Me: “Hey Siri, what is voice search?”
Siri: “Voice search, also called voice-enabled, allows the user to use a voice command to search the internet, a website, or an app.”
Me: “Cool...thanks, Siri.”
Siri: “You’re welcome.”
Think the robots are coming? Think again. They're already here. Traditional SEO is changing rapidly as voice search becomes the norm. It’s faster and often more convenient than typing your search into Google. To give you an idea of how popular it has become, an estimated 41 percent of adults use voice search at least once per day.
Having a voice search strategy in place is no longer a proactive approach; rather, it has become a necessary element of making sure your tech or SaaS brand can easily be found by consumers. It’s also a big moneymaker, with projections to rake in $40 billion + (yes billion) resulting from voice search shopping across the U.S. and UK in 2020.
With that in mind, here are eight articles curated to help you take the next steps in connecting to your customers through voice search.
Why Going Local Matters to Voice Search
Looking for a quick list of ways to optimize your content for voice search? Forbes provides 13 actionable items, such as thinking of ways to localize your content, choosing long-tail keywords, and answering "who," "what," "where," and "how" questions for your target audience.
The Condensed History of Voice Search
With a brief history of voice search technology (which shockingly has origins as early as the 1950s), Neil Patel lays out the relationship between typed SEO and voice search SEO and provides six ways to optimize.
The Role of Voice Search in Pandemic Times
Search Engine Journal kicks off this article drawing attention to an interesting statistic around how voice search has become even more appealing in the age of COVID — citing 32 percent of consumers are interested in hands-free technology (for obvious reasons). Follow these six strategies, from understanding the type of devices your customers use to conversational keywords and more.
Voice Search vs. Voice Action
Two key points are made in this article by Moz; the first is that voice search isn’t replacing text search but rather supplementing it. The second point is that voice search falls into two separate categories, voice search or voice action. Voice action commands might be asking for the weather (in which a predetermined source is used for the answer). Voice search is the category we’re interested in here as it pertains to a user gathering information from multiple sources or being served up a search engine results page (SERP)...essentially a Google search but done by voice.
How to Rank in Voice Search
This article provides some great insights into what it takes for your content to rank in voice search. From addressing questions your customers have in a conversational tone to page load speed, check out these helpful tips.
Using Voice Search in Your SEO Strategy
This blog is a fantastic resource for improving your voice search SEO strategy as it covers everything from keyword research and content optimization to advanced strategies and even a few case studies.
Voice Search: How It Works
This article dives deep into the topic of voice search, covering the system upon which voice search is built (dialogue system) as well as projections for voice search growth into 2023 and some in-depth tactics you can use to improve your chances of being successful with voice search.
Google + Voice Search: A Match Made in Heaven
Focused largely on Google voice search specifically, here is a great opportunity to learn how Google’s algorithm is programmed to interpret voice search. With the Hummingbird algorithm update and the switch to semantic search (looking for the implied meaning behind a search), it’s important to understand how search engines are adapting to the demands of voice search.
So whether you’re team Siri or team Alexa or still undecided, voice search is here to stay. Why not make it easy for your customers to find you? The reality is that people search for things differently with voice search compared to a quick Google search — you need a strategy for both.
