The field of digital marketing continues to evolve with the introduction multiple forms of new technology. As voice technology becomes more readily available, experts have speculated how it will affect the various digital marketing platforms. The possibilities of this technology in the future are yet to be fully understood as voice search is only now beginning to become a favorite tool among customers. With voice assistance devices like Google Home and Amazon’s Echo becoming popular, brands need to take advantage of this technology to remain relevant.
What is Voice Search?
Voice search simply refers to voice recognition technology, which allows people to conduct online searches by speaking into a device. The device could be a smartphone, smart TV, computers, remote control, or home assistant devices. Since customers no longer have to type what they are looking for in their devices, this approach is considered faster and more convenient.
Successful voice marketing involves understanding how people use voice recognition technology to search for items and knowledge. As this technology continues to evolve, eCommerce brands will need to understand how their customers are using voice to search for products. Voice customer analytics is a good place to start as it shows the phrases and choice of words popular among the customers. Using this data to integrate voice interactions in your digital marketing efforts will earn you a competitive edge over others.
Why Brands Need to Adopt Voice Strategies
Webstores need to adopt voice in their marketing strategy because it is a popular emergent technology, which is expected to only get bigger and influence more of how customers interact with businesses. For instance, the Alexa Magento capabilities allow online store owners to keep track of their sales and store performance. You can simply ask Alexa to provide you with a weekly business summary, a report of the orders placed during the month, summary of best-selling products, and more. You can also create an Alexa customer service using Alexa for your Magento site for better voice interactions with customers.
The benefits of voice technology to customers cannot be overemphasized. Not only does voice technology drive more traffic to your site, but it also improves customer experience and helps your brand stay ahead of the competition. Both Google Assistant and Alexa can differentiate between voices, allowing brands to gain insights about users. Consequently, brands can create more personalized messages and content to improve the customer experience. The more personalized the content is, the more customer interactions become natural and seamless.
A voice search strategy is also important in preventing customers from finding your competitors easily. When you optimize your websites, you will have the chances of prospects finding you on search engines. Your SEO strategy becomes more competitive and you will be able to attract more prospects. As much as this technology is still in its nascent stages, businesses that have started using it report improved results.
How to Optimize for Voice Search
The rise of voice search is expected to revolutionize SEO and significantly affect digital marketing. When optimizing your eCommerce site for voice search, you will need to use conversational language and emphasize featured snippets. Using authoritative and informative content and transforming text search into long-tail questions are also crucial.
When optimizing your website for voice search, frame your content in the way people speak when performing the search. Your product listing, FAQ and landing pages should be optimized for voice search. Typically, people tend to speak in complete sentences when performing a voice as opposed to shorted or summarized queries when typing. While text searches focus on specific keywords, voice searches focus on conversational level language. Instead of optimizing “best hotel in New York,” your voice optimized content should be “what is the best hotel in New York.”
Currently, Google is prioritizing featured snippets that answer questions promptly and accurately. This means the more accurate your featured snippets are, the higher will be your ranking on search results. Creating informative and authoritative content gives you an edge on voice search results. Some of the consideration you should have include:
- Use of natural-sounding language
- Provision of concise answers to questions
- Creating queries into question phrases
- Targeting long-tail keywords
- Focusing on action queries
- Thinking about user intent
- Keeping your website fast, secure, and mobile-friendly
- Tightening up your local SEO schema
- Completely filling out Google My Business Profile
How We Can Help
Implementing voice strategy in your marketing can prove to be a huge challenge, no matter your level of experience in the world of digital marketing. At InteractOne, we ensure that your content marketing reflects the needs of your customers. Before integrating voice interaction, we consider whether your target customers are smart-home enthusiasts, your content experience is valuable with voice, and the likelihood of the marketing efforts succeeding via voice.
When it comes to voice search optimization, there’s a lot to manage from search intent to local SEO. While implementing a voice search strategy is the first part of the equation, making sure it works is crucial. With all the opportunities the new technology is bringing, you will need to work with an expert in digital marketing. If you are stuck on how to make your digital marketing strategy more dynamic and diverse, we are here to help. Let’s start a new project together!
