Google is making significant changes to its organic search platform. The biggest game-changer is voice search.
Voice-Activated Assistants
Voice-activated assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home are growing in popularity, with around 67 million devices being used in homes and offices in the US.
According to Bright Local
- 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% searching using these devices every day
- Consumers are most likely to perform voice searches to find further information on local businesses they already know about
The voice-activation aspect means people will no longer be manually entering their searches in Google on their desktop or on their mobile device. They will merely have to say, “OK, Google” and make say their search request.
Studies have shown that voice-activation results tend to use long-tail keywords and keyphrases. They may not be as popular as the more common text searches, but can possibly uncover a range of search terms that may not have normally been used.
Check Your Google My Business Listing
Studies have shown that a large percentage of voice searches are local in intent. So, if you’re a brick and mortar store, be sure to check your Google My Business listing. Make sure it is as detailed as possible.
Create Snippets
Snippets are bullet points that have started to appear at the top of search engine results pages. Your page might not be in the number one slot for a search term, but you can get your snippet even higher than that spot by creating content that specifically answers the kinds of questions a human being would ask a voice assistant. (See example below.)
Devices Are Gathering Data
To customize a person’s search, every question gives these devices more information.. This also means Google and Amazon are getting more search data, to help provide better results. Use keywords and keyword phrases to drive traffic to your website.
Voice-activation searches are only going to get more popular as time goes on. Consider how to use them in your marketing plan.
