Voice Search: Are you and your business ready? (2018)

Voice search is starting to explode lately and, if you are like us, you may have already started to consider how you can be ahead of the curve and be a voice search trendsetter with your business and your niche.

Well, it’s good you’re thinking in this way already as there is plenty of things you can do to help get your online business off to a good start by implementing a few things now, and hopefully, start to reap the rewards later on.

But do my customers use voice search?

Good question! Google has released some information that states 41% of adults are using voice search on a daily basis, while a whopping 55% of teens are using voice search every day!

Google stated in a recent blog post that

“We weren’t surprised to find that teens—always ahead of the curve when it comes to new technology—talk to their phones more than the average adult. More than half of teens (13-18) use voice search daily—to them it’s as natural as checking social media or taking selfies. Adults are also getting the hang of it, with 41% talking to their phones every day and 56%admitting it makes them “feel tech-savvy.”

With Google home and Amazon’s Alexa leading the way in voice search technology and apple also trying to get a piece of the action with their apple homepod, its believed that these home assistant devices are to be as well used as your fridge freezer. not to mention your phones voice search capabilities when your about and about, voice search isn’t going away anytime soon.

But if you’re still on the fence and think ‘ Na’ I don’t have to even consider this yet, its way off…” Let us throw some more stats at you!

• 65% of Google Home or Amazon echo owners “can’t imagine going back” (Geomarketing).
• 6 out of 10 people say that voice search is essential to their everyday lives.
• Comscore believes that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches.
• Voice search is more convenient than opening up a browser on your computer or phone and typing in your search query.

So to sum all this up, it’s not a fad like 3D TV or HD DVD’s (or Betamax of your old enough?) voice search is here to stay and will only be used more and more as AI improves and time goes on, so what can you start doing to help your business take advantage and be ahead of your competition.

Make Sure Your Website is HTTPS.

Research shows that 50% of returned voice search results are from https websites, this may not be a definitive thing and just a coincidence with the introduction of googles new SSL guidelines, but you should and must get a valid SSL on your website regardless of working towards your website being voice search ready.

You can find out more about SSL certificates and what they are in a blog post we published entitled; What is SSL and why you need one.

Build Your Brand as an Authority.

It was said by Google that brands will rank better than none brands. But don’t think you have to be the next Nike or Amazon to get anywhere with Google, it means that you need to invest time in building your brand.

If you’re not doing much on social media, start being more active, if your a holiday letting business produce more content on your blog with ideas that are going to generate more clicks and activity. Like 5 things to do when it’s raining in {place name here}, or 7 best places to eat when stopping in {town name here} and share them on social media.

The more likes, shares and clicks through to your website you get, the more of an authority you become, and Google likes website clicks!

Fast Loading Website (Under 5 Seconds).

It’s important that you have a fast load time for your website. As Google now lays more priority on mobile browser load times more than desktop lead times as over 60% of websites page visits generally are from mobile browsers, and as most of the voice searches come via our mobile devices like phones and tablets.

It’s imperative that your website loads fast to stand a chance of being picked up through voice search.

Create Short Answers in your  Content

Long form content always is a winner with Google, it’s shown in testing that putting out a post with over 1,500 words will rank better than a post with 250 words, so try and give answers for your content keyword, but what do we mean by this?

Well, when we search using voice, the questions we ask and different than what we would type. For example, your query will be longer and in a normal human way than just typing in search keywords. That’s why it’s important to use long tail keywords when you’re doing your keyword research.

You may also find it useful to use Buzzsumo’s question Analyzer, which will help you to find the most popular questions asked across hundreds of thousands of forums, Amazon, Reddit, Quora and Q&A sites for any keyword. Perfect for researching customer questions, generating content ideas and monitoring questions about topics and brands.

Think of your content that you’re producing and try and think of what questions people may be asking regarding your content, and try and put answers within your content so that your content will stand a better chance of getting found and presented as a result in voice search.

In Summary

It may not the most important thing on your to-do list, but, if you can start ticking off some of these points now, you will be way ahead of your competition and won’t be playing catchup when voice search explodes and really takes over.

So look out for long tail keywords and make sure you have answers to the questions people might have regarding your services or pages and posts on your website.

Keep your content as long as you can, don’t just witter on for the sake of getting your word count up. Try and make your content as compelling as you can and cram it full of images and information that’s helpful. The ideal length of your posts geared for voice search should be aiming for 2,000 words.

Keep your website fast, this is good for getting higher in the google ranks, and your website will be able to serve the answers to peoples questions faster too.