Voice Search And The Future Of SEO Marketing

Voice search has quickly become more and more universal.  From smart speakers to smart phones, nearly everyone has the capability of performing a voice search.  This function can have a profound effect on your search engine optimization strategy and how you market your business.  And if you look at some of the statistics, it’s clear that voice search optimization is only going to become a more important part of any marketing plan.

The Basics of Voice Searching

To begin with, what exactly is voice searching?  The answer may seem simple enough.  Using a smart device, a user can simply speak what they want to search for out loud and the virtual assistant connected to their device will return the query with a list of results found on the web. How this works, in practice, is very similar to how any other web browser or search engine collects and delivers data to a user.  Only instead of responding to typed out commands, it turns the user’s voice into a searchable query by digitizing the user’s voice, conducting an analysis of the query and returning the results gathered from its search.  A process that has come a long way and some people are even using voice search to find samples in songs.

A Conversation with Voice SEO

Here is where a key difference can emerge, with voice SEO.  Users of smart devices are more likely to take a more conversational tone when speaking, than typing.  This seems intuitive enough, but it is also where the impact on SEO marketing can be seen.  While using SEO keywords to increase your visibility in search results favors shorter and more concise language, voice search SEO tends to favor long-tail keywords. This shouldn’t pose too big of a problem if you are following best practices for web design and SEO, but it is another thing to keep in mind as you are building your website or just performing regular maintenance. When adding or updating copy to your website, there are two things to keep in mind. First, is the overall tone.  Adopting a more conversational tone in your copy will match with the conversational nature of the user making a voice search.  Second, is including the phrases and long-tail keywords that might show up in these searches to take advantage of how people using voice search engage with their smart devices.

Mobile Optimization and Voice SEO

And as it is more than likely that people will be using voice search on a mobile device, it is becoming all the more important that you make sure your website is mobile-friendly.  Which helps serve that reminder to always check your website across multiple devices as you make your updates. Another thing to keep in mind is that users will most likely be including the phrase “near me” in their searches.  This means making sure you stay up to date on your local SEO.  Ensuring that your website has all of your relevant details, like address and phone number, are accurate and that you have this information in your Google Business Profile as well. Voice search, while by no means new (it can be traced as far back as the 1950s) is one thing to keep in mind as you plan out your marketing strategies.  It can also help to remind you of other important facets of digital marketing as it works well with some of the best practices that are involved and can help to think of novel new approaches to your strategies as technology continues to develop and evolve. And if you’re looking to brush up on some of those SEO marketing skills, we have courses available that could help with just that.