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How Voice Search Will Impact Digital Marketing In 2020

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anderson frank
How Voice Search Will Impact Digital Marketing In 2020

It’s unmistakable that more and more audiences are searching via voice-enabled assistants and devices. For years, marketing writers and bloggers have been predicting that voice searches will become the preferred method for mobile users in 2020.

 

Well, 2020 is here and, while there is no clear evidence to suggest this majority level of penetration, we can definitely claim that voice search is here and it is here to stay.

 

There are several ways that voice search will impact digital marketing in the year 2020.

Why 2020?

Before getting into the individual ways that voice search is affecting digital marketing this year, let’s first look at three of the reasons why 2020 is the year when it comes to voice search.

Coronavirus

While we’re all tired of hearing about it, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on rising voice searches. With more people staying and working from home, users are around their smart home devices at all hours of the day. This leads to more people using these devices and completing voice searches.

Maturing Technology

Reason number two why 2020 is the ideal year for voice search is because the technology has matured. This includes both the devices and artificial intelligence (AI) software. These devices are increasingly becoming more capable of handling even the most complex requests. Time will only continue to be a factor in the sophistication of voice AI.

Access To Voice-Equipped Devices

Finally, voice search is hitting its boiling point simply because there are more and more voice-enabled devices on the market. And, these devices don’t cost nearly what they did when they first hit shelves. In short, the technology is more accessible now. More accessible means more users; more users means more voice searches!

Semantics Versus Keywords

Digital marketing has long been built on the sturdy foundation of keywords. Whether you’re making blogs, trying to improve organic rankings, launching an ad campaign or otherwise, keywords are an essential building block.

 

Google is beginning to move away from keywords, towards semantics, and voice search google is a significant driving force behind this change. This means that Google and its systems are trying to understand the meaning behind each search, rather than just the keywords being entered.

 

This is important for voice searches and being able to provide the most relevant results.

Better Content

You know how to develop strategies around keywords, but how do you rank for semantics? It really comes down to making better content. Content is the next essential building block for all digital marketing strategies.

 

Marketers need to think about how their content is structured and how it will be conveyed to voice search users. In particular, consider the following:

Questions

The majority of voice searches are in the form of a question. Thus, question-based long-tail keywords are becoming more valuable. If you can develop pages and content around providing answers to popular voice search questions, you can have a real big win.

 

Not sure what people are searching for? Do some research and look for keyword phrases that start with question words.

Concise

It’s time to cut out the fluff. Voice search looks for rich snippets that it can use to quickly answer a user’s spoken query. If your content is long-winded and doesn’t get straight to the answer, you’ll struggle to be a valuable voice search response. If your content is overly concerned with jamming keywords in, you need to go back and cut away the fat and get to the point.

Conversational Tone

You also want to think about how you are conveying content. Tone is an important factor in marketing messages, but it really needs some extra attention when it comes to voice search optimization.

 

If your content is dry and unengaging, that’s going to come across ten-fold when it is being read to a user by Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Siri or another device’s AI. Make sure that your content and website copy are conversational and easy for audiences to read or listen to.

Position Zero Ranking

A lot of digital marketers wonder how virtual assistant devices and apps decide what page to use for a voice search. Typically, they rely on the position zero content. This is a relatively new term that refers to all of the content that appears on a search results page above the first organic link and excluding any paid search ads.

 

Google is continuously adding new features and snippets to make search results more valuable to users. Google’s goal is to answer a user’s query on the actual results page, if possible.

 

Due to the reliance of these snippets by voice search devices, you should try and structure your site and content to rank for position zero. There’s no perfect recipe for this and you aren’t guaranteed to appear as a position zero result each time. However, there are small ways that you can frame content and structure the metadata to improve your chances.

Mobile First!

Your site needs to be mobile friendly — period. This is not new and not directly a result of voice search, but the trend definitely drives this point further. If you haven’t designed your website with mobile optimization best practices, your site is going to struggle to attract voice search audiences.

 

After all, many of these searches are made from mobile devices. If your site doesn’t work properly for these voice users, your site performance will suffer.

 

You may also want to produce some call-only campaigns in PPC because many voice searches are made to find contact information, like a phone number. These types of campaigns make it easy to turn voice searches into calls to your business, which can then lead to valuable conversions!

Conclusions

The bottom line is clear: if you aren’t considering the impacts of voice search and adjusting your digital marketing strategies to accommodate these impacts, then you’re going to be in for a rough 2021!

 

Take the time to look at your content, keywords, and mobile-friendliness and make changes that will make your site the ideal choice for voice searches!

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