Voice Search Marketing: Advantages and Challenges

If you want your brand to be more visible than your competitor’s products then transform your business strategy by using voice search marketing. Here is a detailed guide on voice search technology, its advantages, and its challenges. You will also see how to optimize your website to adapt voice search by applying a few basic business strategies.

Your digital marketing policy and search trends directly affect your company’s success. If you have implemented voice search marketing for your brand then it will certainly give you positive results depending upon how well you adapt your strategy to the continuously changing digital world. Many optimization techniques are successfully Deployed by many big brands. Let’s see first why people are using the voice search feature nowadays.

Why voice search is becoming popular day by day?

• Voice search is growing drastically year on year and is becoming a favorite of all age groups. Especially the younger generation is being attracted more towards this technology. As per a top survey, today more than 55% of the younger generation is using voice search for their day-to-day browsing activities. As per statistical analysis, 8 billion people will use one or other kinds of digital assistants by 2023.
• As per research, on average a person can talk 150 words in a minute on voice search whereas you can type just 40 words in a text search mode. This is one of the major reasons for being voice search so popular. It saves a lot of time and also enhances productivity.
• Another reason for growing voice search usage is its integration with smartphones. People feel very comfortable using their mobiles where they do not even have to touch them for things like ordering groceries, making appointments, etc. Hence, the touchless feature is one of the major reasons for being voice search feature more trendy.

What is Voice Search Marketing?

As the name itself reveals, voice search represents the use of voice recognition technology to assist users in performing internet searches by just speaking into a device. The device is normally a smartphone, a smart voice assistant, or a computer.

SEO is a critical aspect for all businesses because it gives your brand visibility by bringing it in the top rankings of search engine results. As of today’s voice, search marketing has become the latest trend so every business needs to align its SEO strategy to comply with this latest technology. Needless to say, that voice search enhances the user experience, which results in more customers and more business for you.

Learn web development at WordPress with the Top Digital Marketing Course

How does voice search technology work?

Voice search technology is based upon speech recognition theory. Several speech recognition programs process and transcribe human speech into letters or words which is a text format. The next step is to analyze this text data to identify questions or commands instructed by users.

One such voice recognition system is Google’s voice search function. When you speak any sentence using a speaker then the voice search program of this device will use speech recognition technology to detect the letters or words and then it will place these words through its search database which will, in turn, provide you with required search results.

These voice recognition apps or programs are very sophisticated and are continuously getting improved to meet user demands and make them satisfied. It now even takes care of accents and different speech patterns which has become a more personalized approach to interacting with customers.

Let’s see few major benefits of using the voice search feature for your business.

Learn about the Top 10 Digital Marketing Courses in Agra

Advantages of voice search Marketing

1. Quick response to customer queries:

Voice search considerably speeds up the searching process. The voice search is a feature that provides quick and prompt answers for most of the customer’s questions. As per one of the research, voice searching is faster by 3.7 times than your average typing speed. Hence, it is a magical feature that makes both searching and display of results much faster than conventional keyboard typing.

Typing gets tedious especially when things need to be done quickly and on large scale. For example, If you are making a playlist of your favorite songs then instead of typing each song’s details such as wordings etc., it would be a much quicker and convenient option to speak it out using devices like Alexa. Similarly for shopping such as purchasing groceries can be done more rapidly by voice search marketing process.

Look at the Top 10 Digital Marketing Courses in Siliguri

2. Beneficial for local SEO campaigns:

Most of the businesses are now well aware of local SEO campaigns which target local customers. Local voice search optimization can be done to target specific services. you can enhance your business by using voice searches matching this kind of keyword. It is observed that the majority of mobile voice search users hunt for extremely local keywords.

Hence, it is very important to optimize SEO for “near me” type searches. By implementing this localized voice search provision, your business will grow to the next level.

3. Hands-Off facility:

In most of the devices, you do not have to pick up the device in your hands to talk. This touchless aspect gives customers an extra comfort level in comparison to conventional internet search options. You can search the internet on the go. If you are driving then voice search techniques are very useful as you do not have to wait till you reach your destination for making purchases.

You can simply place orders while driving without even using your hands. So, Voice search is surely more convenient, especially when people are occupied with other activities and cannot fully use their hands by allowing them to multitask.

Learn about extensive keyword research with the Best Content Writing Course

4. Voice search is multilingual

Voice search technology supports multiple languages. Many big mobile companies are developing voice search apps that understand most of the top languages. Approximately 30 major languages are understood by google assistant today. there are more developments are going on to enhance multilingual options further.

So, language is not a barrier now for voice search marketing, you can use whichever language you are comfortable with. This will allow more and more users to adopt voice search technology in their smart devices.

5. Enhances accessibility for everyone:

Voice search tool is a boon to many elderly people who are not able to type their requirements due to old age issue in hands. Senior citizens can easily use this feature and enjoy various online facilities.

Similarly, people with partial disabilities who are not comfortable sitting posture for typing can simply speak out their requirements and get the results immediately. Therefore, it is very important to opt for a voice search application for your business because it makes your brand accessible to a larger audience including those customers who were earlier not able to utilize digital marketing facilities due to their various typing limitations.

6. Reach multiple clients at once

Voice search assistants give businesses access to multiple customers in a single household. Earlier it was not possible to address multiple users’ questions at a time, the customer support person had to manually call every client and reply to their queries.

The customers with similar purchase decisions, like preferences and with interest in similar products can be addressed in one go with this new technology. It enhances the productivity of your business by reaching several users at once. Also, makes your job easy by minimizing the manual communication efforts with each client.

7. Voice Search helps to Drive Traffic

Customers who are searching for any product or service using voice search are surely going to open a website to see the product details if they are satisfied with search answers. If you have optimized your site for voice search strategically that means you are exposing your website to more clients and you will be able to get relatively higher traffic than earlier.

It is a good idea to consider your FAQ pages for voice search. You can do some research and capture long-tail keywords. Generate suitable answers using a conversational tone and set up a FAQ page for your business.

Check out our GST Course to become competent GST practitioners.

More Courses

• Technical Writing Course
• SEO Course

Top challenges in adapting voice search marketing for your business

1. Concerns on conversation privacy:

As per a survey,79% of consumers raised concern over the privacy of their voice data. There is a risk that these companies can listen to our conversations. To address such concerns, tech companies should reveal that how this data will be processed, used, and stored.

Google has already taken initiative and introduced a feature to delete any voice clips captured. More such safety measures need to be taken to make voice search marketing more trustworthy.

2. Challenge of unclear voice search:

In many cases of conversational search, users ask questions in an unclear and unpredictable manner. The questions are asked without context. Answering such unexpected questions may not be always possible for a voice search assistant.

Such kind of issues in understanding user conversation and extraction of the right data to fulfill the query may result in unsuccessful or wrong results by a search engine.

To resolve such concerns Google has set up a Help Center which provides clear instructions on how to trigger different types of assistant responses. A similar kind of support is expected from other voice search assistant providers also.

3. Ranking the top page- not enough:

So far, businesses were focusing on the ways to rank their brands on top pages of search engine results. Appearing anywhere on the top page was a success. But if you are optimizing your website for voice search marketing then customers are no longer being given multiple options for browsing all top results and choosing the best suitable option for their query.

They have hardly any choice of two options. Most of the time the first result they hear either satisfy their query, or they decide to change their initial search. Therefore being at any number other than the top one in the search results may not be enough anymore for promoting your brand.

4. Challenges in supporting regional languages with regional accents

In the current scenario, the voice recognition is of quite an acceptable level at understanding American and British English accents. But there is a lot of development is required when it comes to other regional languages.

Effectively recognizing and understanding local accents by voice assistant devices is still a long way to go. This limitation is stopping people with a strong accent from using voice assistants. Also, many languages still need to be implemented in voice recognition apps.

5. Structuring of business websites is challenging:

Any new development in technologies comes with a lot of reformation in existing systems. The same is true for voice search marketing also. This has made most of the business websites do some basic changes in their content strategies. One of such changes is incorporating structured data or schema markup in the backend of websites.

Content Optimization using structured data makes it more searchable which will trigger voice assistants to recommended your brand for top rankings.

Google has developed structured data specifically to support voice search. Speakable schema recognizes sections of content that are best suited for text-to-speech methodology or audio playback process. This schema is designed to be compatible with Google Assistant. If your website is optimized for Google’s schema markup then it will automatically trigger your content on the Google Assistant and generates an entry in the Google Assistant directory.

6. Challenge of revising your voice marketing plan:

Once you decided to go ahead with a voice assistant for your business then it is an important task to prepare a voice marketing plan. This should include analyzing the voice marketing potential of your targeted audience groups. Once you have done your research then you can use this data to develop short-term and long-term marketing plans.

You can estimate your investment in a voice app, voice assistant devices, etc. This will take some time to get a fair idea of how your marketing strategies are working and if you have to further plan any new up-gradation such as artificial intelligence, applications, and user segments.

7. Managing background noise

Few more challenges appear to be small but should be addressed to have a smooth implementation of voice search usage. It is equally important to plan the location where you will be using voice search devices, as any background sounds may divert voice assistants from giving correct results.

Hence, while planning the infrastructure for voice search devices you need to take care that the place should not be overcrowded and should not have external noise disturbances.

Top Brands who offer voice search assistants

1. Brand name: Google Device name: Google assistant

2. Brand name: Microsoft Device Name: Cortana

3. Brand name: Amazon Device name: Amazon Alexa

4. Brand name: Samsung Device name: Bixby

List of major activities you can do with Voice search

• For location directions
• Scheduling reminders
• Setting up Alarms
• Playing music, listening to your favorite songs
• For calling or texting customers
• Weather information
• Browsing the internet for getting information such as searching top coaching centers in your area
• Checking e-mails such as your business communication etc.

How to Optimize your Website for Voice Search?

• Understand and research your customers’ search pattern:

Marketers need to go in-depth to study their client behaviors and search context. Collect the data points and analyze them to get a feel of the search trend of customers. You can also gather some real-time data to know how exactly the people are using voice search.

• Restructure your content:

As it is obvious that the voice search has a more conversational approach in comparison with traditional searches where you had to type only limited keywords to get the relevant results.

Businesses need to analyze their content and restructure it to map with voice search norms. The layout of content should be such that it can address a major set of relevant questions with concise answers.

It is observed that FAQ-style format helps Google to extract the content from your website and display it as a result which user is expecting. In this way, you can make your website more voice search friendly and it will be able to get a better ranking in voice search results.

• Include featured snippets in your content

Featured Snippet is a short clip of text that appears at the top of Google’s search result page. This provides a quick answer to your search query. The information that appears in this section of a Featured Snippet is automatically pulled from your website pages in Google’s index.

As per one research, about 40% of voice search answers come from these featured snippets. Hence, it is highly recommended that while introducing your site to voice search, you should incorporate featured snippets in your site content. It is especially important for Google Assistant and Alexa because these devices display only one result and if your site is not having this short text then you will not be visible to customers.

• Use more natural language

Voice search technology is more close to conversational language which we traditionally use while talking. There is a significant difference between words when people type their queries and when they speak out their queries. People are going to express their needs in their natural language if they just need to tell verbally to a device for their queries. To match their casual language you need to optimize your content such that Google can find compatible answers from your content easily.

• Consider Long-Tail Keyword Phrases

Voice searches are longer than traditional searches which are typed on a keyboard. The reason is their conversational nature which makes voice searches large. Also, in addition to this as we are aware Google is more supportive of long-form detailed content. Hence, Content creators need to consider this point by creating long-form content which contains majorly of long-tail keywords that appear in vocal queries.

• Include Question words:

It is a common observation that voice searches will more frequently use question words such as who, which, how, when, and where. These question words are normally omitted in written searches. Marketers should make sure that their content brings accurate and relevant answers to voice search queries. It should be able to differentiate between simple questions and questions which need more comprehensive answers.

• Improve your website load timings:

It is proven that web sites which take longer time to open and to refresh are neglected by search engine most of the times while the sites those load quickly get an advantage for top rankings. Therefore, site load timing should be optimized at all costs, This will enhance your brand’s chances of getting in top searches.

Some interesting facts of Voice Search Marketing

• People use voice search most of the time because of the following reasons; If they are driving, Watching TV, cooking, Exercising, walking, Showering, or in bed.
• During Pandemic, usage of voice search has increased considerably due to its touchless feature. Among its top voice searches was to enquire about covid-19 illness symptoms, to ask about medical information, and to search the list of nearby clinics hospitals that are providing the treatment.
• As per the latest survey, more than 50% of smartphone owners use voice search. Even though Alexa and Siri have made voice search very popular, People mainly use voice search when they are away from home. Smartphones have become a comfortable option for voice search now.
• A survey shows that 51% of consumers use voice search to find a local business near them.
• There are more than 100 languages that Google’s voice search and speech recognition technology now supports. Also, Google’s speech recognition feature has a 95% accuracy rate with the English language. Many more languages are yet to be covered.
• As per a recent survey, 43% of people shop online using voice-enabled devices. It is estimated that more than 200 million smart speakers are being used across the globe.

Conclusion:

The world has become a race-course today. There is a breath-taking competition in every field wherever you go. In such a scenario if you do not upgrade your business to be compatible with fast-growing technologies then it is impossible to attend to the speed of the current generation.

Therefore, it is critical for you to proactively incorporate all kinds of new tech initiatives coming into the market. This will help you to be in sync with the latest marketing trends. For success in any business, you need to dynamically adapt various marketing strategies being followed by your competitors. One such strategy is voice search marketing which is now widely used by all big and small businesses, implementing this approach will give you multi-fold success in your occupation.

I hope, this article has given you enough insight on voice search marketing, its advantages, optimization techniques to integrate it into your brand so that you can reach new heights.