human speech. In 2012, the word error rate was over 20%, but today, it’s as low as 8%. The progress in technological advancements means that marketers interested in voice search SEO will need to reflect this in their strategies. Along with this, marketers should consider their online content in the context of voice search. In order to boost search rankings, it’s important to incorporate the natural speech in the content, making it flow as smoothly as possible. Using a more conversational tone will pick up on the nuances of the everyday language.
2. Long-Tail Keywords
With the rise of voice search, short-tail keywords are quickly becoming less relevant when considering the natural phrases that people tend to use in voice searches. With 20% of mobile queries being voice searches and the ratio of voice search growing faster than type search, it’s important to ensure that you’re using the right keywords to fully capture voice searches.
As voice search becomes more popular, using conversational, long-tail keywords become increasingly crucial to boosting your SEO. Long-tail keywords tend to be longer and involve very specific keyword phrases that are used by customers who are closer to the point of purchasing something. With the positive possibilities that long-tail keywords can lead into, it’s essential that you should have keywords that describe your product features and benefits as detailed as possible – even involving proper phrases and/or sentences.
3. More Emphasis on Mobile
While the hype around mobile devices has died down, it may be surging again because of the growth in voice search. Because over half of all search queries are coming from mobile, marketers are realizing the importance of focusing on the context of voice search to boost their SEO.
Today, the best marketers understand that mobile should come before desktop. Because most voice searches are done via smartphones, marketers need to ensure that their content is optimized for mobile devices to rank highly on voice search rankings and positively affect their SEO.
Voice Search and SEO
Globally, billions of dollars are spent on the development, production, and distribution of the artificial intelligence sector that programs these smart personal assistants. Because of this, if your business isn’t considering the changes that it needs to make in order to stay relevant, you are far behind your competition. Voice search and SEO are not the next big thing, it is today’s big thing.
So, your blogging strategy begins with your purpose, audience, keywords, and promotional tactics. With a solid strategy, your blogs should be ready to go.
