December 31, 2018
Predictions say that by 2020, 50 percent of all searches will be voice searches. So not just a trend, but a must to include in your SEO strategy. Optimize your website and marketing strategy in time so that you will continue to be found in the search engines.
So if you were still doubting the power of voice search in the new year: here's your answer. The phenomenon is getting stronger and stronger, and promises to bring many great things with it. For now, that doesn't mean that regular search won't remain relevant, but it does mean that it will no longer be the only thing you need to focus your SEO strategy on.
Amazon Echo, Siri, Google Home... These are all tools used in everyday life today. That's not just about requesting random facts, but also concrete information from local businesses, for example. A study by BrightLocal in the United States shows that 46 percent of all voice searchers search for a local business this way every day. 27 percent visit a local website after such a search. More figures? By 2020, 30 percent of all searches will no longer be through a screen. Exciting!
And yet the question remains: what should you do with it as a company? It is especially important that you take into account that your customers also use voice search, or will do so in the near future. You will therefore have to adapt to be found by your target audience on a permanent basis with a plan forvoice search optimization. The existing SEO ranking factors generally remain important. For example, the security of your website is crucial, as are site speed and your domain authority. What does change? You can read about it here.
First of all, something that actually makes a lot of sense. When you speak, you automatically use different words than when you type a search term into a search engine. You automatically use spoken language. That's more natural, and you'll notice that right away in the search terms that you're better focusing on from now on.
If you search for the best series of 2018, you will quickly type, "Best series 2018," or "Top 10 series 2018. If you ask that question with voice search, you're probably literally asking that question, "What are the best series of 2018? Search terms via voice search are on average 75 percent longer. A big difference.
This brings us seamlessly to the following: through voice search, you'll use a lot more questions, and a lot less statements. So you'll form fewer aggregate words, but rather ask literal questions.
How to get started with that? Do a survey of your current customers, about what all they actually want or wanted to know about your product or service. Do keyword research, thinking about natural language and questioning sentences, as if you were entering into a conversation. Based on that, formulate some questions, and summarize them in an FAQ page.
Blog posts based on those queries are also a top idea! Want to know what queries you can do for your business to discover useful information like the picture above? Get in touch with us!
To make sure Siri and other virtual voice assistants can read your Web site, it's best to make use of structured data or markup. These are pieces of code or markups that you add to the content of your Web site to structure the content in a way that makes it readable by search engines.
The better you take advantage of this, the more likely your content will end up in Google's Answer Box. That's the so-called featured snippet that appears at the top of search results. That content is even better picked up by your virtual assistant.
If you know that many voice search users look for local businesses, you better make sure your Google My Business account is in tiptop shape. Just think of all those times you searched for "restaurant in Antwerp," or "tapas bar in Brussels. Based on that search, you will probably already be found if you use those terms on your website. But what if someone searches for 'a pizzeria in my neighborhood' via voice search?
For words like "near me," "nearby," "near me," Google immediately tracks your location to make relevant suggestions for places near you. So to do this, Google also needs your effective location. The search engine gets that from your My Business account. So make sure you enter your company name, e-mail, address and phone number, as well as opening hours and other relevant information about your business. That's how you give Google a hand.
We already know that more than half of all searches come from mobile devices. 20 percent of mobile searches are voice searches. So you will also need to set up a solid plan of action for your mobile strategy. A few tips:
Do you understand me now? Voice search is here, and you can't deny it anymore. So those optimizations are more than welcome! Need help, or fancy more tips? Come visit us.
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