What You Need to Know About Voice Search

Smartphone assistants like Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Assistant are making it easier than ever to ask rather than type queries into mobile search engines. Using just your voice, you can play music, order food and find the answers to virtually any question or need you encounter. Voice search is growing at a rapid pace – and why wouldn’t it? Voice search is fast, convenient, easy and becoming increasingly reliable.

How Popular is Voice Search

The statistics below demonstrate the increasing popularity of voice search:

• By 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches
• Google voice search queries were 35 times greater in 2016 than they were in 2008
• 55% of teens and 40% of adults use voice search on a daily basis
• 19% of people use Siri at least once a day

The movement towards voice search is significant for every business owner with a website, as content and SEO tactics that work for desktop searches are not as effective for voice search.

As SEO and digital marketing professionals, it is our responsibility to ensure we adjust our SEO and content creation strategies to remain effective as voice search grows (check out this article for more information on voice search).

How can We Adjust Our SEO for Voice Search?

The way that people search by voice is not the same as the way they search by typing. Voice searches are long, conversational, specific and localised. Here are a few ways we can adjust our SEO services to target voice searches:

We can use long tail, conversational keywords

According to Moz, while typed searches have an average of 2 words, voice searches are at least 3 words long and this is expected to grow. When people search by typing, they tend to use shorthand – for example ‘digital marketing Brisbane’. When they search by voice, however, their tone becomes much more conversational and they ask complete questions (like ‘what is the best digital marketing agency in Brisbane?’). This means that target keywords for voice search are much longer, more conversational and more specific than those for desktop, as they need to mimic the speaking patterns of voice searchers.

We can provide direct answers

People who search via voice are often on the go, so they want the right answer and they want it fast. Voice searchers don’t want to have to read through pages of content and put together the answer they were looking for – they want to be met with a straightforward answer immediately. We have found that two great ways to include long tail, conversational search terms (and responses) on websites are to have FAQs (frequently asked questions) and blog posts that pose questions and then answer them concisely but informatively.

We can use local keywords

According to the Internet Trends Report 2016, 22% of voice searches are for local content and information and feature words like ‘near me,’ ‘near by’ or cite a location. According to Search Engine Watch, “mobile voice-related searches are 3X more likely to be local-based than text.” This is why it’s so crucial that websites are optimized for mobile devices, and why SEO for voice search should include location-based keywords.

Studio Culture SEO

The rules of SEO are always changing. What works one day might not work the next. At Studio Culture, we deliver value to our clients by implementing search strategies that are relevant, researched and designed with results in mind.

Find out more about our SEO services

This post includes information adapted from Wix, Search Engine Land and Forbes.