How Voice search will change the digital future?
In the emerging field of technology the way Voice search is evolving, analyst predicts that it will play a prominent role in bring in the next level of changes to digital marketing. It is predicted that by 2020, 30% of all websites sessions will be performed without a screen.
Google voice search queries have exponentially increased over the years, so it is essential to understand what voice search, is in order to incorporate them into your digital marketing strategy.
What is Voice Search?
It can be referred to as voice recognition technology that allows users to perform web search by speaking into a device. These devices usually range from smart phones and computers to home assistant devices. In simple terms, it is making your search easier and quicker by letting a device search for relevant information by speaking into it instead of physically typing your query.
Using speech recognition to infer what users are saying with acute precision, the device delivers results verbally and sometimes through a display to the users. Google Assistant, Siri, Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Alexa all make use of voice search capabilities allowing users to get information without having to scroll through sites on devices looking for information.
This has led to paradigm shift in the way we communicate with tech devices around us to gain information, a change which today’s digital marketers need to start leveraging.
Why Voice Search?
You must be wondering why is voice search so important and should be adopted? Well, it is growing at a faster pace, and for good reason- it’s undoubtedly fast, handy, allowing you to search on the go. Voice is natural way for future tech communications. Also, searching through voice is 3.7 times faster than typing and the answer is read back to you.
To further establish the facts:
- 41% of adults and 55% of teens use voice search daily (Source: Google UK).
- 20% of all Google mobile queries are voice searches (Source: Google).
- By 2020 50% of all searches will be voice searches (Source: Comscore).
How Voice Search Impacts SEO Rankings?
With voice search on the rise, search engines such as Google are placing a higher prominence on voice search optimization (VSO) because of its increased use. Hence, it is vital to optimize website for voice search to improve SEO ranking and help your website rank on the top. Voice search will continue to be part of SEO’s future with AI assistant and semantic search.
Voice search impacts SEO rankings and if you are implementing an SEO strategy, it is high time to leverage voice search in order to get the most out of the increasing number of users utilizing voice search with the help of these devices.
Website owners can easily provide answers for search queries eventually increasing traffic to their landing pages. This fast search which satisfies users as they demand for quick results for the queries they make. This boost traffic on your website as well as help to get better ranking on search engine result pages by reducing bounce rate and improving user experience. One of the most significant pointers that Google is emphasizing today for ranking is user experience. Hence, it is beneficial to incorporate this trend in optimizing your content for voice search and adopting this technology soon.
It is important to keep in mind that voice search SEO and traditional website SEO is different. Thus, some factors that influence website rankings may or may not have the similar effect on voice search – and vice versa.
Tips To Optimize For Voice Search
Preparing for voice search is happening in 2 phases.
1. Preparing your website:
This is an immediate need for all websites to claim your share from voice search. Let’s take a look at ways you can optimize your website to help in ranking high for voice searches.
- Use of Featured Snippets:
Google Home and Google Assistant read out featured snippets to answer voice search queries. Hence, aiming for getting single result for voice search, your content has to be the featured snippet result. Gaining and retaining a query’s featured snippet creates trustworthiness. It not only increases visibility and spotlight on your website but also encourages a sense of authority and integrity as Google’s chosen source of information. You need to optimize your content for featured snippet by including a precise summary of your main content above the fold under 29 words. The sections that use H-tags, lists and bullet points are easy for Google to read. Also, including long-tail keyword within featured snippet will help in voice search performance. There are three types of featured snippets:
- Paragraphs: This is most common type of snippets that often appears in question-based queries. Try to answer the question within the first paragraph of the page and include information for user to click through to learn more for increasing click through rate.
- Lists: This feature results for questions like how-to, recipes, ranked lists, etc. The advantage of using lists snippet is that user is bound to click through to see remaining information.
- Tables: To rank for this featured snippet, larger is better: By having more than four rows to your table, you’ll raise the probability of click throughs. However, table data is not easy to extract for voice search.
- Focus on natural language keywords:
We tend to write short phrases while searching on desktop. But on mobile, the searches are more of interactive with a virtual assistant and it is a smarter way of conversation being powered by Artificial Intelligence.
For example, when you search for Paleo diet via typing on your phone or computer, you might write “How to follow Paleo diet.” This is computer language.
If you use voice search, you will probably ask a question, like “How do you follow the Paleo diet if you’re an Athlete?”
Voice search is more likely to contain question phrases and speech searches are longer through the tail.
Pro tip: Although phrases should be short, long-form content with 1800 to 2500 words would still rank better on both voice search and traditional search listings.
- Keep Mobile First Approach:
We tend to write short phrases while searching on desktop. But on mobile, the searches are more of interactive with a virtual assistant and it is a smarter way of conversation being powered by Artificial Intelligence.
For example, when you search for Paleo diet via typing on your phone or computer, you might write “How to follow Paleo diet.” This is computer language.
If you use voice search, you will probably ask a question, like “How do you follow the Paleo diet if you’re an Athlete?”
Voice search is more likely to contain question phrases and speech searches are longer through the tail.
Pro tip: Although phrases should be short, long-form content with 1800 to 2500 words would still rank better on both voice search and traditional search listings.
- Keep Mobile First Approach:
Google reveals that over 20% of searches on an Android device are voice searches. This number is expected to go upto 50% by 2020.
- Create Voice Search FAQ Pages:
If you want your website to be optimized for voice search, you should be able to provide answers to FAQs for your readers. You would be probably required to answer some of the most frequent questions related to your industry.
- Answer all possible clients’ questions related to a topic:
For voice search optimization, it is recommended to research with a tool such as Answer the Public. It returns a bunch of relevant questions for entered keyword.
You should always try to understand a user’s intent based on the type of question phrase they use. ‘What’ and ‘Who’ questions indicate that a user is in the research phase. If they are asking ‘Where’ questions, they are almost ready to purchase.
Other ways to optimize for voice search.
- Provide short and snappy answers to questions
- Create voice search FAQ pages
- Think about user intent
- Create focused content
- Create tangential content based on focused content
- Do not brand ToFu content
- Use Alt Image
2. Adapting SEO for future:
The future will be much more complex than just optimizing your website.
Voice search optimization has proven to perk up brand awareness, online purchases and profits. Optimizing your site for voice search now will help your brand grow and you’ll likely be ahead of the competition. Voice search will definitely change digital marketing for the better and will soon see what future has in store for us!
The next obvious step will be to create conversation engine with targeted keywords.
- Technology should understand intelligent conversational and SHOULD speak human language
- API tools lie API. AI is useful in building conversational interfaces for chatbots, smart home devices, wearable etc.
- Leverages Speech to Text, Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence
Conclusion
Investing in voice search optimization has confirmed enhanced brand awareness, increased online presence, purchases and profits.
In fact, one study shows that voice search ecommerce has increased Amazon revenue to $1.8 billion. That figure alone is expected to increase to $40 billion by the year 2022.
It is evident that optimizing your site for voice search now will keep ahead of the competition and strong voice search rankings will effectively grow your brand long-term and who knows, if the next Google search core algorithm update is based on voice search parameters. Embrace, voice search is coming.
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