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Using Voice Search to Transform Your Local Search Strategy

Voice search is a phenomenon that’s rapidly taking over the business sector. Now, most businesses have already integrated location specific voice search as part of their local SEO strategy. In fact, voice-related searches are 3 times more likely than text. More and more users opt for voice search when they need to know about a product, a service or a shop near them.

So, it’s evident that voice search brings with it convenience and speed, that one cannot expect from text searches. People using text search are usually in the research phase of their purchase process. Those who use voice search are generally on the go, willing to satisfy an immediate local need.

1. Rise of empowered consumers with voice search technology

Voice search is extremely straightforward and simple. That’s why, its changing consumer behaviour and their expectations. As has been mentioned earlier in the post, today’s consumers are smarter and more empowered. And the voice search technology definitely has a role to play.

Typos are no longer an issue while conducting a search. For instance, if the users don’t know the accurate spelling of quiche, it doesn’t matter, because voice search is there to assist the users. Now, that sounds simple, doesn’t it?

In fact, simple would be an understatement. As per Google, 20% of mobile queries on Android app were voice searches. Now, that’s a powerful stat that highlights what voice search is capable of.

2. Voice search optimization and content creation for local enterprises

Optimizing content for voice search is a little different. In this case, you do not need to tackle short, concise titles full of keywords. This is what customers would search for when using the text-based search. In fact, what you are dealing with here is questions and answers, long titles using natural language, which is user-friendly. It is vital to understand while creating content that the writer isn’t addressing a machine, but rather calling out to the real people. And these real people are looking for real results in real-time, which should appear in a legible and cohesive format.

While creating content for voice search may be quite different than what you’re used to seeing, most other elements remain the same. For example, accurate listings, great content and good reviews are still the determining factors. However, one major difference here is that voice search will produce a single result, as opposed to the multiple results presented by a text search.

Now, getting a focused result could indicate multiple things. It doesn’t matter how beautiful a website is, or how carefully the CTA buttons are placed. If a consumer is unable to reach out, the implementation of voice search would fail to add meaning to your initiatives.

It is an undeniable fact that consumers are utilizing voice technology to do everyday searches. In fact, a study conducted by Bright Local reveals that 58% of consumers have used voice search to find local business information in the last 12 months. This also indicates that if a local business is not prepared to integrate voice search, they will lose out on potential leads and customers.

3. Change in Search Tone and Language

While text-based search relies heavily on the keywords and phrases, voice search tends to be more conversational. Most of the searches conducted by Google Assistant are conversational queries with natural language. Voice queries are likely to be informational questions with lengthy sentences and more wordy phrases. Queries often come with words like “what,” “where,” “who,” “when,” and “why.”

Voice search is not just simple, but it’s also informal. Text searches often consist of incoherent keywords and short phrases, like “assignment help online,” while voice searches are more structured in nature which uses grammatically correct sentences, for instance, “Is there any affordable assignment writing service?”.

4. Keywords Vs User Intent

As voice search continues to flourish in the coming days, context and intent will play a significant role in determining the search results to be presented after voice search. The emphasis will be more on deciphering the user intent, than the mere identification of the used keywords.

Google’s RankBrain seeks to understand the relation between a series of linked questions, and accesses the searcher’s email and calendar. It can also go through user past searches for more direct and relevant answers.

5. Use of long-tail Keywords

With the advent of voice search queries, the impact of short keywords is gradually waning. Voice search queries are made with long and complex requests, and these long-tail search terms generally happen to be 6 to 7 words per query. On the other hand, text-based searches emphasize more on targeting particular keywords and average 1 to 3 terms per search.

6. Increased demand for instant answers

Most of voice queries are rooted in personal assistance, asking for directions and making calls. Voice search lets users ask direct and straight-forward questions in anticipation of more direct, instant and pertinent answers.

As voice search keeps climbing the ladder of popularity, it highlights that the power of visual media, websites and search engine entries will be challenged by the audio format. Studies have indicated that about 30% of all searches will be carried out without a screen by 2020.

How to implement voice search technology into the local search strategy?

In recent times, the number of users adopting voice searches has elevated significantly. This might be owing to the fact that consumers are finding conversational search more natural, and user-friendly than the traditional search patterns. Here are some insights on how to integrate this technology in your business processes.

1. Create an FAQ strategy

Tap into the potential of an FAQ page, if you haven’t already done that. Single out the most pertinent questions that are likely to be asked by the users and present a natural-sounding content addressing all those questions. Make sure to answer questions in a straight-forward and legible way. Also, respond to them not only on your FAQs page but in your social media posts, blog posts, and website content as well. If you aren’t sure which questions the consumers might ask about your business, you can carry out some research on the most relevant questions.

2. Create Conversational Content

There is a clear discrepancy between the way people converse and the way they write. The natural speech pattern comes with more contexts about one’s question as opposed to written texts. It’s crucial to decipher natural speech patterns and learn the difference between voice and text-based search language. You can modify keywords depending on the degree of intent that guides every search. Keywords are still relevant because Google offers most of its voice answers from the featured snippet that appears at the top of search results pages.

Parting thoughts,

Voice search is different from text search as it involves shifted search queries to form a different structure and transforms optimization of searches. The length of the query is much longer than before, while long-tail and conversational queries are more usual. At present, a vast majority of these searches is more research driven. There is plenty of room for growth in the commercial use of voice search technology.

Alvin Hopkins is a high school teacher from USA who is currently associated with Assignment Help for the past 3 years. He’s also a social activist and has been a part of several social awareness campaigns in the past.

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