The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving and, as a result, it is imperative to stay on top of the latest SEO trends. Failing to keep up with changes in SEO trends often means getting left behind in the dust. At LinkNow Media, we have a duty to stay on top of the changing search trends so that we can continue to deliver the high level of SEO marketing our clients have come to expect. One of the things we will be keeping a close eye on is how voice search is affecting results.
Whether you use it regularly, only tried it once or have written it off as a silly little gimmick, there is no denying that voice search queries are on the rise. Today, we are seeing that voice searches are more accurate than ever, more household products equipped with voice search are growing in popularity (think Google Home, Amazon’s Echo, Microsoft’s Cortana, Siri, etc.), and this means that more people are trying it and getting used to using the feature. American media measurement and analytics company comScore estimates that by the year 2020, 50 percent of all searches will be voice. Currently, 40 percent of adults perform a voice search at least once per day.
If this comes as a shock, consider how much more convenient speaking is compared to typing. The reason it’s only catching on now is because things have drastically improved. In 2013, Google’s word recognition accuracy rate was just below 80 percent, which is just a high enough margin for error for people to dismiss it as a novelty and type in what they are looking for. Today, voice search is 92 percent accurate and it’s only getting better.
No matter how you feel about this relatively new method of searching the internet, there is one absolute truth about voice: few people type the way they speak. This means your website may be optimized for the way searchers type but not how they speak. In order to properly optimize your website for voice, it’s helps to know how search engines are determining search results for voice queries. They give answers in two ways for the most part. They will state the answer to a question or they will provide a website where you are most likely to find your answer.
Seattle-based inbound marketing and analytics company Moz found that voice answers came from featured snippets 87 percent of the time. Featured snippets are Google search results that appear in a block at the top of search results page as a preview for the content found on the web page. So, there is reason to believe that one way to increase web traffic is to focus on appearing in the featured snippet position for high-value search queries.
Unfortunately, getting in the featured snippet position is a lot easier said than done. Plus, there are no guarantees that you’ll stay there for more than a couple of days. So, how are businesses supposed to adapt their search engine optimization strategies to accommodate for the rise of voice searches? Well, whenever we are faced with SEO changes with murky futures attached to them, we always fall back on on-page SEO.
Until further notice, the foundation of good SEO remains with solid content that is informative and relevant. Google has found that 70 percent of searches via their Assistant are conversational queries that bear a closer resemblance to the way a person would present a question to another person. Text searches have certainly become more conversational over time, and voice searches are still very different from the way one interacts with a search box. So, it stands to reason that if you want to make sure you are ranking for voice searches, websites will need to make a concerted effort to feature content that has a conversational tone.
Now, writing your website’s content in a conversational tone can be a challenge for any business owner who doesn’t have much writing experience. There is no question that it’s worth trying to do it yourself, but you might be in for a rude awakening when you realize that it’s not as easy as it seems. If you are struggling to present your business in a way that is both conversational and professional, you can always defer your writing duties to LinkNow Media’s content writers.
We keep a team of professional content writers in-house at LinkNow Media so that business owners who lack the gift of the gab don’t have to second guess whether or not they are clearly communicating the value of the services you offer.
To find out more about how LinkNow Media’s writers can create content that is both professional and conversational, please give us a call today at 1-888-667-7186.
