Voice Search : On the Rise

“Hey Siri”, “Okay Google”, “Alexa?”

These are just a few of the phrases you’ll now hear on a daily basis, without batting an eyelid!

Technology has developed so much over the past few years, you can now talk to the internet.

Mad ey?!

But, what does the increase in Voice Search mean for SEO?

Well, when you’re shouting ‘OK Google, What is the capital of Spain?’, this is completely different to the search terminology we were analysing in Search Console just a few years ago.

Let me explain…

With voice search through personal assistants on the rise, we’re able to report the increase of more long tail, conversational phrases and local search.

So, rather than sitting at our desktops typing in ‘Coffee Shops Manchester’, we’re now asking our personal assistants ‘Where’s the closest Coffee Shop?’.

This means we not only need to start thinking of optimising our pages for more conversational terms, but LSI keywords too.

In the industry as a whole, we should be constantly analysing new technologies and identifying various ways in how these could be affecting our marketing strategies and approaches across the board.

The Facts (so far!)

Back in 2016, Google actually reported that 20% of mobile queries are voice searches.

And after analysing hundreds of millions of queries,  Hitwise believe that almost 60% of all searches are coming from mobile devices.

Which is insane when you think about it. And especially when you think about how much more we’re all talking to our mobiles, compared with 2 years ago!

In fact, in 2017, VoiceLabs recorded that there were a total of 33 million voice-first devices in circulation.

So putting that into perspective…

W O W !

Also, thanks to Bing’s Purna Virji, we actually have some great *bonus* insights on the rise of using voice search, in fact, a little too much for my liking!

I mean, come on.. the bathroom?!

So, what does the digital marketing industry think about how we should adapt our approach?

There are thousands of new theories flying around the industry for their approach to voice search – and it’s bound to differ dependent on industry, and personal opinions (as always!).

Neil Patel, has actually crafted his very own blog, on the top 4 ways you can optimise for voice search.

In which, he recommends…

“You need to carefully listen to the words people use when talking about you.

Once you have collected their common questions and phrases, you can create content for them.

Most companies limit these efforts to a single FAQ page. I recommend creating dedicated blog posts based on your customers’ questions.

You can also optimize the existing content on your blog and product pages for these queries.

Finding the questions of your audience and answering them through blog posts will not help with voice search alone.”

Although this is the case, Brian Dean explains the continued focus of page speed now matters more than ever, after analysing over 10,000 Google Home results.

He quotes:

“PageSpeed appears to play a major role in voice search SEO. The average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds (52% faster than the average page).”

Whilst also adding:

“We found that very few voice search results had the exact query in their title tag. Therefore, creating individual pages for each voice search query doesn’t appear to be an effective voice search SEO strategy.”

As well as this, Brian Dean’s study confirmed that long-form content is also the way to go:

“The average word count of a voice search result page is 2,312 words. Therefore, Google tends to source voice search answers from long form content.”

Yes, this is a lot to take in, but there’s also a lot more to think about…

And with voice search on the rise, we all need to unlock the key to success!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how voice search is going to impact the industry in years to come, so feel free to comment below 🙂