After a year at home, you’re probably sick of the sound of your own voice. If that’s the case, you might not enjoy the way the technology is shaping up to promote voice searching this year. 2021 is going to be the year of many things (hopefully), like public hugging, beer gardens, sporting events, festivals and lots more. It’s also going to be the year that voice searching becomes an everyday business implementation and marketing tool.
Why voice search? 🤔
We bet you’ve tried a voice search recently! “Alexa play Kings of Leon.” “Siri, where’s the nearest supermarket?” “Hey Google, is it going to rain today?” 1. A great band choice 2. probably pretty close, and 3. of course it’s going to rain; we live in Manchester.
Voice search is everywhere; that’s precisely why it’s become so popular. Whether it’s the Alexa or Google speakers sitting fashionably in living rooms across the country, or Siri, who is hiding out of sight in your iPhone, voice search won’t be far away.
As is often the case, the more frequently a certain technology is used, the more marketing departments look to leverage it. With that being said, we know what you’re thinking. Is it here to stay? And if so, how can I implement it within my business?
Here to stay? 👍
Predicting how long technology will hang around is tricky. How long is a piece of string, comes to mind. However, when it comes to voice search, it’s evident that we love the concept a little more each year. In the last year, we have seen the capabilities of voice search drastically increase. No longer is Siri only around to tell you that Australia’s capital isn’t Sydney…we must remember Canberra by now.
The proof is the pudding with voice search, as the research has highlights more of us are using it. The most popular times being whilst in the car and or doing another activity. These figures highlight the true use of voice search. It’s able to provide us with information whilst we are busy multitasking.
How well it will work for you, of course, boils down to the user intent when interacting with their device. It’s not about brand recognition when it comes to voice search; it’s about your potential clients being given the right information at the right time.
Answering questions 🙋
It’ll come as no surprise that having the correct answers to specific questions within your website will score well when it comes to voice search. The technology at the moment is still mainly being used to satisfy our hunger for knowledge.
The key to getting this right is knowing what your customer will ask. This is a much more difficult proposition than it sounds. But having specific knowledge around your demographic, including where they live and terminology they may use, will help you in the long term.
Long-tail keywords 🖥️
Long-tail keywords have been the talk of marketing departments for years. It’s those low ranking, high conversation keywords that you want your website to include.
This is due to the context of the language we use. We are more likely to ask, “Why is voice search so popular in business?” than “why voice search?” Optimising your information to include long-tail keywords will increase your chances of winning the voice search battle.
Google My Business 📍
This one goes without saying, but you would be amazed at the number of businesses whose Google My Business is outdated. Voice search is an incredibly handy directional tool; for example, “find me the nearest café.”
If you haven’t updated your info and it still says your old business location, do you think your potential customer will make it to you? …they won’t! Update all your information, make sure it’s easy to find you.
Enrich your media 📷
Your media holds a lot more value than just looking pretty on your website. Tag all photos with valuable information about both your business and the image itself.
Google has become obsessive over the past few years about how enriched your media is. As the crawling bots’ flick through your site, spoon-feed them the information they need, don’t hide it.
When it comes to your written content, Google wants to see moderate length to assure the questions being asked by voice searchers are answered whilst not being stuffed with pointless filler text.
If you want to learn a little more about optimising your website to meet the voice search generation’s needs, get in touch. You can give us a call or send a message, and we will be more than happy to help your business take advantage of voice search today.
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