Voice search is the future. Almost 30 to 50% of searches will be done by voice search in 2020 as per industry insights. You might have heard about Google Home and Amazon Alexa. These tech giants have already taken a step to revolutionize the digital market using voice search, and needless to say, other companies have started following suit.
Time is of the essence. Now simply instead of typing, people prefer using voice search to get instant results while continuing their day to day tasks. The content results are catered mostly from search engines like Google. Businesses are told to scale themselves in the voice search market as experts have indicated that results from voice search will be used to rank websites and its content heavily.
With over $1.8 billion in revenue, Amazon is expected to make a solid jump of $40 billion in the next 3 years using the power of voice search optimization. Voice-based gadgets and smart assistants are hot stuff in the market as they continue to make our lives easier. From this, you can understand how voice search is invading the digital marketing space rapidly.
There are a couple of techniques that can help you optimize your SEO as per the requirements and needs of Voice Search Optimization. Let’s look at some of them.
1. Learn the skills of the game
Start making decisions that can cater a wider audience using voice search, such that it is easier to switch while the market is hot. Take actions or create a app that can help you reach more people using voiced based devices. To keep your brand relevant and popular you need to create applications that provide the right content for your audience. Making design and marketing decisions voice friendly is also a good way to stay ahead of your peers.
2. Improving website speed score
According to Google’s Speed Update, higher preference is given to websites that have a good page speed score for providing voice search results. This is necessary as loading of usual search results take a longer time as compared to voice results. Having a good speed score indicates that your website loads faster and can be used to provide instant results according to user’s expectations. To ensure a good speed score make sure that your files are compressed, site is responsive, server’s response time is less, images are properly optimized and website caching is implemented. Also make sure that your website has a more structured content hierarchy by enabling AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
3. Target Long Tail Keywords
People ask detailed questions when they speak unlike short, concise phrases that they use when they search on desktops. So in voice search, we can expect people to search the way they speak and targeting long tail keywords is a fool proof way of ranking higher in voice search results.
4. Writing content, the way you speak
This is a no-brainer. If you write the way you speak, you are more likely to address directly to users queries. Try to include content that sounds more natural as opposed to the short, snappy bullet points that is very common in web copy.
5. Podcasts
Among the voice search trends, podcasts are fast gaining popularity. Podcasts are easy audio-based lectures that are used to provide knowledge to their listeners using apps like Google Music, Spotify, etc. As far as online marketing is concerned, 7 Figure Furnace provides great podcasts on marketing discussions with internet made millionaires.
In case you want, you can subscribe here. Analyze your products and services and create voice based content through podcasts.
6. Provide voice searches as a service
With the emergence of voice search and the opportunities for you to get more traffic come new ways for you make money too if you’re smart enough to spot the opportunity and apply yourself. Software products and training courses like Skilexa have been created to let you provide voice search functions for clients … so just like everyone went wild as local searches were something all businesses were (understandably) happy to invest in … now, comes the era of local business throwing money to get noticed in a whole new way – which is great news for us entrepreneurs!
These are some useful suggestions for you to stay ahead of the game. A popular issue right now is that you cannot yet view your voice search rankings. There were reports that a digital agency named Roast was implementing an automation software that allowed them to run reports and other queries for their clients. But the report was not deemed perfect, though it is an indicator that it can pave the way for more precise voice search ranking results in the coming years.
Nevertheless, increase in online purchases, revenue and brand awareness has been proven for companies like Amazon who have invested in voice search optimization. Optimizing your website for voice search now will establish better voice search rankings for your brand in the near future.
