Voice SEO Service | Get found on voice-activated smart home devices

Why is Voice-activated technology growing?

There are many reasons it has been and will continue to rise in our everyday lives.

The simplest reason is people are searching for solutions and voice search is undoubtedly faster for the majority of online users. We often find ourselves away from the comfort of our home, computer and need information while we are out.

On-the-go mobile searching with the evolution of Siri, Google, Alexa and Bixby have enabled users to more quickly find answers to problems and that trend shows no signs of slowing down.

Digital assistance and smart-speakers are being installed into many homes every single day. The data shows is users with smart-home devices typically have more than one with the primary functionality revolving around the voice-activated features.

These trends lead us to a conclusion that this technology will continue to grow and should earn its place within your marketing toolbox.

How can I adopt voice SEO strategies and implement it within our current marketing?

The top 3 voice-activated AI technologies are Siri (Apple), Google assistant (Google) and Alexa (amazon)
Whenever we perform a voice search on a mobile device, computer or smart-speaker it runs through a digital assistant. When we run these types of searches ultimately they pull data from Googles search engine large databases. Siri initially utilized Bing's data but switched to Google in 2017 so the good news if you optimize your content for Google voice then for now anyways, you will be optimizing for Siri as well. Google and amazon are fierce competitors so for now amazon products provide data from Bing servers. If you wish to optimize for amazon devices then optimizing for Bing would be the recommended strategy.

One of the main differences between web searches and voice searches boils down to the key terms used and really becomes more about semantics of speech. Our web searches often include short worded but specific context while our voice searches tend to lean more to the way we communicate wit one another in every day speak.

For example if I was on a computer and I was looking for an apple pie recipe my search might look something like this "apple pie recipe" where as if I was to use a voice activated device my search query would be something closer to "How do I make an apple pie?" both uses will provide excellent results on their given platforms but try to use web search terms with a voice activated smart device can lead to undesirable results and additional searches may need to be performed. Our job as marketers has always been to provide quick, concise and clear information when and where our target audiences are looking for them. Spending the time and resources to get your voice-activated SEO online can be a boost for your brand and garner additional growing exposure as the technology continues to develop.

The main driver or changes in the algorithms came with Google's "hummingbird" update. This update allowed google to become the worlds "answer engine" . Now millions of users can get tons of relevant search results from the convenience of their smart-speaker or mobile devices without even clicking on a website.

Hummingbird put an emphasis on "semantic search" (conversational key terms) and first initialized implied search intent (the overall goal of search terms). The way hummingbird matches content with context and intent to the specific needs of users has become the core foundation of voice-search technologies.

In addition Google's "RankBrain" algorithm update has enabled language-learning artificial intelligence to pick up what people are saying in their search queries and better serving them with what it believes is the most relevant and optimal results.

Intent can be a tricky thing to decipher for a machine so when a voice search is executed then Google is trying to understand what is it the user is looking for? Is it something they want to do, someplace they want to go, something they want to learn, is it actionable or is it transactional. Google has divided intent into four main categories:

• Informational
• Navigational
• Actionable
• Transactional

Simply put, search intent is whether a user is "intending" on knowing, going, doing or buying something with their search query.

How can you adapt to the voice search revolution?

Before we define our process we need to better understand what voice-search is and how it is used in practice

For demonstration purposes we might ask "who is Elon Musk?" The result with provide us an overview of him and his companies and top accomplishments.

If we were to follow up with "where is he from?" Google will already understand and know we are referring to Mr. Musk. With each question being relevant to the previous rather than each search treated as separate queries. Because of our first voice-search google already knows who we are referring to and can provide the right information without long-form search queries needed. It becomes more conversational and a more intuitive experience and that is why semantic search is pivotal to voice-search.

When are users searching? All of the time.

People are using voice-search all of the time. At home, at the office and on-the-go. The vast majority of search queries of this marketing channel is being performed on mobile devices, which makes a lot of sense as users are more likely to use voice-search while they are away from home and their mobile device is readily available.

Google uses their geolocation data to provide answers to "near me now" and "near me" search queries so ensuring your mark-up is up and validated will move you one-step closer to getting optimized for voice-search. As of now Siri will yield slightly different results pulling their data from places such as foursquare and yelp. While Siri data differs from Apples Maps application, for search specific results they both leverage Google's data.

The main concept to grasp when it comes to voice-search is people are looking for answers quickly. This is the driving reason why optimizing your content for voice should provide users with answers to direct questions.

How does voice-search differ from web-search?

With voice-search, users are not always looking for long detailed instructions for complex tasks. Rather they are looking for what we refer to as "micro-data". Google understands that we are looking for quick, direct answers to our search queries and if we don't find it, we most likely will not continue to utilize the service. Showcasing micro-data correctly within your mark-up is critical to voice search success.

How to find and identify voice-search keywords to optimize for?

As we have covered voice search keywords are different from traditional web search key terms, being more conversational and typically longer. An average voice search length is somewhere around 5 words and is getting longer. This is the result of the natural way that we communicate with one another through speech. The key terms that should be targeted for voice-search are natural language key words. These natural language keywords are longer and typically phrased as a question.

For example in web search you may type building backlink strategies, where in a voice-search the term "How do i build backlinks for my website?" would more likely be used. Finding and identifying these voice activated key terms can be easily found within any keyword research tool and now even google will show you below the search bar as you type queries an auto populate drop down will display most used queries for these questions.

The use of third party tools may also be used to help identify what people are saying in their voice-activated searches. In addition you can use data-mining routes which could look through email and if applicable your customer service platform to help better identify the most common questions your audience has about your product or service.

Ok great so we have our search terms to optimize, what's next?

Pick topics

Choose topic around your brand(s), products and services. This will include the who, what where, when and why of your customer searches, this method makes it easy to build enough content around and provide a clear signal to Googles data centers that your brand is the right and relevant solution.

Structuring key terms

The use of longtail key terms within your content as answers to questions being asked. Best practices is that we keep answers as simple as we can often being 30 words or less. In most of googles cases, search answers tend to be somewhere around 29 words. However it is important to note that both short and long form answers are used by Google and really depend on the search query and what the intent is.

Creating long form content for voice-search

Long form content has traditionally been easier to rank for, google looks for substance, complete and rarely displays light or fluffy content. Why? Well, simply put when you have more words on a page or post google has more to crawl and store. This creates a clearer picture of what it is your offering to online visitors and intern has a better chance at ranking. We are not going for keyword stuffing but fluent naturally occurring search terms dispersed in a variety of variations within your content. Depending on the keyword including them into headings, subheadings and page titles could prove beneficial for your brand.

Optimize short form content for voice-search

Optimization of short form content can most readily be seen with the use of FAQ pages. These types of pages allows a brand to structure its content within a series of commonly occurring questions. If you already have a FAQ page, try updating your top key term queries into more natural occurring voice-searched key terms while still remaining a question. Follow this updated content with non-question longtail keywords in the answers.