Why is Voice Search so Important?

Virtually everyone owns a smartphone, and over half of these users now use voice technology on a daily basis. Voice assistants are currently being used for music, weather, alarms, local information and news.

By 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice search. Crazy we know!

Voice assistants are becoming embedded into the fabric of everyday life for many people. Their prevalence in homes across the globe has grown at a substantial level. Most assistants are used in the bedroom, car, kitchen and living room.

68% of those that currently use voice search claim it is quicker to reach an answer than typing the question into a search engine.

“Alexa where is my nearest Auto Repair Service?”

Staying ahead of the latest technology is crucial to effectively compete with the giants in your industry. Get heard by your audience!

Who is Leading The Market?

Alexa still reigns as queen of the voice assistants, with 56% of responders owning the Amazon device. It’s followed by Siri, the assistant-of-choice for iPhone owners, which is used by 39%, and Google Home with 25%. Cortana and Bixby with just 5% and 2% of the market.

What’s The Difference Between Voice Search and Typed Search?

The way we speak to digital assistants differs massively to the way we type queries into search engines, this creates a broad range of conversational keywords your business should be targeting. For example, you might Google search “Miso Soup Ingredients”, but you are more likely to say “How do I make Miso Soup at home”. The type of searches can be divided into four ‘search moments’:

Voice Search Optimisation

Different search engines are used for different voice assistant devices.

Alexa is powered by Amazon, which uses Bing’s search engine, where as Google Home of course uses Google search.

There are of other voice devices such as Cortana, powered by Microsoft & Bing and Mercedes which is also powered by Bing.

Optimising for voice search means focusing on Bing Places, Yelp and Googles featured snippets. There are huge differences between optimising for local voice search and for national voice search.

40% of voice search results come from featured snippets. That’s why it is so important to understand what your audience is looking for and how your business can best solve that problem.

Once we delve into the keyword research, we tailor your content and tags around those conversational keywords. We optimise your content for long and short search queries, offering a range of information around a broad topic, whilst embedding short answers and keywords into it.

Making text more readable and offering a more natural tone of voice makes it easier for digital assistants to crawl through your content and find the best answers to that search query.

Quicker
Answers

Your audience are searching for answers more quickly. As soon as a search query comes into their head, your business should be able to answer that for them. This can be on a local or national scale.

“Where is the nearest florist to me?”

“What is the best window for my french doors?”

If you search for a more complex product name that you may not remember the spelling of, speaking the search term is proven to be more effective than typing it. This makes for more efficient searching!

On-the-go
Mobile Ready

Optimise your business to be mobile ready, not only with responsive website design but voice search optimisation.

 Google powered voice devices get all of their results from featured snippets. Over 97% of featured snippets are sourced from the first page. Google crawls through a range of things like reviews and content to decide whether your result matches the voice query.

We are on verge of accessing BIG data through voice and having a never ending supply of data.  “What are SME Business sales trends” and immediately receive back the charts and data.

Google, Siri, Alexa…

Digital Assistant technologies are already widely used in the industry. Optimising your website for voice search allows your to be responsive on every voice search platform, no matter what device your audience are searching on.

Industry leading companies are beginning to partner with with different search engines, one will soon outperform the other. Lenovo, Sony, JVC, Philips and Samsung are blowing the Google whistle. Whereas Leviton, Lutron,  Kohler, Vector and Cybic (a few less wwell known brands) are swinging towards Amazon Alexa.

Voice Strategy
Creation

Our Digital Marketing team will develop a voice resource file that allows us to map out a voice search strategy. This will cover keyword research, optimisation strategies, customer journey and website consultancy.

Voice Conversation
Mapping

Researching keywords, conversation queries, tone of voice and semantic variations allows us to create long and short content, to content, tags and snippets.

Local Search Optimisation
for Voice

Capture the attention of local customers by optimising your Google profile to answer any search query. For example, Google My Business allows digital assistants to see your location and answer local search and direction queries.