Design Trends
Voice Search – Trending in 2019 and Beyond
Is it time to make Siri and Alexa your biz besties?
Voice search is becoming the new ‘I-want-it-now’ trend, allowing web users to give those texting fingers a rest while still surfing the web.
Voice search is basically when your potential customers speak into their phones, instead of typing keywords into Google, to find what they are looking for.
Why should your business care?
Try it. Ask Siri where the best Thai restaurant in Sydney is – or to search local plumbing companies using Google Voice Search. Believe it or not, this is how around 30% of all web searches will be conducted by 2020.
SEO is all about helping search engines rank your site effectively and deliver your business to the right searchers as quickly as possible – and the average person can type 40 words per minute, but speak about 150 words per minute. So it makes sense that voice is becoming more and more important in the search process.
After all, if you can ask a question and get a response in seconds, Google knows they are nailing it!
Voice search can either deliver you web results to choose from, or an instant action, such as telling you the current time or calling Mum.
Smart Speakers – Aussies beating the U.S by miles
The new kids on the smart speaker block are Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod, with Aussies welcoming them into our homes at a faster rate than the Americans!
5% of Australians had access to smart speakers after just 6 months of Google Home being on the market… whereas the U.S took 3 YEARS to get to 7%.
You can see just how fast voice search is taking Australia by storm, and optimising your site for voice search is going to become one of the top items on your SEO consultants list for 2019 and beyond.
Your customers are going to be asking Google to find them the opening hours for your business, your location or details on your services – all without lifting a finger.
What should you do to optimise your website for voice search?
The simple answer? Not much… IF you are already implementing current SEO best practices across your website. If you aren’t… you will have a lot of catching up to do before you are voice-ready!
Some of the voice SEO rules are much the same as organic ranking, such as:
- maintaining a fast website load speed,
- using long-tail keywords that mimic natural speech,
- applying location-specific SEO and
- using featured snippets to summarise your pages.
The more information you can provide Google (opening hours, specific service details, etc.) and the more up-to-date your SEO strategy, the better your website will perform for both regular and voice searches.
A good SEO specialist will be able to optimise certain aspects of your website specifically for voice, butthe moral of the story is that SEO matters – and any business who isn’t staying proactive will be left behind.
The great news?
Customers who are using voice search are usually looking for an immediate result. They are ready to call or buy now, so it is worth investing in targeted SEO to catch them when it counts!
If you are looking to make voice search optimisation part of your 2019 marketing strategy – give our team at Frog Online a call and our SEO experts will help you make it happen!
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