Voice Search…we’ve all done it, sat in our lounge or at the pub with friends and played around with Siri or Cortana on our mobiles or tablets, asking silly questions like “will I be rich and famous one day?”, and then giggling when the voice comes back with a nonsensical answer.
But the truth is that the days of Voice Search being nothing more than a toy are over. Significant improvements in quality and intuition (92% according to KPCB Internet Trends 2016 report) in Voice Search tools and the fact that they “live” in your pocket, office and home, are turning Voice Search into an everyday tool, not just a gimmick.
And with more intelligent home and mobile devices set to hit the market this year, the use of Voice Search as a default tool is only likely to accelerate.
How does this matter in the real world?
What does all this mean for you as a business owner? Well, the key thing to understand about Voice Search is that it uses conversational phraseology – natural language – to ‘interpret’ search queries, and deliver an intuitive result based on a match.
For example, a person using Voice Search to find a good curry house in North London will likely use a question like “What is the best curry restaurant near me?”,
Which that means is that if you’re a curry restaurant owner with a website well optimised for Voice Search, using natural language phrases in your keywords like “best curry restaurant”, your restaurant is likely to come near the top of the search results.
So how do you ensure you’re hitting the right tone?
Voice Search doesn’t mean an entire overhaul of your SEO – the usual tools like Google Business, strong individual keywords, H-tags and others are still vital – you just need to ensure that you add natural language key phrases into the mix.
To come up with these sorts of phrases, brainstorm with friends and clients/customers, and create a select list of terms that they would use in natural, everyday speech to describe how they would search for you business.
Make use of online tools like Answerthepublic.com, StoryBase or Question Samurai to get better insights into the actual words or phrases people use to look for businesses like yours.
Use Google Search Console to build a profile of keywords, and ensure that your site is mobile friendly – that’s where Voice Search is likely to occur!
Voice Search is rapidly a matter of the future becoming the present – follow the simple tips above to ensure your business remains ahead of the curve.
If you need help with your website, please don’t hesitate to contact us or call 01223 550800.