The Role of Voice Search in Digital Marketing

I read an article last year which predicted that almost half of all searches will be voice searches. The article was supposed to serve as a warning to the digital marketers so they do their homework. What that homework would have included? It would have included concepts like Natural Language Processing.

But the question is why the marketers should go to this extent. The answer is simple. With the Virtual Assistants, from Siri to Alexa to Google Assistant ubiquitously present in all our houses, we have stopped typing.

We drive down in our cars and ask the VA to show us navigation.
‘Hey Alexa, show us the way.’
We get off the car in front of the restaurant and remember an appointment we need to keep the following day.
‘Hey Siri, set up a reminder for 3 pm tomorrow.’
We get to the house where the rooms are dark.
‘Alexa, switch on the light, make it bright yellow.’

Do you see where I am getting at? We don’t have time to even type anymore and it’s just quicker when we talk to our VA’s. So with increasing importance of voice searching, the digital marketers had to quickly adapt as well.

The answer for this is hidden in the examples shared above. When we talk to the virtual assistant, the virtual assistant gets back to us. It gets back to us with the topmost query. Understand this, before the arrival of VA’s, when we used to type our query, Google, Yahoo or Bing would take us to the search pages. So back then, business strived to be on the first page, even if it meant being the 2nd or 3rd option.

However, now that we talk, or ask Siri a question, the VA replies with the top search. If it answers our query, well and good. If it doesn’t, we change the query. We do not ask Siri to scroll down and show other suggestions. Ad therefore, the top result is the only result.

Relating to the above point, now the marketers have to adapt the content to achieve that top position. They have to optimize it according to the voice organic search traffic to your website. But here is the interesting thing. Since now the consumer does not have the option to sift through the list of the results, the voice search engine should be intelligent enough to understand the deeper context in the search and direct the user accordingly.

Furthermore, since you will be speaking, the search queries will become a little different. So for instance, previously you would type in Google, ‘London Time now’. And you will get the result. But with voice research, you automatically ask fully fledged questions. The same query looks somewhat like this: ‘What is the time in London right now?’

This is why the search engines now need to incorporate the natural language patterns.

I read the article in 2019 where they said voice searches will be the talk of the town in 2020. It’s already the end of the year. So, I would say its high time you decided to incorporate voice search optimization in your business. Of course, the way forward does not mean you have to do something on your own. Instead you will have to contact your digital agency to incorporate this strategy in your business. Do it now and you might be able to save your place in the race.