Voice search is the next major trend about to transform digital marketing. According to Google, 20% of all searches are performed by voice and expect that statistic to jump to 50% by the end of this year. Forbes reports that 65% of adults in the age range of 25-49 talk to their phone at least once a day and 99firms.com reports 65% of people with an Amazon Echo or Google Home don’t want to go back to the days of manual keyboard input.

What does this mean for digital marketers and businesses? What exactly even is  “voice search” ? How can you stay ahead of your competition as voice dominates searching? We’ll go through everything you need to know about voice search and how you can position yourself to benefit from the growing trend.

What is Voice Search?

Like it sounds, a voice search is a method of search enabling users to search the internet, a website or app using a voice command rather than physically typing out a search on a keyboard or smart phone.

Voice searches and standard web searches have a few notable key differences. The first notable difference is the length of key words used. With users actually speaking to their devices, searches are longer and more complete. For example, a typical web search would look like “Philadelphia real estate agent” or “real estate agency near me.” A voice search would look more like, “Okay Google, what is a reputable real estate agency near me?” or “Alexa, who are the top real estate agents in Philadelphia?”

Another difference between the two search methods are the results. Results for voice searches are much narrower. Three results appear for a mobile voice search while smart speaker searches produce only one result.

These narrow search results are exactly why it’s so important to adapt your digital marketing efforts to voice search.

How To Optimize For Voice Search

To boost your business in search engine ratings you need to guide your SEO strategy toward the long keywords that voice searchers use. Clearly answer the types of questions your target audience is asking on your website and social media pages.

Location also plays a huge factor in improving where you’re appearing in search results. Most voice searchers use terms like “near me” or “close by” in order to generate businesses that are most convenient to them. To optimize location, its vital to claim your business on platforms like Google My Business and Yelp.

Register your website with local directories so your business address is indexed with the all of the big search engines. This will improve your chances of being seen on the first page of local search results.

It’s important to optimize on all platforms and social media pages because of the partnerships or platforms that are associated with each different device. For example, Google sources its information from Google Maps, Siri sources from Apple Maps, Amazon’s Alexa is partnered with Yelp and Microsoft’s Cortana, is powered by Microsoft Bing.

Keyword Strategy and Target Audience

Really focus and your keyword strategy, think about your target audience and imagine what kind of phrases and terms they would use when doing a voice search. For someone who is getting ready to buy or sell their home, some phrases could be:

“Where do I find a realtor in my city?” or “Where do I find a real estate agent near me?”

Think about all of the ways someone could identify where they are or how they refer to your title, position or profession.

“Show me homes for sale in Philadelphia.” “Alexa, are there any homes for sale in Fort Lauderdale for under $350,000?”

Get creative and practice these searches yourself on multiple devices to see where you rank. Once you’ve identified a list of phrases and terms you want to rank for, start inserting the keywords across your blogs, website and social media pages.

Voice searching is here and the technology for it is getting more and more advanced everyday. Start optimizing your pages now to stay ahead and get more leads.