Voice search capabilities are being increasingly used over the past few years. From smartphones to smart homes, searching for the answers to your queries are as easy as asking the question aloud. This year alone, more than 65% of people aged 25-49, use voice-activated technology. So, does this mean you should be setting your sights on voice search marketing?
In short, yes. We’ve all become familiar with the range of voice assistants (or intelligent assistants) that have arrived alongside our smartphones and smart homes. There’re the dulcet tones of Microsoft’s Cortana, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and did anyone else know that Samsung’s is called Bixby? There’s a wealth of AI assistants just waiting to be activated to tell their users the solutions to their problems – which could easily be you.
The growing popularity of these voice search assistants has paved way for change when it comes to SEO ranking. You’ll already be aware of the pillars of how to get a high ranking on a SERP: how fast your site loads, the readability of your content, and high-quality backlinks, but how do these relate to voice search technology?
When a user uses voice search to answer their query, their results load 52% faster than it would through the normal avenues of searching. This is massive for your SEO rankings. Users will lose patience and leave your site if it takes a long time to load, and the timeframe in which that will happen is surprisingly short. Google found that 53% of mobile users will leave a website within three seconds if it hasn’t fully loaded within that time. So, by being discoverable through voice search means that your page will load faster for your potential customer, making your chances of ranking higher that much bigger.
This begs the question: how do you make sure your site is chosen for voice search results?
The good news is that if you’re already curating your content to follow the best practices of SEO, you’re in good standing to be chosen. However, this does not mean that you should be putting voice search optimisation on the backburner as it is not a biproduct of good SEO. Voice search is growing in popularity at an almost alarming rate, users now want to bypass the task of typing altogether in favour of being able to speak their queries instead, meaning there are different ways you can optimise your content alongside the written SEO parameters.
Now that users are submitting queries in a way other than text, the world of keywords has opened further. The nature of voice searches means that startups can use more and longer keywords in their content, which includes keyword phrases. Since most voice searches are questions, you can include relevant question keyword phrases which mirror the questions your users are asking, all making your content more likely to be picked up and chosen by the almighty algorithm. This is informed by the colloquial language users use when speaking, so the voice search AI can be spoken to like they’re a human being and are still able to find the right results.
So far, it sounds like optimising content for voice search is all about being fast and snappy. Users are choosing voice search for that reason, which means your content should be the same. It must be informed enough that users are satisfied with their result, interesting enough that they’ll want to click through to find out more, and short enough that it keeps their attention; and this all has to be conveyed in 29 words. You read correctly, the average length of voice search results are 29 words long, and somehow include all those components listed above.
Users are three times more likely to utilise their voice search technology when they’re in need of finding ‘local’ results, things like takeaways, vets, and hairdressers, for example. Near me queries are a great chance for local businesses and small businesses to get their time to shine. If you fall into this category, taking a look at and maybe refreshing your location information and making it a more prominent part of your startup marketing strategy will help your chances to show up in a SERP.
You can also make sure your social media presences are up to scratch as well, as the more shares your content and sites have, the more likely you are to be chosen as a result. Research shows that voice search results are made up of the first three SERP results, so having a solid overall SEO strategy will be beneficial for your voice search performance.
As the versatility of voice search technology continues to grow, with users now utilising voice assistants to do more than just find information but organise their lives through being able to place orders, creating additions to their calendars, accept meeting invitations, and so much more, it makes sense that marketers are going to be including this in their strategies.
If including voice search in your marketing strategy still feels like too big of a task, contact us at blazon and we can use our marketing knowledge to help you feel at ease.
