You may have recently purchased a Smart Speaker. If not, you most likely know a person or perhaps several who have as they have become very popular.
Growing from just 1.7 million units shipped in 2015 to an estimated 25 million in 2018, 55 percent of all households in the United States are expected are expected to have at least one device installed in their home. This number represents 70 million households and 175 million devices.
Voice controls are increasing across other platforms including PCs, tablets, smart TVs, cars and wearables. Combined with smart phones and smart speakers, a total of 870 million voice assistant devices are expected to be in use in the United States. This represents an increase of 95% from the 450 million devices estimated to be in use in 2017.
If you are a local business and don’t think that this relevant to your success, think again.
The growth of voice-activated devices has spawned a new industry, voice search.
Why optimize voice search for local business
While relatively new, voice search is growing rapidly. A recent study by BrightLocal found:
- 58% of consumers have used voice search to find local business information in the last 12 months.
- 46% of voice search users look for a local business on a daily basis.
- 27% visit the website of a local business after making a voice search
- 76% of smart speaker users perform local searches at least weekly, with 53% of searchers using the device every day.
And, there is plenty more room for growth:
- 25% of consumers say they have not yet tried local voice search, but would consider it.
- Just 18% of consumers have used smart speakers for local voice searches.
The rapid growth of voice search is changing the face of search.
How search is changing
In the beginning, Google started with just one algorithm showing search results for desktop, mobile and local queries. As secondary channels rapidly grew, Google created separate search algorithms for each major channel, namely local search and mobile search algorithms.
These separate search algorithms increased the difficulty and complexity of search engine optimization (SEO). No longer would an SEO have to optimize for just one algorithm, digital marketers would have to optimize for three, desktop, local, and mobile if they wanted to target all of the search channels.
Related to local search and mobile search comes a forth search channel, voice search.
What is Voice SEO
Voice SEO is the optimization of keywords and keyword phrases for searches using voice assistants. It is required for websites to show up in results for searches conducted through voice assistants or smart speakers.
In 2018, 25% of Google searches were voice searches. For Bing, this number is 25%.
As adoption of voice assistants continues to increase, the importance of voice SEO will continue to increase.
What is a voice assistant?
A voice assistant is also referred to as a ‘smart speaker’. It is a digital assistant that are increasingly being used in voice recognition applications, smart phones and tablets. They use voice recognition, natural language processing and speech synthesis to assist users.
Voice assistants are built on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and voice recognition technology. As the user interacts with the digital assistant, the software uses advanced algorithms to learn from the data input to improve upon predicting the user’s needs.
The more common voice assistants include:
- Apple’s Siri
- Google Now
- Google Assistant
- Amazon’s Alexa
- Microsoft’s Cortana
These new devices make it easier than ever for people to ask a question and the information from their device, whether it be a smart phone or virtual assistant. This allows for a more natural way to interact with machines in a conversational manner. Using their voice, users can play music, turn on lights, search for a local business, get information, or order products.
Voice search is resulting in greater connectivity between digital channels. For example, a Google Home tip can show up on your desk top, providing guidance on how to best use Google Home Assistant.
Why is it important to local business?
Hopefully, we have made the case for voice activated devices and voice search, consider the following regarding local search:
- 50% of search is performed on a non-PC device
- 82% of mobile users “search” for a local business
- 50% of mobile visitors who perform a local search will visit a store with 1 day, and
- 18% of local searches lead to a sale within 24 hours.
To summarize, the growth of the market for voice-activated devices is driving the growth of voice search. The two are strongly related to local search. As a result, if you are a local business, you need to be aware of voice search and should be optimizing your website for it.
A word of caution, the increasing importance of voice search does not take away from the importance of conventional and local SEO to the digital marketing success of local businesses. This is another marketing channel that a local business should address to increase the success of their digital marketing activities.
How to optimize for voice SEO
Unlike the form of search we are most used to that involves keywords and keyword phrases, voice search is more natural in tone and conversational. It is typically mobile and much more locally focused. Because voice search is more conversational than conventional search, search queries are usually longer.
Mobile SEO is about providing the best results for on-the-go searchers. Mobile search algorithms search for easily identifiable, short and relevant pieces of content to serve back to the searcher. Here is how to optimize for voice search for local business.
Google My Business and other Directories
Voice assistants rely on information about your business found online. The 800 pound gorilla is of course Google. For that reason, it is important to claim your Google My Business listing. This is important since so many voice searches are local in nature.
Each voice assistant relies on different data sources to answer local search queries. The following voice assistants use the following data sources as of this writing:
Apple Siri
Search: Google
Business listings: Apple maps
Reviews: Yelp
Alexa
Search: Bing
Business listings: Yelp and Yext
Reviews: Yelp
Google Assistant
Search: Google
Business listings: Google My Business
Reviews: Google My Business
Cortana
Search: Bing
Business listings: Bing
Reviews: Yelp
Because of the importance of voice assistants in local search, these data sources merit special attention to ensure that your business is listed correctly and optimized.
- Google My Business – create your listing
- Apple Maps – create your listing
- Bing – create your listing
- Yelp – create your listing
Keywords and keyword phrases for Voice SEO
In a desktop world, people search using keywords and keyword phrases. In voice search, queries are more conversational. The keywords that one is optimizing for needs to reflect this.
Conversational search queries have more words in them than text-based search queries. In fact, they most closely resemble long-tail search queries in that they are composed of several words.
It all starts with your keyword strategy. As a result, it must be move conversational in nature and reflect how real people ask questions and conduct vocal search. To get going, start thinking about the most common questions you receive from people calling your business for information then start documenting the exact words they use when they call.
Once you have documented your of questions and statements from customers and prospects, start creating content pages that focus on the longer, conversational search terms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your keywords for voice search should ideally be integrated throughout your website. However, it should not be done so at the expense of your conventional keyword and keyword phrase driven content. Rather, it should be integrated into those pages if you can do so in a manner that is not confusing to your users.
If you can’t get it to work, do panic. The ‘Frequently asked Questions’ page is perfectly structured for conversational keywords. If your website doesn’t have a ‘frequently asked questions’ page, add one.
The FAQ page is just that, a list of frequently asked questions. When creating your list, try to group common questions together by section, if possible. Instead of keywords and keyword phrases, use natural sounding questions and phrases.
If you have a large number of questions, they don’t all have to be put on the same page. You can create several different pages so that the voice search technologies have a better chance of finding the information on your site.
When writing your FAQ section, anticipate direct questions from searchers. Searches will change from ‘best all-weather tires’ to something along the lines of ‘Alexa, what are the best all-weather tires for a front-wheel drive car’. When crafting your responses, offer quick, succinct responses.
Going forward, hyper-specific searches will become more popular.
While it seems like a daunting task, creating these individual snippets of content centered around specific search questions that people are asking. They can only help your site show up in voice search results. A secondary benefit is that it increases your chances of appearing in a