To stay on top of the digital marketing game, businesses need to constantly lookout for the latest trends.  That means frequently reviewing your marketing strategy and adapting. One of the most recent developments in the world of marketing is voice search.

Voice search has fast become extremely popular. Now, over 100 million Alexa devices have been sold. Furthermore, the majority of people have voice assistants enabled on their phones.  Because of this, businesses have a brand new way to reach audiences.

But how can you fit voice search into your current marketing strategy?

Now is the time to adopt voice search into your marketing strategy. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t change your strategy altogether. Businesses should just find a way to integrate it into their marketing strategies.

Look at your current marketing strategy and observe what is working and what is not. For example, use keywords that are already working for you.

What does Voice SEO do for your business?

Voice SEO helps your business be returned in voice search results. It allows your business listings to show up in the top results delivered by voice assistants.  For instance, with searches via Google Assistant, you will be given the top 3 Google map pack result for your search.  It looks like this:

How to do Voice SEO for your business:

1. Start with keyword research – Use a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner to discover which keywords businesses like yours are using to drive traffic. Don’t forget to use your successful pre-existing keywords though.
2. Use local and geographic modifiers – Search Engine Watch states that mobile voice searches are 3x more likely to be localised than a text search. This means that people are using voice assistants to find businesses and services in their local area. Therefore, to integrate voice search into your marketing strategy, add geographic modifiers such as the city,  area, county, or country of your business.
3. Use Longtail and Conversational keywords – When using voice assistants and devices, people tend to use lengthier and more conversational language than they would type. Think carefully about this when optimising for local search.  This will help drive foot traffic to your business!
4. Consider your buyer persona – Consider the questions you hear and see your customers ask about your business. Also, think about your ideal buyer persona and what kind of questions they might ask. Optimsie your business website and listings for these questions.
5. Optimise with natural language – If you are optimising for voice search, it is important to use natural language. People often ask their voice assistants multiple follow-up questions.  Make sure you have optimised for the natural flow of conversation that may entail.

Still want more advice on optimising for voice search, read our blog ‘How to get your business voice search optimized’. 

Finally, where does VOICE SEO best fit into your marketing strategy?

There are several stages of the buyer’s journey where customers may turn to their voice assistants for help.

1.  Customers most often use voice search at the beginning of the buyer’s journey.  This is where you should be optimising for keywords that will increase foot traffic to your physical business locations. These are hyperlocal terms like ‘near me’, ‘in my area’ or geographic modifiers.
2. Before making a purchase, customers will often spend time researching and considering their different options. Add FAQS and a blog to your website and optimise these for the questions that your customers are asking about your business. That way when customers use voice search for product research, your business will be returned in the results.
3. After customers have used your services or bought a product, you can still offer further support. Optimise your contact us pages and any other customer help pages for voice search. This will help customers find the information they need about your business.

Other things to consider when incorporating Voice SEO into your marketing strategy:

• Direct voice searches to video content. Not only does video content perform well SEO-wise, but people searching with their voice obviously have a preference for audible content.
• A lot of the time people use voice search when they are on the move. That’s why listing your business location(s) on Google Maps is beneficial. Customers will be able to get directions to your business when they are driving along!
• Different voice assistants and devices use different search engines to gather results. For example, Google Assistant and Google Home both evidently use Google, whereas Siri and Alexa use Bing. Therefore, make sure when optimising for voice search that your business is already listed on Bing as well as Google and optimised for both search engines.

We hope this helps you understand how you can fit voice search into your existing marketing strategy.

If you need help this, drop us an email at contact@vicinus.ai