Voice search is changing the world of digital marketing. By simply talking into a phone or voice-activated smart speaker, users can now conduct internet searches, order pizza, send or request money, set an alarm, and shop. And voice-enabled devices such as Alexa and Google Home are now ubiquitous. According to recent research from NPR and Edison Research, one in six Americans now own a voice-activated smart speaker.
As voice-activated technology becomes more popular among consumers, smart marketers should start optimizing for voice search now to adapt to this shift in consumer search behavior. Unsure of where to start with your voice search strategy? Here a few tips to ensure your business stays competitive in today’s voice-enabled world.
Answer Conversational Questions
People ask questions in a conversational manner using voice search. For example, instead of typing “best marketing agency in New Hampshire,” they ask: “what’s the best marketing agency in New Hampshire?” Therefore, focus on optimizing for full questions instead of abbreviated search terms.
Learn what questions prospective customers have about your business and services by conducting surveys, asking for feedback, and using Google’s autocomplete feature to obtain search query suggestions. Build your content around the answers to these questions.
Add FAQ Pages to Your Website
Ensure your website has a page for frequently asked questions (FAQs)—or multiple, keyword-friendly FAQ pages—to directly answer consumer questions. Voice search results are 1.7 times more likely to come from a FAQ page versus text-based search queries. Insert Q&A content into blog posts and articles to further optimize for voice search.
Optimize for Featured Snippets
A featured snippet (also known as the Answer Box) is a summary of an answer to a search query, which is displayed on top of Google’s search results. The snippet is extracted from a webpage and includes a link to the page, the title, and the URL. Optimizing for Google’s featured snippets is an advanced SEO technique explained in detail on the Moz blog and the HubSpot blog.
Google Home and Alexa only provide one answer to your query: the featured snippet. So, if you don’t rank as a featured snippet, your content will be invisible.
Create an Alexa Skill or a Google Action
Google Actions and Alexa Skills are functions that allow voice-activated devices to react to user commands and queries. Amazon boasts over 80,000 Alexa Skills worldwide—these include everything from voice-enabled cooking instructions to email management and package tracking services.
Many companies have created useful skills that enhance brand engagement such as Zyrtec’s AllergyCast weather and pollen count alert and Ask Purina’s dog breed reference guide. These are examples of useful skills that meet customer needs and support company goals. Be sure to create a skill with a clear objective that is aligned with your brand—and check what skills have already been created.
Voice technology is changing the world of digital marketing. To learn how to implement a voice search strategy for your business or organization, contact Millennium Agency today.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning, digital, creative, content/PR, and video marketing firm. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, our team unites creative branding and data analytics to accelerate our clients’ growth, while combining our clients’ vision with our marketing expertise to increase sales opportunities and drive brand success. From video advertising and web design to social media and PR, Millennium can guide your marketing efforts every step of the way. Contact the professionals at Millennium Agency to learn more!
Linda Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Agency (www.mill.agency) located in Manchester, NH and Boston. She can be reached at 877-873-7445 or lfanaras@mill.agency.
