As always, tech­nol­o­gy is here to keep the human pop­u­la­tion — and mar­keters — on their toes. Voice-pow­ered tech­nol­o­gy has made it eas­i­er than ever to aban­don tra­di­tion­al search meth­ods (and thus, tra­di­tion­al avenues for mar­ket­ing) in favor of per­form­ing a voice search. 

The sta­tis­tics asso­ci­at­ed with voice search are stag­ger­ing — show­ing that over 50 per­cent of users search­ing for their prod­ucts through voice-acti­vat­ed search. This num­ber is only on the rise as smart speak­er sys­tems such as Alexa or Hey Google enter homes. 

As you can imag­ine, this opens up a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for mar­keters. The space to reach con­sumers is slight­ly shift­ing — no longer can adver­tis­ers rely on search scrolling by their ads. Now, the advan­ta­geous move is to be one of Alexa’s, Hey Google’s, or Siri’s search sug­ges­tions. The ques­tion is, how can it be done?

The tech­no­log­i­cal tran­si­tion has long begun, and now, we are amidst anoth­er one of its user-inter­face evo­lu­tions. Hop on board now to cap­i­tal­ize on the mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty that is avail­able for your brand through voice search positioning. 

Adapt Marketing Strategies Instead of Starting Over

Unless you have a sub­par mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy as is, there’s no sense in start­ing over with your strat­e­gy. Instead, you can use what you have and adapt it to the voice search. 

How to Adapt

Some of the preva­lent needs you’ll run into are need­ing to opti­mize for local search, opti­mize for ques­tions, embrace video, and estab­lish easy-to-access answers on your site or through oth­er forms of advertising. 

The sta­tus quo of voice search mar­ket­ing is dif­fer­ent from oth­er types because it is large­ly cater­ing to an on-the-go audi­ence. Con­sid­er the times you speak into the phone prod­uct or ser­vice infor­ma­tion — how often is it because you’re phys­i­cal­ly on the move and unable to oper­ate the phone to type in your query? Most read­ers will answer that this is the case most often.

As a brand, your mar­ket­ing has to cater to your audi­ence under these same pre­tens­es: assume the audi­ence is on the go, and your voice-pow­ered mar­ket­ing is here to help them find what they need. 

It’ll take a bit of restruc­tur­ing and div­ing deeply into con­sumer search behav­ior, but the pay-offs will be big and con­tin­ue to grow as voice search evolves and takes prece­dence in the market.

Here are a few of the ways you can start adapt­ing your strat­e­gy to voice search. 

How to Adapt

Enable Voice Search

First things first, be sure to enable voice search on your web­site. This will help con­sumers find the answers to their ques­tions as they browse your site. It will also help Google locate impor­tant answers on your web­site that voice search engines can use to share with con­sumers on the go, or those at home hop­ing to make pur­chas­es or get updates on upcom­ing events.

Optimize for Questions

The way con­sumers search for voice tech­nol­o­gy is dif­fer­ent from tra­di­tion­al search queries. In-text search, con­sumers string togeth­er 2–4 words to pull results on their top­ic of inter­est. With voice tech­nol­o­gy, the search becomes more famil­iar and con­ver­sa­tion­al. Instead of a shop­per typ­ing “dry clean Los Ange­les,” the searcher asks, “Alexa, where’s the clos­est dry clean­er?” Alexa, Siri, or anoth­er AI voice can facil­i­tate the search and send the user on their way immediately.

Know­ing that con­sumers are ask­ing full-length, con­ver­sa­tion­al ques­tions, you’ll want to reassess your SEO strat­e­gy and replace tra­di­tion­al­ly short, frag­ment­ed key­word phras­es with long-tail key­word ques­tions. You can turn to a pro­fes­sion­al for guid­ance on which ques­tions to include, use a soft­ware search or con­duct your own search by speak­ing brand-relat­ed ques­tions into your AI and see­ing what results show up at the top. This will give you an idea of your com­pe­ti­tion and how con­sumers are searching.

Embrace Video

Voice search is not only for con­sumers on the go, but it’s also for ear­ly tech­nol­o­gy adopters. This group is hun­gry for inno­v­a­tive media and most like­ly inter­est­ed in see­ing the con­tent you share through video. Not to men­tion, search engines high­ly rank a video, mean­ing that your video con­tent is most like­ly to be pushed to the top of a search.

If you haven’t embraced video as a part of your con­tent strat­e­gy yet, now is the time to get start­ed. Take a look at the con­tent you have on your web­site and blog, and choose a few pieces to upload as a video. When pro­duc­ing, be sure to use high-qual­i­ty equip­ment and a plat­form with enough band­width to seam­less­ly stream your video.

Establish Easy-To-Access Answers 

If a con­sumer is access­ing the inter­net through voice search, they want to find answers as soon as pos­si­ble. You can help facil­i­tate an opti­mal search by mak­ing the answers to their ques­tions easy to locate when they head over to your site. This might include using head­lines or sub­lines that clear­ly explain the answers to ques­tions users want. Bold­ing, enlarg­ing, and show­cas­ing these areas make the expe­ri­ence easy and enjoy­able for the user.

Use Localized Search Options

If a searcher is on-the-go, they’re most like­ly look­ing to ful­fill needs where they are cur­rent­ly locat­ed. Updat­ing your local SEO is para­mount to your suc­cess in voice search. Along with adapt­ing key­words to con­ver­sa­tion­al ques­tions, you’ll want to dive into the depths of opti­miz­ing your page for promi­nent local place­ment online. Reach out to our team to learn more about upgrad­ing your local SEO strategy.

Identify Achievable Goals 

Before you acti­vate your voice search strat­e­gy, take the time to estab­lish your goal in reach­ing con­sumers. Are you aim­ing to be their top, go-to source for local and time­ly infor­ma­tion? Do you want them to stop into your store for their prod­uct or ser­vice? By iden­ti­fy­ing your goal in reach­ing con­sumers, you can do a bet­ter job of research­ing, imple­ment­ing find­ings, and tact­ful­ly choos­ing the key­word ques­tions that are the most rel­e­vant to your con­sumer goals. 

Benefits of Using Voice Search

Benefits of Using Voice Search

By get­ting used to voice search, your brand can adapt to evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy and remain a reli­able source of infor­ma­tion for con­sumers into the future. Along the way, you’ll nat­u­ral­ly boost your SEO and learn about your tar­get con­sumers’ habits.

Here is a glimpse at some the ben­e­fits you’ll gain through voice search:

  • Become a source for on-the-go prod­ucts and services
  • Improve local and gen­er­al SEO
  • Remain a leader in your market
  • Cap­i­tal­ize on local pur­chase opportunities
  • Gath­er infor­ma­tion on your consumers 

Send Us Your Tips

Have you played around with voice search or start­ed opti­miz­ing your site? If so, we’d love for you to share your help­ful tips and insights with the Rosy Strate­gies com­mu­ni­ty. Let us know what you’ve learned in the com­ments below.

Reach out to Start Marketing Through Voice Search

If you’re ready to start opti­miz­ing your mar­ket­ing efforts for voice search, get in touch with our tal­ent­ed team at Rosy Strate­gies. Our experts are here to help you iden­ti­fy which resources you need to get ahead, and then to help you get there. Reach out when you’re ready to boost your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, and we’ll be hap­py to help.