The trend of searching for online information is changing. For a pretty long time by now, people have searched online information by typing relevant keywords or phrases based on the keywords on search engines. But with the sharp proliferation of mobile devices with internet connectivity and voice assistants, people prefer to search for information through the voice mode replacing the typing mode.

What is Voice Search?

Voice Search is a new technology, which enables people to perform an online search by verbally asking a question on a mobile device, equipped with a voice assistant. The popular voice assistants today are Siri, Cortana, Google Voice Search/Now, Viv, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home.

Why is Voice Search Increasing?

Mobile devices, equipped with voice assistants, are making lives easier by enabling a natural way to interact with machines. With the help of a digital voice assistant people can get answers to their questions simply by asking with a conversational voice.

According to research by HitWise, more than 60 percent of internet searches are now done through mobile devices. And the number is expected to increase significantly in the future. As it is much easy to search through voice rather than typing on mobile devices, the mobile voice search is gaining popularity day-by-day.

Why You Should Optimize Your Website for Voice Search?

It is now time for businesses to optimize their websites for voice search. And it is due to the simple reason—to maintain visibility in search engine rankings in the wake of the growing popularity of voice search.

Akin to the need for optimizing websites for the traditional search queries using specific keywords, the need for such optimization for voice search is becoming stronger and stronger with every passing day.

It is needless to say that the changing online searching trend has also sent a virtual message to the SEO professionals to re-orient their SEO tactics towards voice-based searches.

Ways to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search

It is mainly due to the convenience of speaking with an assistant than to type the relevant keywords the popularity of voice search is increasing day-by-day. Things are changing gradually and voice search is slowly but steadily entering into the mainstream with the traditional keyword-based search tending to lose appeal.

Already, 20 percent of Google searches on Android mobile devices are voice-based, and the number is expected to rise significantly in the future. In a survey by MindMeld, involving 1,800 adult smartphone users in the US, 60 percent of them said that they preferred doing voice searches. It was also found that the usage of voice assistants was steadily increasing.

But how will you optimize your website for mobile voice search? The following are effective ways:

Optimize Page Loading Speed

Search engines, such as Google, favor the websites that load quickly. It means that the websites that load fast are placed within the top rankings in search engine results. Therefore, you need to optimize your website to load fast as loading speed plays an important role in enabling websites to occupy higher ranks in search engine results.

SSL Security

In addition to the loading speed of websites, Google and other search engines favor secured and certified websites. You should secure your website with SSL Certificate so that search engines see it as a trusted website.

The SSL Certificate enables an encrypted connection with the secured website with which browsers come in contact. An SSL Certificate is a block of code written on a web server that provides security for online communications.

The HTTPS protocol on secured websites with SSL Certificate ensures both the visitor and Google’s bot that your website can be trusted and it complies with all the rules of good online practices.

FAQ Page on Website

A key feature of voice optimized websites is its ability to respond to visitors’ queries, which normally revolve around your products and services. Your website needs to be able to answer some of the most common questions from visitors related to your products and services.

So, create an FAQ page on your website that contains the common answers related to your business offerings. Ensure that your FAQ pages contain long-tail as well as conversational keyword phrases.

Use natural-sounding keywords and phrases instead of traditional SEO based keywords. You should use conversational keywords that imitate the ways people speak and ask questions.

Long and Quality Content

Creating long content will help your website to rank higher in search engine results. Normally, it is seen that articles that are long and are within 2300-2450 words find a place among the first five results of a search query.

Voice search results not only depend upon the length of content but also the associated quality. Your website should host high-quality content which is valuable for the target audience.

The content should solve their queries and also appeal to them. Search engines rank websites with good quality content higher in the search results.

Short Content

While long content plays a big role in ranking websites higher in voice search results, short content also is equally important.

Many people search for quick and short answers to their queries, and that is where the role of short content comes in. So, ensure that your website bears short content as well to respond to voice queries seeking short and precise answers.

Short Questions and Simple Words

Normally, people using voice search ask short questions with simple words in the belief that such questions will enable the search engine to understand better. Therefore, use short sentences and simple words in your website’s content.

Also, people prefer answers with simple words and short sentences. If they find a relevant answer in simple words they are likely to click on the link and visit the website.

Structured Data Markup

For voice search optimization of your website, you should use structured data markup, which eases voice search devices in locating specific content on your website.

As such, you should use structured data markup from schema.org on your website to optimize it for voice search. Structured data enables search engines to understand your content as well as its context.

Active Social Media Presence

Posting social media content actively is a good way of optimizing your website for voice search. Nowadays, almost many people engage with companies on social media. They ask questions on the products and services of the companies, write reviews, share comments and read blogs.

Being active in social media helps search engines to rank your website higher in search engine results apart from helping in spreading the information about your products and services.

Listing in Google MyBusiness

Listing your business in Google MyBusiness also helps in optimizing your website for voice searches. As many of the voice searches pertain to local businesses, having your business listed in Google MyBuisness will increase the chance of your website showing up when a voice search with respect to the local business is made. Research shows that 22% of voice search pertains to local content.

Why You Should Include Voice Search in Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

Optimizing your website for voice search is no longer a fashion but has become a necessity. If you are yet to implement voice search optimization for your website, do it immediately to prevent your business from trailing behind your competitors. Voice search is increasingly becoming popular among people, and the popularity is going to further increase in the future. Research shows that by the end of 2020, 50% of all internet searches will be voice-based.

It is now amply clear that the changing internet searching practice is driving the need for businesses to incorporate voice search strategy in their digital marketing plans. So, that their businesses stay visible to their target audience.

That is, however, the broad benefit. The specific benefits of implementing voice search in your digital marketing strategy are as follows:

Improving Customer Experience

Implementation of voice search in your digital marketing strategy goes beyond staying visible in search engine results. It also helps in improving customer experiences to foster strong relationships and build brand loyalty.

As voice assistants can differentiate among voices, they can provide valuable insights about user behavior. In this way, it can help businesses create more personalized messages and content to provide to users, who thus undergo better customer experience.

At the same time, voice searches entail convenience for customers as those take lesser time than text-based searches.

Changing SEO Practices

With the growing prevalence of voice searches, SEO practices also have undergone changes. And that is also another reason for which businesses today should include voice search in their digital marketing strategy.

The main reason for changing SEO practices is that people post queries differently during voice searches than text searches. For example, voice search queries tend to be somewhat longer than text search queries. Normally, voice searches are posted in the form of full questions rather than only keywords (such as “which is the best digital marketing company?” rather than just “digital marketing company”).

SEO professionals have responded to the changing searching practices by incorporating longer (around three to four words) keyword phrases and using relevant question keyword phrases.

Driving Website Traffic

One of the key differences between voice and text searches is that during a voice search, users do not get a full search engine result page but obtain the top answers or results. In this way, voice search provides the option for users to visit the website from which the result was fetched. That means, businesses with voice optimized websites, have the privilege of getting a substantial increase in website traffic as your website appears at the top results against voice search queries.

 Prevent Consumers from Finding Competitors

Having a voice search strategy is not only important to make your website visible with the growing practice of people tending to post search queries through voice instead of text but also prevents consumers from finding your competitors.

Say, if your competitors have already adopted the voice search strategy and you do not, then consumers are likely to find them not you.

Again, the voice search technology is hitherto new. As such, not a very large number of businesses have joined the fray. So, you get the opportunity to stay ahead of your competitors by optimizing your website for voice search.

Digital Voice Assistant Market

Understandably, the global digital voice assistant market is poised for a substantial boost, to be driven by the growing practice of voice search. According to research, the global voice assistant market is growing at a CAGR of 24.32 percent to reach around USD 7.3 billion by 2025 from USD 1.68 billion in 2018.

The post How to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

The digital marketing world is constantly crossing newer milestones with each passing day. It is changing and growing continuously. In order to keep up the pace with the technological advancement of the latest age and enhance your business growth, you must integrate your marketing endeavours with the growing digital marketing trends in 2020.

Make your brand marketing more impactful and relevant by following these successful digital marketing trends to push newer boundaries in 2020

Digital Marketing Trends

1. Augmented Reality

The technology related to Augmented Reality (AR) is still untapped in more than one way and still in its infant stage. It offers great scope to your brand to get greater ROI with your digital marketing endeavours.

It is well-known that games like Pokémon Go that were AR-based became a major hit among the people in mid-2016. A large segment of manufacturers and developers are working to create wearable gears based on AR technology to enhance the user experience and creating value for their brand.

In the upcoming scenario, traditional advertisements will give way to AR-based 3D advertisements, allowing the users to stream 3D content directly to get an advanced experience. It enables the users to connect with your brand offering on a much deeper level emotionally.

It also enables your marketers to augment your brand awareness, leading the customers to test your products well before they move towards placing the orders.

2. Marketing Automation

The various mechanisms related to marketing are getting accelerated by data-driven technologies. Marketing automation enables marketers to establish better relationships with their customers by automating some of the repetitive tasks such as e-mail reminders, social media postings and leads generation.

It is especially beneficial for the new market entrants and small companies that are competing with the top-notch companies by saving their effort and time. Customers are attracted to the brand in a better way when they receive e-mails that cater to their particular requirements.

The process of marketing automation requires the use of software that is needed to be uploaded with the necessary data related to the user’s personalized data. It is a complex technology that can be better managed by partnering with a professional and experienced digital marketing company.

3. Artificial Intelligence

AI has been continuously making dramatic shifts in the digital marketing world for the developments of any brand. It is running parallel to any other marketing tactics and promises to offer you better marketing opportunities in the future.

It analyses the behaviour of your users by reading their search patterns on various social media platforms to enable the brands to understand the demands of their users better and offer them the services accordingly.

AI can solve the problems much more effectively than any human mind, and provides you a defined output without any definite possibility of errors.

Repetitive tasks can be better handled by AI bots that reduces the load of the employees, further enabling them to perform better. It allows your marketing team to develop a highly curated content that will be highly significant for the recipients.

4. Impactful Stories on Social Media

Social media platforms are ever-evolving and presenting the brands with unlimited opportunities to grow their business with digital marketing efforts. It enhances customer engagement in a big way.

Also, it enables marketers to keep the online audience updated with all the current developments taking place in your industry domain. It gives way to daily promotions of your brand by posting marketing content on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

5. Visual Search

Brand optimization with visual search is a great way to offer focused and defined results for your users. It allows the users to click a picture or upload a picture related to the product they are looking to find online.

It directs them to the items without any hassle. Even though it is in its nascent stage, it holds great potential to become a leading digital marketing technology to deliver perfect results.

6. Influencer Marketing

Under this marketing trend, brands use key figures to promote their brand offering among the online audience. Instagram is rapidly growing up the ladder to become a major source of becoming a platform used for influencer marketing.

As the network of social media is scaling up with every single day, there is a rapid increase in the number of influencers as well. Users tend to listen to these well-known celebrities and popular figures ardently.

With the increased use of hashtags and promotional content directed by the influencers on their social media handles, smart brands are taking the content reference from these mentioned posts, and locating the precise on-brand engagements, thereby enhancing their performance of better user engagements. It also plays as a great medium to enhance human-to-human connections and showcase your brand creativity.

7. Programmatic Advertising

An extension of AI to improve the efficiency of your marketing endeavors. Previously, ad industry was managed manually by publishers that controlled and ran the ad industry on the basis of hectic meetings with middlemen and unending negotiations.

With the multiplication of online publishers on a daily basis, it has turned out to be a challenge for the advertisers to keep up the pace with it. The solution is bringing in automation in the advertising industry to take better control over things.

It allows your brand to cut out the middleman and make the advertising procedure simply. Marketers are developing target-oriented ads that are produced by using and analyzing the personalized data of online visitors.

It has enabled the brands to promote transparency in their advertisement campaigns and curtail the instances of fraud, created by the middlemen. It also makes the process of advertising quicker that leads to increased conversions, better ROI and a decrease in the cost of spending. This digital marketing trend is definitely here to stay.

8. Video Marketing

It is one of the ever-growing trends in the digital marketing world. Over the years, visible growth has been seen in user engagements led by pre-made video posts and live videos.

It channelizes the information of a particular product or service to the audience in a much clearer manner, making a direct connection between the audience and your brand.

Directly dealing with the audience via Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels with the help of personalized messages and video content enables you to improve the consistency of lead conversions, thereby leading to better opportunities of your business development.

9. Use of Chatbots

It is a mode where you engage with your customers on a real-time basis via an instant messenger and provides solutions to all their queries related to your brand offerings. Over the years, many companies have agreed to the viability of integrating chatbots in their digital marketing strategy to add value to their business.

It also allows your brand to offer high-quality services to your customers at any hour of the day, and meet the expectations of your customers at every single time. It has been observed after research that almost 80% of the businesses are planning to incorporate the technology of chatbots in their marketing planning by 2020.

10. Voice Search

Technologies of Google Voice and Apple’s Siri have already made a big name for themselves in the digital world. Voice search provides precise answers to the customers without confusion, leading to the desired outcome for them.

Most of the successful marketers create a detailed voice script matching the customers’ requirements and offering creative solutions to their concerns. In the digital marketing world, people are looking forward to creating better voice scenarios based on surveys, internal data, and communications with real customers.

Not just the target audience, it is also hitting successfully with the new and emerging digital audience as well, especially in the small cities and towns.

To emerge as a successful marketer, you can very well explore the great potential of voice search for your marketing efforts related to brand promotions.

11. User-Generated Social Media Content

It has been on the trajectory of growth in recent years in the digital marketing world. User-generated content is any type of brand-related content that is shared by the brand audience on their social media channels like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Attention is better directed towards producing and promoting more and more user-generated content, as the targeted audience looks forward to getting validations from social and digital marketing platforms.

It also enhances customer engagements with your brand. It creates a chain of customers that bring closer the potential leads with the existing customers smoothly. It is a growing trend among the millennial generation and needs to be used to its full potential to get better access to lead conversions and brand promotions.

2020 will be all about enhancing the user experience by delivering better personalized, AI-driven and automated content.

To stay ahead in the competition, you need to get a better grip on generating custom content, integrating it well with audio and video enhancements to attract the attention of the targeted audience towards your brand in a seamless manner.

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