Making Room for Voice Search in Your Digital Marketing Campaign

With the number of smart speakers in homes on the rise, the number of people using voice search is predicted to increase significantly over the course of 2018. It is therefore important that your business understand the nuances of voice search and tailors its marketing strategy to include voice search optimisation.

It’s impossible to deny the recent prevalence and commercial success of home smart speakers. The Amazon Echo Dot was Amazon’s best-selling product during the 2017 Christmas period, selling millions. Google has also claimed to have sold “more than one Google Home device every second since Google Home Mini started shipping in October”, which equates to close to 7.5 million sales, and recently Apple has entered the market this year with the HomePod.

Even before home smart speakers really took off in 2017, Google released the information that 20% of all mobile searches were voice searches in 2016. American marketing analyst company ComScore also stated that 40% of adults used voice search at least once a day and estimated that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be made by voice search. This year is bound to see this trend continue, so it’s important that you don’t let your business fall behind in the voice search revolution.

How is voice search different?

The truth is, people do not often type like they speak, and it’s typical for typed search queries to consist of only a few keywords. However, Google released last year that 70% of all enquiries made to Google Home products were conversational queries – like how you would pose a question to an actual person.

What changes do you need to make to your strategy?

• Long-tail keywords – it is important to consider more long-tail keywords in your SEO campaign to accommodate for more natural speech patterns.
• Answer questions – questions are very popular in voice search, so make sure that your content is answering your users’ most frequently asked questions in a direct manner.
• Featured snippets – following from the last point, providing direct answers can land you a much coveted ‘featured snippets’ section that appear at the top of Google searches. These snippets are what is often dictated as a response to a question.
• Localised voice search – according to Search Engine Watch, voices searches are three times more likely to be local-based than text, so make sure your website includes your location details so that voice searches know to suggest you.
• Mobile optimisation – with 20% of mobile searches being conducted through voice search, it’s absolutely essential that your website is optimised for mobile use.

Do you need help with your SEO campaign? Contact our professional digital marketing team for a no obligation chat about how we can help make the most of your business through digital marketing. Call us on 01202 684400 today.