Optimizing Your Content For Voice Search
There are several reasons why the use of voice search has become more popular. Not only have digital assistants and voice recognition advanced to a point where accuracy isn’t a significant concern, but many major players, from Amazon to Apple, have released speakers for their digital assistants. How does this impact your business, and what can you do to help ensure you're able to reach customers who are using voice search? Read on to find out!
Does Voice Search Matter?
When it comes to voice-activated speakers, 72% of people with home speakers state using theirs is part of their daily routine. Some even see the device more as a friend or assistant than a search engine. Mobile voice searches have also risen in popularity. According to Wordstream, adult users most frequently use voice search to ask for directions, dictate text, or make phone calls, according to WordStream. People tend to use voice search for short queries, because they find using voice search doesn’t pull them out of the moment, compared to using a screen.
What Does Voice Search Use Look Like?
Voice-Activated Speakers
Just over half of people with a voice-activated speaker have it placed in a common area such as the living room. The other individuals are evenly divided between placing it in the kitchen or the bedroom area. Most of these individuals use it from home and find it to be especially useful when their hands or vision are otherwise occupied This enables consumers to search without using the shorthand common in typed searches: most keywords are searched using natural language.
Mobile
While speakers are popular, many people also make use of voice search.
Who Is Using Voice Search?
A few different demographics are frequent users of voice search:
- Boomers tend to use it the most, for both personal use and business use.
- Additionally, a February 2018 Think With Google report revealed that parents are the “power users” of voice search. They tend to lean on digital assistants for to-do lists, managing the family calendar, searching information, and even to check on sports scores.
- In busy households, the report adds, a large number of children are also using the speaker to listen to music, play games, ask to hear jokes or animal sounds, demonstrating that younger generations will be voice-search savvy from a young age.
Some also speculate that elderly individuals might also find voice search with a digital speaker more intuitive than using a tablet or phone, especially if they are not accustomed to technology or have more sight.
Why Should You Optimize Your Site For Voice Search?
Voice search has the potential to make search more competitive, because of the fact that it often provides only the most relevant result. Since the search is done via voice, the customer won't have to look at and choose different results after asking their question.
How can you help secure that top spot? Here are 9 key tips:
- Consider how your content sounds out loud, as well as how it is displayed.
- Target long-tail keywords.
- Write long-form content addressing common questions.
- Use trigger words, such as “how” “what” and “best” in your copy.
- Follow SEO best practices.
- Keep your pages fast: the average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds.
- 70.4% of voice search result URLs have adopted HTTPS (compared to only 50% of Google desktop results).
- Keep snippets of content short.
- Consider adding structured data: while there is contention as to whether this boosts your eligibility for voice search results, there are many additional benefits to using schema markup.
Want To Learn More About Optimizing Your Site For Voice Search?
Get in touch with our Calgary marketing and web development company. In addition to our unwavering dedication to ensuring our clients’ success, we keep abreast of the latest industry developments to help you stay ahead of the curve. Call us at 587-880-3358 or send us a message through our online contact form.
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