How Do Voice Searches Affect Digital Marketing Strategies?

1. How Do Voice Searches Affect Digital Marketing Strategies? How Do Voice Searches Affect Digital Marketing Strategies? Digital Marketing strategies have always evolved and adapted to changing technologies. Google’s ambition to become the number one search engine on the web made online marketers upgrade their knowledge and skills over and over again. Be it content or site optimization (Panda Update - 2011), link building (Penguin Update – 2012) or Mobile responsiveness (Mobilegeddon – 2015), marketing strategies have been constantly updating to meet the current trends. Although voice search does not fall under the category of a new algorithmic update, yet its influence on SEO is quite visible. For the last 2-3 years, voice search has been gaining momentum in the digital world. In 2014, a Google study by the Northstar Research reported that about 55% of teens and 40% of adults were using the voice search technology. A 2017 article by Branded3 (https://www.branded3.com/blog/google-voice-search-stats-growth-trends/) further reported that there has been a 35x increase in the number of voice searches from 2008-2016. Google CEO Sundar Pichai also announced recently, that 20% of all mobile queries they get are in voice. Now, all these numbers point toward one direction only – Voice is probably the future of search. Well, there are some good reasons why people are more inclined to speak out rather than typing their queries. Those are:  The convenience offered – Most people use their mobile internet on the move. And, talking

2. to their cell phones is more convenient than typing in the search phrases.  The conversational tone – People love to converse in their natural language, be it a human or a machine. And, when the machine answers in the same tone, they are delighted.  Voice Recognition Has Evolved – Gone are those days when you had to shout angrily to your phone to help them understand what you wish to search for. The voice recognition technology has evolved over the years to become more precise and accurate.  Advanced Technologies – Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Google have come up with amazing digital assistants namely, Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Google Assistant. With their superior quality voice recognition technology, they are taking the conversational search up the popularity ladder. How Does This Affect Existing Digital Marketing (SEO) Strategies? With no change in the fundamental ranking algorithm for voice and traditional searches, the difference lies in the nature of search queries, also known as keywords. When you are typing the key phrases, you normally do not use prepositions, articles or conjunctions in your search queries. For example, if you wish to know the name of Google CEO, you will probably type “Google CEO” in the search box and the search engine will come up with the name and details of Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of the organization. But, when you are using the voice technology, you are more likely to speak in a conversational tone like “Who is the CEO of Google?” or “Who is Google’s CEO?”. However, queries that give a single, specific result do not pose much threat to the existing SEO strategies. The voice queries starting with “Who”, “When” and sometimes, “What”, will give similar results to traditional searches. But, the problem starts when people start asking questions with “How”, “Why” and “What”. For example:    How to unblock my sewer drain? How to landscape my garden? What are the differences between Android Marshmallow and Nougat?

3.    What is the weather like in Arizona now? Why should I update mobile software regularly? What is the need to opt for website security services? And, so on. At present, the standard SEO practices do not optimize content based on such long tail keywords. But, the popularity of voice searches surely signifies that such keywords will be really important in the future. When a user searches with voice, only the websites that meet the criteria will rank higher on the Google SERPs. What Should You Do Now? Pretty soon, it will become mandatory for every digital marketing company to include voice queries in their SEO keyword lists. Otherwise, they are going to miss out on a large share of the mobile audience. This apart, there are a few other techniques that you can follow to optimize content based on voice search and enhance your internet marketing services.  Develop content that answers questions. The users need specific information. Give them that and more on the related topic.  Put traditional keywords in the back seat when developing content for websites. Emphasize on relevant information instead of optimizing your content for keywords only.  Create online forums that encourage natural conversations and enhance a website’s ranking with respect to semantic searches. Semantic searches are a product of Google’s RankBrain [http://searchengineland.com/faq-all-about-the-new-google-rankbrain-algorithm- 234440]algorithm that prefers content complying with the needs of users and not only the terms.  Optimize websites using Schema Markup [https://blog.kissmetrics.com/get-started-using- schema]. It is a code put on a website to return more informative content to the user. In other words, this code instructs the search engine to show relevant information from the website while displaying it on the Google SERPs.  Add FAQ pages to your website. Those will include all the relevant queries starting with “How”, “Why”, “When”, What”, the phrases most used in voice searches.  When optimizing any website, conduct keyword researches on voice queries and make your list accordingly. Some 10 years back, it was not possible to imagine talking to a hand-held device that answers back to you. But now, digital technology is advancing at the pace of a Cheetah, making it important to keep yourselves updated. If you are still in doubt about the advancements in voice search, you can always consult an expert digital marketing agency for more industry-specific details. After all, if

4. you follow the statistics, voice search is not going anywhere in the future. It is here to stay and it will, influencing user searches like the ways mentioned above. So, gear up, gain insight and outgrow your competitors! Do you have any other query regarding Voice Search Optimization? Let us know what you feel in the comment box provided below. We would love to hold an informative discussion anytime. You can read the full content: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-do-voice-searches-affect- digital-marketing-raju-chakrabort y -------------------------- WebGuru Infosystems WebGuru Infosystems Email ID: enquiry@webguru-india.com Phone No.: +91-33-40200844 Mobile No.: +91-9831159354 Visit Us: http://www.webguru-india.com Stay Connected Via: https://www.facebook.com/webguruinfosystems https://www.linkedin.com/company/webguru-infosystems-pvt--ltd- https://twitter.com/webgurutweet