When Google makes something a priority, savvy marketers sit up and take notice. Search is one area where Google has been clear in its expectations, saying that “voice is not only helpful — it’s critical for many people’s daily engagements with technology.”

Indeed, PwC research shows that 71% of people would rather use voice search to search for something online than typing into the search box. Today, 90% of consumers are familiar with voice-enabled devices, including smart speakers, voice assistants and voice search on smartphones.

How can you incorporate voice into your SEO strategy? In this article, I’ll outline what voice search SEO is, why voice matters to Google (and to you, as a result), how to expand your audience with voice and different ways you can better meet searchers’ needs by optimizing content for voice search.

• What is voice search?
• What is voice search SEO? 
• Nine tips for voice search SEO
• FAQ: How do voice assistants influence voice search results and rankings? 

What Is Voice Search?

Voice search is a voice-enabled way of searching or completing a task on the web or in an app. Searchers speak their keyword, phrase, or question into a microphone on their mobile device or to a voice assistant such as Google Home or Amazon Alexa and, depending on the device, may receive results in text or audio format.

Whether speaking to a voice assistant or voice-enabled search engine, you can expect that the algorithm will bring back what it believes is the best answer for the query with special attention given to the fact it was spoken aloud.

What Is Voice Search SEO?

Voice search SEO is the optimization of content for voice queries and can include the keywords used, how content is structured, the schema markup to help Google understand its relevance to a voice query and more.

As Google states in its Voice Playbook, “More than a million new internet users come online every day, many of whom wouldn’t be able to interact with technology at all without voice input.”

Ensuring that content is accessible to all of those new users is so important to Google that it’s part of the search engine’s mission statement “… to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

In fact, better serving the needs of mobile users who increasingly use voice to search was the driving force behind Google’s introduction of the RankBrain machine learning system in 2015. RankBrain helps Google better understand the intent and context of longer, more complex queries (as is often the case with voice search).

Optimizing your content with voice search SEO can dramatically increase your potential audience and help you expand into new markets.

Knowing that accessibility — specifically, voice — is such a key priority for Google means it should also be a priority for every website publisher. Voice search is an essential consideration in future-proofing your SEO strategy.

9 Tips for Voice Search SEO

1. Know Your Audience

Hopefully, you have a pretty good idea of your customer’s pain points and needs gathered in the processes of product or service development, SEO, PPC and more (like your keyword research). Understanding who you are optimizing for and what matters to them is an important first step.

Begin by listing specific questions and voice search queries your prospective customers might use. These are a few great sources for expanding your list and your understanding of voice searcher needs:

• Google Search Console
• Answer the Public
• People Also Ask

Map out your customer journey and identify gaps in content where you aren’t meeting their needs at any stage.

2. Understand the Voice Search Landscape

Don’t assume that you’re up against the same competitors in voice search results. Research the competition and available opportunities by asking your queries of different voice assistants and devices.

Remember to query brand terms as well. If you aren’t coming back as the response for queries explicitly seeking information about your company and its products or services, that’s a good place to start optimizing.

You might find that Amazon Alexa, Google Home and speaking directly into Google Search via the mic on your smartphone all bring back different results.

Track your opportunities to target featured snippets and evaluate top-ranking competitors to inform your voice search SEO strategy. Our SEOToolSet® can help with this important competitor research.

3. Expand Your Keyword Research with Voice Search In Mind

Now that you have a solid grasp of who you’re trying to reach and who else is succeeding in voice search, dig into your keyword research to find new opportunities to optimize content.

These tools can help:

• Keyword.io
• Semrush
• BuzzSumo Question Analyzer
• Google Autocomplete
• SEOToolSet’s Keyword Suggestions tool

See How to Select Keywords — SEO Guide Step 1 for more.

4. Keep in Mind the Various Ways People Use Voice to Interact

Google has identified four main types of voice interaction:

Recording is most often used in messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Messenger, while dictation is commonly how users interact with text editors and keyboards.

Commands and conversational interactions are most relevant to the search experience, and, therefore for voice search SEO.

Users give a voice command in Google Search or YouTube Search in order to receive back a relevant set of results. And as Google points out, we tend to be more conversational in our interactions with voice assistants such as Google Assistant or Siri. We use longer phrases or even speak in full sentences.

This means in voice search SEO it’s important to optimize for both:

• Head terms: Short phrases or single keywords with high search query volume and competition, such as [men’s shorts] or [flights].
• Long-tail keywords: Three-word or longer queries that are typically less competitive and give the query greater context.

5. Keep Answers Brief, Direct and Simple

A Semrush voice search study shows that the average text length of answers to voice queries is 41 words.

The same study found that close to 97% of answers returned were from the top 10 results in organic Google Search, and that 70% of voice search answers occupied a SERP feature (60% of those being a Featured Snippet).

Aim for the top 10 and that coveted featured snippet in “position zero” by answering the searcher’s question as completely yet succinctly as possible.

This isn’t the place to show off your robust vocabulary, either. Content readability should rank around a Grade 8 level on the Fleish-Kincaid scale for best placement in voice search results.

6. Demonstrate Your E-E-A-T in Voice-Optimized Content

The importance of experience, expertise, authority and trust in written content is a hot topic and an essential element of voice optimization.

Providing the best possible answer is critical for Google. They aim to nurture and protect searcher trust by providing the highest quality and most trustworthy information.

How do you clarify to Google that your webpage ticks all those boxes? See our Complete Guide to the Basics of Google’s E-E-A-T to learn more.

7. Make Sure Technical SEO Issues Aren’t Holding You Back

A clean, accessible site will always perform better in search, with all other things being equal, regardless of the query medium.

• Mobile-friendliness is imperative, especially with Google’s prioritization of the “page experience” update.
• Make sure your site is optimizing for core web vitals to take advantage of the rankings boost this can provide.
• Clean up any messy redirects and duplicate content, optimize your page speed, and use the robots.txt tester to ensure you aren’t accidentally preventing Google from accessing any pages.

Work through our Technical SEO Tips for more.

8. Use Speakable and Other Schema Markup

Help Google understand which sections of your webpage are best suited for audio playback on Google Assistant with Speakable schema, a type of structured data markup.

Once you’ve applied the schema to your page, submit it for review. This process can take up to five days. Google will let you know if the content meets its guidelines and is eligible for inclusion in Google Assistant results or not.

You can use other types of schema to make the topic, information type and structure of other content clear to search engines.

For example, Product markup can be used for any product or service, while LocalBusiness markup tells search engines about the page’s relevance to local business queries.

Use Google’s testing tools to troubleshoot schema markup in published content and code snippets.

9. Remember That Voice is Used for All Types of Queries

We tend to think of voice queries as things we ask Siri, Google, or another voice-activated assistant while needing to be hands-free — when you’re cooking lunch or driving a car, for example.

But voice search is used by all kinds of people to solve many different types of problems. People who struggle with low literacy, experience visual impairment, type slowly, communicate in complex languages, use lower-end devices lacking a full keyboard and more all benefit from using voice search versus typing in text queries.

In short, no topic, vertical, or business won’t benefit from optimizing for voice search.

Final Thoughts

Website publishers can help search engines better understand the relevance of content to voice searchers in many different ways. Work through the voice search SEO tips above as you create and deploy new content.

Then, make voice search optimization an integral aspect of your overall SEO strategy and enjoy the additional visibility and traffic it brings.

Interested in implementing voice search SEO into your site? Talk to us. We can help.

FAQ: How do voice assistants influence voice search results and rankings?

Voice assistants have transformed how users interact with technology, especially in voice search. As voice search becomes increasingly popular, understanding how voice assistants influence search results and rankings is essential for businesses aiming to maximize online visibility and engagement.

The Rise of Voice Assistants

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have revolutionized how people perform online tasks and access information. Voice search has become part of everyday life for millions, thanks to smart speakers and devices with voice control features. Search engines have modified their algorithmic processes in response to voice queries; this change affects how content ranks for ranking purposes and how it’s presented to users.

Voice Search and Search Intent

One crucial aspect of voice assistants’ influence on search results is understanding search intent. Voice queries are more conversational and natural than traditional text-based searches. Consequently, search engines aim to deliver concise, relevant answers that address users’ questions directly. To optimize for voice search rankings, it’s vital to provide concise and authoritative content that meets the needs of voice search users.

Structured Data and Featured Snippets

Voice assistants rely heavily on structured data and featured snippets to answer users’ questions concisely. By leveraging schema markup and optimizing content to be more structured, businesses can increase the likelihood of their content being selected as a featured snippet in voice search results. Achieving a featured snippet position can significantly enhance visibility and brand authority in the voice search landscape.

Voice Assistant Preferences and Brand Visibility

Depending on their algorithms and partnerships, different voice assistants may provide varying results for the same voice query. Optimizing content for specific voice assistant preferences can enhance brand visibility and ensure your content is presented to the right audience at the right time. Understanding these preferences and tailoring your voice search optimization strategy can yield valuable competitive advantages.

The Future of Voice Search and Recommendations

As voice search continues to evolve, businesses must stay proactive in adapting their content and SEO strategies to keep up with emerging trends and changes in voice assistant technology. Voice search is expected to play an increasingly significant role in how consumers access information and make purchase decisions. Embracing voice search optimization and providing valuable content that caters to voice assistant preferences will position businesses for success in the voice-driven digital landscape.

Step-by-Step Tips to Transform Your Site for Voice Assistant SEO

1. Understand the role and impact of voice assistants on voice search outcomes.
2. Analyze how voice queries differ from traditional text-based searches in terms of search intent and language usage.
3. Optimize content to align with voice search users’ natural language and conversational queries.
4. Implement structured data and schema markup to increase the chances of being featured in voice search results.
5. Tailor content to cater to specific voice assistant preferences and algorithms.
6. Keep abreast of emerging trends and changes in voice assistant technology to adapt your voice search optimization strategy accordingly.
7. Monitor and analyze voice search analytics to identify areas for improvement and measure the impact of voice assistant influence on search rankings.
8. Conduct competitor research to identify best practices and opportunities for voice search optimization.
9. Create valuable and authoritative content that directly addresses user queries and provides concise answers.
10. Use analytics and user feedback to refine and enhance your voice search optimization efforts continuously.
11. Test and optimize content for different voice assistants to maximize brand visibility and exposure.
12. Regularly update and refresh content to maintain relevance and accuracy in voice search results.
13. Leverage user-generated content and customer reviews to boost brand credibility and visibility in voice search.
14. Collaborate with voice assistant platforms and explore partnerships to enhance brand visibility and reach.
15. Monitor search engine algorithm updates and voice assistant advancements to stay ahead of the curve.
16. Utilize natural language processing techniques to ensure content aligns with voice search users’ preferences.
17. Leverage social media and voice-enabled devices to promote voice search-friendly content and engage with your audience.
18. Optimize website speed and performance to cater to voice search users’ need for quick and seamless results.
19. Gather user feedback and insights to improve voice search optimization strategies.
20. Stay informed about voice search trends and developments to remain competitive in the voice-driven digital landscape.

The post How To Do SEO for Voice Search: 9 Tips appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

For many brands, optimizing for voice search is uncharted territory. I’m here to give you a high-level overview of what to consider and how to get it done. Start competing for your share of visibility in the growing trend that is voice search. In this article:

• How does voice impact search?
• What are voice search ranking factors?
• How do you optimize for voice search?
• Be Seen, Be Known
• FAQ: What are the key ranking factors in voice search optimization?

(If you’re new to voice search, it will be useful to review the CMO guide to voice search, which includes key definitions and trends. But if you’re ready to learn the next step about how SEO and voice search work together, you’re in the right place.)

How Does Voice Impact Search?

Google once said that voice search represented 20% of queries on its app and Android devices. That was 2016. Since then, research suggests that the percentage has grown much higher. It’s obvious that this is an area that Google will continue to invest in.

Let’s look at a couple of ways voice is impacting how the search engine works …

In 2015, Google launched RankBrain, an artificial intelligence system applied to the search results that better understands the meaning of a searcher’s words.

Mobile usage and voice search were primary drivers of this, as voice queries are typically more conversational than typed queries. RankBrain deals well with those longer, unique queries (often three or more words).

The second concept to know is that voice assistants like Google Assistant make decisions for searchers on which result is the most relevant to answer a question. This is unlike the traditional way of letting the searcher choose a result from the search results page.

Voice search could mean more complexity for brands with local brick-and-mortar locations, too.

For example, someone who has a broken water pipe might simply tell their Google Home device “my plumbing is broken” versus a more traditional voice search like “show me plumbers near me” or “who are the best plumbers in my area?”

What Are Voice Search Ranking Factors?

There are different ways a voice assistant retrieves answers. For example, if it’s on a smart speaker like Google Home, the assistant relies on apps built for the device (via Google Actions) or uses the web.

SEMrush conducted a study that looked at the ranking factors for a voice search. Their goals:

1. To understand the parameters that Google Assistant uses to select answers to voice search queries.
2. To compare and understand differences in answers obtained from different devices.

Out of the many data points from that study, here are a few to highlight:

• About 80 percent of the answers Google Assistant chose were from the top three organic results across all devices (Google Home, Google Home Mini and Android phone).
• Sixty percent of all answers returned from a voice search were from featured snippets.
• Seventy percent of all answers occupied one of the features in the search engine results page (SERP) … for more on SERP features, see this.
• Page speed was an important factor across all devices.

From our own experience, it is worth mentioning that the expertise, authority, and trust of the site that the answer is coming from (and the content itself) are vital. Google cannot afford to give the wrong answer to queries as that undermines its reputation and can potentially mislead the user.

How Do You Optimize for Voice Search?

Strategically, here are a few things to keep in mind when adapting your SEO strategy to voice search.

Know Your Audience

Research how someone would search using voice for your brand, product, or service. Remember that voice queries generally take one of two formats:

• Conversational and question-based, starting with who, what, when, why, and how
• Declarative statements, such as the “my plumbing is broken” example earlier

Create a list of voice searches you believe your audience might use. As a starting point, look at the queries in your Google Search Console for real examples — chances are good that the longer, more conversational queries came from voice searches.

It can be useful to map these questions to your audience’s journey as they engage with you on different levels. For example, what do people search for during the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the buying stage?

Know the Results

With your newfound keyword research, try the queries yourself. Search for your brand, products, and services using voice search to find out if and how they show up in the results.

If your website isn’t showing up, your webpages aren’t doing a good job of satisfying the ranking factors for voice search.

You can study things like the ranking factors from the SEMrush study and optimize for them. Check out our SEO checklist for a primer on how to optimize for many of those areas.

Know Your Competition

First, find out which websites are showing up on Page 1 for the voice search queries you want to be found for.

Then analyze the top pages to better understand the logistics of the top-ranking results. You can use software like our SEOToolSet^® to help you figure this out. And then to help you create content that is on par with the competition, the Bruce Clay SEO WP plugin can do competitive research on the fly.

Be Seen, Be Known

Be Everywhere

Consider building Actions on Google or Amazon Skills to insert your brand into more things that your audience is trying to do on their smart speaker.

For many brands, this is a newer concept. However, marketers are beginning to think about how they can adopt this into their programs.

Be Trusted

The experience, expertise, authority, and trust of your site and its content are vital. Start working to improve E-E-A-T now, or your site will never come up as a voice answer.

In summary, optimizing for voice search is just another way that you can be sure your brand, its products, and its services are there when your audience searches for them. As a growing trend, it’s something to understand and adopt ahead of your competition.

If you need help strategizing a plan forward with your website, we can help. Fill out a quote request to start the conversation.

FAQ: What are the key ranking factors in voice search optimization?

In an era where voice-activated digital assistants have become ubiquitous, optimizing your online presence for voice search is imperative. To attain a competitive edge, it’s crucial to understand the key ranking factors that determine the success of your content in voice search results.

1. Natural Language Processing (NLP):

Voice search systems are designed to understand and respond to human language. Incorporating natural language in your content is paramount. Use conversational phrases and long-tail keywords to align with user queries.

2. Mobile Optimization:

Voice searches predominantly occur on mobile devices. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, with fast loading times and responsive design, to cater to the on-the-go nature of voice search.

3. Local SEO:

Voice searches often include phrases like “near me” or “in my area.” Optimize your local SEO by claiming your Google My Business listing, garnering positive reviews, and providing accurate business information.

4. Featured Snippets:

Voice assistants frequently source answers from featured snippets. Craft concise, informative snippets that answer common questions related to your niche.

5. Page Speed and Accessibility:

Fast-loading pages and accessible content are favored by voice search algorithms. Compress images, utilize AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), and maintain a user-friendly website structure.

Transitioning between these factors, let’s explore how to implement them effectively in a step-by-step guide for voice search optimization:

Step 1: Conduct comprehensive keyword research, focusing on long-tail and conversational phrases.

Step 2: Develop content that naturally incorporates these keywords.

Step 3: Optimize your website for mobile devices.

Step 4: Enhance your local SEO efforts, including geo-specific keywords.

Step 5: Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing.

Step 6: Encourage and manage online reviews.

Step 7: Create concise, informative featured snippets.

Step 8: Ensure your website loads swiftly.

Step 9: Implement image compression and utilize AMP.

Step 10: Prioritize accessibility for all users.

By following these steps and implementing the discussed factors, you can significantly improve your content’s ranking in voice search results.

The world of voice search optimization is dynamic and promising. Staying ahead in this landscape requires a deep understanding of the ranking factors and a commitment to providing valuable, accessible content that caters to the evolving needs of voice search users. Embrace these strategies, and your online presence will thrive in the era of voice-activated technology.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Voice Search Optimization Ranking Factors:

1. Conduct comprehensive keyword research, focusing on long-tail and conversational phrases.
2. Develop content that naturally incorporates these keywords.
3. Optimize your website for mobile devices.
4. Enhance your local SEO efforts, including geo-specific keywords.
5. Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing.
6. Encourage and manage online reviews.
7. Create concise, informative featured snippets.
8. Ensure your website loads swiftly.
9. Implement image compression and utilize AMP.
10. Prioritize accessibility for all users.

Follow these steps meticulously to improve your content’s ranking in voice search results and seize the opportunities presented by voice-activated technology.

The post A CMO’s Guide to Optimizing for Voice Search appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Voice search presents a massive and often untapped opportunity for brands to add more value and gain more visibility. Here’s what you need to know about this growing trend.

• Key definition and facts
• Key trends and stats
• Voice search benefits & concerns
• FAQ: How can I leverage voice search for brand optimization?

Key Definitions and Facts

Voice search is a voice-enabled way to search or complete a task on the web or an app. A person speaks their query into a microphone (on their phone or a home assistant device). The queries are usually in the form of a question (such as “What is …”) or a command (“Do this …”).

Voice assistants are programs on digital devices that facilitate queries. Examples of voice assistants include Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Voice assistants can be found on many devices. For example, Google Assistant is on smartphones and a ton of other devices for the home.

Smart speakers are devices like home assistants that are powered by voice assistants. Think Google Home (powered by Google Assistant) or Amazon Echo (powered by Amazon Alexa).

Actions (Google) or Skills (Alexa) are the terms used for voice-enabled capabilities on your voice-assisted device, which are akin to apps on a smartphone. They allow the user to do something. These capabilities can be developed by Amazon itself, for example, or by third-party developers. For example, Actions on Google might help you with food delivery: “OK Google, order Chinese food.”

Voice assistants work by selecting what they believe is the best answer to a searcher’s voice query through features on the search engine results page, for example.

Or they can help a searcher facilitate a task on a voice device through a Skill or Action. In both cases, the interaction between the voice assistant and the user is conversational.

It’s also important to understand that different search engines power different voice assistants. For example, Google, of course, powers Google Assistant and all its enabled devices. But Bing powers Amazon Alexa and devices like Echo (when something is not covered by a Skill).

Key Trends and Stats

Back in 2016, Google stated that 20% of searches (one in five) on Google’s mobile app and Android devices were voice queries. Newer data from Adobe shows that 48% of consumers are using voice assistants for general web searches.

eMarketer predicts that by 2021, U.S. voice assistant users will reach about 123 million, and the number is growing each year.

Amazon Alexa is a leader. It’s supported by the highest number of devices (an estimated 60,000 according to Statista), including Echo, with a rapidly growing set of Skills.

Internet Trends 2019, Bond Capital

But Google Assistant is also widely used, as outlined here.

Voice Search Benefits & Concerns

So what is the force behind the trend — why do people use voice search?

Voice search is about convenience. People say voice assistants improve their quality of life and save them time (according to Adobe data linked earlier).

This happens whether they are using voice assistants on their smartphones (85% of the time) or in their cars (31% of the time).

Adobe research via Search Engine Land

However, privacy concerns could potentially hinder the adoption of voice technology. The Adobe data supports that as well as research from NPR and Microsoft.

• Eighty-one percent said their issue with voice technology was privacy concerns. (Adobe)
• Sixty-six percent say they don’t own a smart speaker because it’s always listening. (NPR)
• Forty-one percent of users reported concerns about trust, privacy, and passive listening. (Microsoft)

Even with concerns about privacy, adoption is not expected to slow. Especially as the newer generations use technology on their terms.

Brands can position themselves to be more useful in a voice-search world by optimizing for voice queries. Be sure to read the how-to in my next post here.

As a CMO, if you are not discussing voice search in meetings, you are already behind.

Could you use some expert assistance to make your website more competitive? Contact us for a free consultation and quote.

FAQ: How can I leverage voice search for brand optimization?

Voice search has revolutionized consumer interactions with brands. This whitepaper explores how businesses can utilize this trend to increase brand presence and engagement with their target market.

Understanding the Voice Search Landscape

To excel in voice search brand optimization, it’s crucial to comprehend the landscape. Smart assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are at the core of voice search technology. These virtual entities use artificial intelligence and natural language processing techniques to comprehend user queries. Optimizing for voice search involves tailoring your content to align with these technologies.

Crafting Voice-Search-Friendly Content

Creating content that resonates with voice search requires a different approach compared to traditional text-based SEO. Start by understanding the common voice search queries relevant to your industry. Optimize your content by incorporating conversational and long-tail keywords, which mirror how people speak rather than type.

Enhancing Local Brand Visibility

Voice search is often used for local queries. To boost your brand’s local presence, ensure that your business information is accurate and up-to-date on platforms like Google My Business. Additionally, encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews, as these can significantly impact your ranking in voice search results.

Mobile Optimization for Voice Search

Since most voice searches happen on mobile devices, optimizing your website for mobile is essential. Ensure your site is responsive, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate. Voice search often delivers concise, direct answers, so structuring your content with clear headings and bullet points can improve visibility in voice search results.

Leveraging Schema Markup

Implementing schema markup can make it easier for search engines to understand your content and provide more accurate answers during voice searches. Search engines can extract more pertinent data when structured data is provided to them, increasing the chance that your content appears in voice search results.

Voice search has quickly become an integral component of modern life. To excel in brand optimization, businesses must adapt and embrace this technology. By crafting voice-search-friendly content, enhancing local visibility, optimizing for mobile, and using schema markup, you can position your brand as a trusted resource in the voice-search era.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Leveraging Voice Search for Brand Optimization

1. Understanding the Voice Search Landscape: Familiarize yourself with the virtual assistants and technologies driving voice search.
2. Identify Relevant Keywords: Research voice search queries in your industry and create a list of conversational and long-tail keywords.
3. Craft Voice-Search Friendly Content: Create content that aligns with how people speak, using the identified keywords naturally.
4. Enhance Local Visibility: Ensure your business information is accurate on platforms like Google My Business and encourage customer reviews.
5. Optimize for Mobile: Make your website responsive, fast-loading, and mobile-friendly.
6. Implement Schema Markup: Use schema markup to provide structured data, making it easier for search engines to understand your content.
7. Monitor and Analyze: Regularly monitor your voice search performance using tools like Google Analytics and adjust your strategy accordingly.

The post A CMO’s Guide to Voice Search in Less Than Five Minutes appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

For example, sites that have put off mobile readiness — thinking that most of their traffic comes from desktop, so why bother with mobile? — will find themselves in crisis this year.

Marketing teams across the board will face receding budgets as the C-suite becomes increasingly unwilling to dole out money without solid proof that it delivers results (per Gartner’s Oct. 2017 CMO survey).

As a result, I expect to see a focus on attribution tools and better data reporting as the industry scrambles to connect the dots of customer journeys and justify marketing spend.

Predictions for digital marketing in 2018 are fairly easy to make — at least compared to the last 13 years of annual prediction posts I’ve written. I am sure that most in the SEO industry who follow Google see these trends already progressing.

In a nutshell, the hot buttons SEOs know now will stay hot.

Here are my predictions for mobile first, voice search, content, linking, speed, SEO, ecommerce, machine learning, virtual reality and video, to help you make more informed decisions this year.

My Digital Marketing Predictions for 2018

Mobile First: Google’s mobile-first index will become a bigger player starting around February. I expect that there will be a significant “disturbance in the force” when companies that have rested on their brand realize that the indexed content has changed enough to disturb their rankings.

For sites that are not mobile friendly, Google may continue to index the desktop version and hold off moving it to the mobile-first index. However, I don’t expect their rankings to hold since mobile user experience is the search engine’s top priority.

I anticipate Google will roll out mobile-first faster than expected. But even the preparation for it is changing the search engine’s index — which impacts rankings.

For instance, businesses trying to speed up their sites may remove large images, eliminate non-essential content, and modify other elements including links. Just altering the navigation menu to simplify it for mobile users changes a lot. All of this fluctuating content will affect the index and (combined with other changes) potentially create a flurry of lost-traffic panic.

Sites that have put off mobile readiness — thinking that most of their traffic comes from desktop, so why bother with mobile? — will find themselves in crisis this year.
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Voice Search: Right behind mobile, I predict voice search will be a major SEO focus in 2018. This is not because it impacts ecommerce so much as it impacts information and news sites.

Video: Why voice search will be big in 2018

Users will ask questions, and many sites are not well optimized to provide answers to questions. The traditional phrase-centric search will become archaic, and optimization will need to be about spoken Q&A instead of who used the keyword best.

Virtual assistants (such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant) and smart devices (such as Amazon Echo, Google Home) will continue improving their ability to interpret spoken language through machine learning. That’s a given.

But voice searches are still imprecise in many cases, and users often have to restate questions in different ways to get useful information. For example, try this:

• Can you find your product with a voice search if you don’t mention your brand name?
• When you do a voice search for your business or products by name, are they correctly understood or mistaken for something else?

Businesses should test voice searches and make sure their online information is sufficient to give people multiple ways to find them (by name, by type of business, by location, by specialty, etc.). In addition to all the local SEO factors, local businesses in particular need to consider how to be found for various descriptive terms through voice search while the technology is maturing. (See more on how to optimize for voice search.)

Businesses should test voice searches and make sure their online info is sufficient to give people multiple ways to find them.
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Content Focus: Content is next in line for a major 2018 emphasis, but now more of the same. The creation of intelligent content that answers people’s needs is the role of the content writer (more so than the SEO), so empowered content teams with SEO tools will dominate this area.

This will be a period of significant growth in the development of content teams with tools and training, enabling an army of writers many times larger than the SEO team to start doing SEO themselves as the content is created.

As a sidebar, I expect the usage of WordPress, which currently runs 29.3% of all websites, to multiply this year, with a massive number of sites redesigned using WordPress. There will soon be a new era of Active WordPress Plugins (AWPPs, to coin a term), which actively give guidance while you’re working in WordPress (like a digital assistant for WP). They will empower content writers to do more SEO themselves, leading to better-optimized content on WordPress sites.

This improvement will be countered by the possible late-2018 release of WP Gutenberg, a new editor interface for WordPress that’s currently in the testing phase. In my opinion, it will be difficult for Gutenberg to gain favorable recommendations for use if it takes away plugin-derived revenue from the web design and hosting companies.

Linking: Links have always been a headache for Google — they empower the search results, but they are also heavily spammed.

As good as the Penguin filter is, which has been running within Google’s core algorithm for over a year now, we see that unnatural links still work way too often in the search results. There’s room for improvement.

Unnatural links still work way too often in the search results. There’s room for improvement.
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I predict Google will issue a major update to the algorithm sections that deal with links to better filter spammy, off-topic links.

Search engines will also be adjusting to a diminished number of links from and within mobile sites (due to sites becoming more efficient for mobile, as discussed under Mobile-First, above) as well as other undisclosed mobile-first algorithmic factors. I predict Google will examine the speed and popularity of the linking page to determine the probability of the link’s being seen and clicked. Eliminating any link unlikely to be clicked because of poor performance will become critical as the link patterns are reviewed. All of this certainly should change how we acquire links in 2018.

Speed: Another factor for digital marketing in 2018 will be the increased adoption of Progressive Web App (PWA) technology to achieve faster site speed. Both app and website developers will embrace this hybrid approach that is easier to maintain and promote while delivering impressive speed for users. There’s a lot of resources out there for details on PWAs; this recent post by Cindy Krum is one of my favorites.

Coupled with a rise in PWA usage will be a diminishing regard for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), certainly wherever bandwidth is acceptable. If pages are fast enough and fully responsive, then AMP is not needed (a point Google’s Gary Illyes made during a keynote in June).

By the holiday season a year from now, I predict AMP will be a non-issue for most websites. The AMP project was all about speed anyhow, and as internet speed in general increases, the need for AMP will diminish — even if, as Google has promised, the odious problem of masking the publisher’s URL in search results gets fixed in the second half of the year.

Coupled with a rise in PWA usage will be a diminishing regard for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
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I expect speed to be seen as a cloud issue this year, as well.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and similar cloud-based platforms will expand. Meanwhile, Content Delivery Network (CDN) usage will decrease. Serving up a website’s static resources from the cloud provides greater speed and efficiency than doing it from nodes, as CDNs do, except for sites with a significant quantity of large files (such as high resolution images). CDNs are certainly becoming less important, and by year end, CDNs will be seldom used. While CDNs solved a significant conversion issue in the past, with higher speed networks and server technology changes, they will be unnecessary by the end of the year.

SEO: So what about traditional technical SEO?

It continues and actually becomes more important. As easy links stop working, companies will increasingly turn to other parts of the algorithms — specifically content as well as on-page structure, navigation, internal linking, and better compliance with SEO practices.

Building a site’s experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) will dominate this focus and become more critical across the board. The winning companies will be the ones with the best trained staff already working on an SEO-aligned content-based strategy aggressively. Between equally helpful content, the tie-breaker will be E-E-A-T, and we’ll see fewer sites ranking without it. This is likely to benefit established brands in the rankings.

As cited above, there will be considerable activity impacting the content in the Google index. A great amount of the algorithm is based upon the index’s having a reasonably large and steady population of content pages. The advent of the mobile-first index, query changes towards questions, a massive SEO content change (in kinds, volume and number of competitors), the diminishing access to links both internally and inbound (backlinks), and other easily identified factors all add up to a massive index change this year — and that will destabilize rankings.

Factors all add up to a massive index change this year — and that will destabilize rankings.
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Ecommerce: Google will step up as a major competitor in ecommerce this year. Google’s ecommerce site Express.Google.com has a network of manufacturers and resellers already in place. I believe it is poised to rival Amazon.

I order a lot of products online, and I think there is room for a second major service. Consider that as Amazon gains usage, people are going straight to Amazon.com. That threatens Google’s search business.

Machine Learning: Due to machine learning, Google’s ability to figure out what the user wants is advancing at lightning speed.

As Google’s algorithm learns to map user intent to each search query more and more accurately, sites must match that intent in order to rank.

Consider this – as Google figures out that a query requires purely information, your ecommerce site will lose rankings for that keyword. Sites that used to perform well for head terms need to pay attention to what is being ranked and forget what used to rank, including themselves. Getting an ecommerce site to rank for an information keyword is much harder now.

As a result of Google’s machine learning, rankings lost may be next to impossible to regain. In a competitive keyword field, the profile of the website silo (associated themed pages), and not just the ranking page, must match user intent.

As a result of Google's machine learning, rankings lost may be next to impossible to regain.
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I’ll give a personal illustration. Google recently upended its search rankings for the query [search engine optimization]. This query is popular with do it yourself (DIY)-minded searchers, rather than people looking to consume SEO services. The algorithm detected this in 2017 and rapidly shifted rankings to favor news and information sites, not just the most in-depth answer to the query. As a result, our SEO Tutorial hub page fell from the middle of Page 1 to #15 in just a few months for this specific query.

Marketers will need to take user-intent cues from Google by watching what results are shown as the SERPs fluctuate this year. Doing so will help you avoid futile keyword targets and find new search queries to optimize for in order to match your site content to the right user intent.

VR: Virtual reality (VR) and especially EEG controls will continue to grow throughout 2018. The technology enables remote conversations to feel like everyone’s in the same room.

Beyond chat rooms (e.g., Facebook’s experimenting with a VR hangout app), imagine business meetings leveraging VR to pull remote workers together in one place. Conversations and examples would jump to life better; collaboration could be virtually face-to-face, all without travel expenses. It will be the business applications that monetize VR and propel it forward, so watch for opportunities there. We are considering it for our classroom SEO Training course.

Video: It’s about time for Google to seriously leverage the revenue opportunity of YouTube (which it owns). I expect to see many more video results co-mingled with organic listings this year.

I expect to see many more video results co-mingled with organic listings this year.
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Video production for marketing purposes will grow exponentially. Video has been expanding as a marketing tool for years now, ever since Google first started blending results in Universal Search.

But companies in every niche are now investing in video production at record levels. A mid-2017 HubSpot survey found that the top two content distribution channels that respondents planned to add during the next year were both for video: YouTube and Facebook Video. We’re considering this as an option for our training materials, too.

Last thoughts as we launch into 2018

Google is in the business of making money, and they are banking on/assuming that search advertising is primarily how that happens. On a mobile device, that could mean less exposure for organic results. I expect PPC to be taking budget from SEO when this occurs.

As for how marketing is going to do in a year of shrinking budgets, that is a tough situation. Digital marketing is getting more complex, and ROI is still difficult to measure. Social media is a big cause of the current wariness, since companies have tired of throwing money across various social sites without seeing tangible results. The attribution problem is still not solved, and companies will require more proof that marketing is working.

If results can be measured, then digital marketing will get more buy-in and more investment.

That is enough new for now. If you would like a hand with your digital marketing strategy for 2018, let’s talk.

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Around the same time, Mary Meeker shared a prediction that by 2020, 50% of searches would be voice or visually based. (Source: Recode)

If you’re not familiar with visual search (and I wasn’t in this context), it’s search and retrieval instigated by the searcher “showing” a device or product like the one they’d like to buy (or if not buy, then get more information about). Here’s an example: shop for dog food by showing your device the near-empty bag of dog food in your pantry, and then buy it from Amazon or another online retailer. Go ahead and look into the Amazon Echo Look for a visual-search-type device that’s almost to market.

If we as marketers understand that text-based search is trending-down-to-obsolete over the next two years, and that our customers will be searching with their voices and images, what do we do to evolve our marketing strategies?

Director of Account Strategy at Marketing Refresh, Katy Katz, and VP of Industry Insights at Yext, Duane Forrester, shared their plans of attack for exactly that with the rapt audience at Pubcon Las Vegas this week.

This post covers (jump to sections with links):

• Eye-opening stats and findings about how well voice search serves consumers
• Technical considerations for SEOs and content marketers optimizing for voice search
• User behavior and new technology that is shifting SEO
• Tactics to compete in voice search
• Skills required of the digital marketer of the future

Eye-Opening Stats and Findings about How Well Voice Search Serves Consumers

What are people trying to do with voice commands today? Katy shares the findings of SEER Interactive’s 2017 study about the kinds of actions people use voice search for:

Look at those top voice-activated actions! They’re pretty personal. Your customers expect personalization. They’re expecting you to know who they are and what’s important to them. They want you to personalize their experience.

Consumers ask questions in a personal way. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now smart enough to answer these questions. Katy’s 5-year-old used Alexa and said, “Alexa, play Darth Vader.” Smart Alexa played the Imperial March.

We can type 40 WPM, but we can speak 150–160 WPM! With voice search, people will articulate their queries more specifically and precisely.

In SEO and content marketing, voice search is making a big impact on strategy in these areas: keyword research, content strategy, and technical implementation. (Author’s note: That’s all. Just like, everything.)

Technical Considerations for SEOs and Content Marketers Optimizing for Voice Search

First, understand the anatomy of a voice query. These are the key features:

• The 5 Ws: Voice-triggered searches are usually looking for a result that answers a who, what, where, when, why or how question.
• Conversational: Voice searches are typically conversational (that is, use natural language).
• Long-tail: Voice searches are long-tail queries by their conversational nature.
• Mobile: Voice searches are done primarily on mobile devices.
• Clear intent: Voice searches are performed with a very clear and specific intent in mind.

Here’s an example voice search query where we can see how a digital marketer’s work to identify keywords, implement structured data markup, and gain positive reviews come into play when Google is determining result relevancy:

To establish a solid foundation for voice search SEO:

1. Define your goals. You know the drill. Make sure they’re specific and measureable. Help you focus on what to focus on. She probably spends 80% of her time helping clients identify the goals that will give the highest ROI.
2. ID your audience. Take the time to get to know your audience in audience interviews. You’ll learn about their pain points and goals and the questions they want to answer. There’s nothing else like talking to your customers.
3. Achieve language-market fit. This term isn’t used a lot but it’s a big deal when it comes to search. It’s qualitative research into the exact words and phrasing that your buyers use to describe your product, service or category. Talk like your customers!

4. 

   Map the buyer’s journey. Your customers are working through questions at each phase. If there are gaps in your content you’re missing out on opportunities.

With your foundation in place, optimize for these technical considerations for voice search:

Long-tail keywords. Here are keyword research tools for long-tail:

• Keyword.io
• Answer the Public
• Buzzsumo Question Analyzer
• SEMRush
• KWFinder
• Quora
• Google autocomplete

Snag those snippets. Design your content to optimize for featured snippets. Google Home and Siri are pulling quick answers for this. Short in nature. Simple, concise. Answers the questions in a way that provides utility for the user. The amount of snippets doubled this year. A snippetable post is short and digestible, fact-based logic; if Google already owns the Knowledge Graph, don’t even try to answer it.

Schema markup. Tell the search engines and AI what information is about. Making sure your house in order with different schema types is imperative for voice search.

Brand optimization. Manage your brand across the web. Off-site SEO and PR is everywhere. Local SEO, social media, off-site SEO, reviews are all influencing your consumers throughout their journey. It takes 6-8 touches for a prospect to convert to a sale. For local SEO, check out Moz Local, Yext, Reach Local, GMB. For reviews, check out Get Five Stars, Review Trackers, Yotpo, Reputation Loop — help you with automated tools to grow your reviews and show yourself as a trustworthy provider.

In sum, your buyers have questions each step of the way. There is no part of the journey that is more important than any other. Own the conversation. Own your brand.

User Behavior and New Technology That Is Shifting SEO

The media we consume is shifting from the silver screen to our digital devices. With that, influence is shifting and celebrities are losing ground. Today, 6 in 10 YouTube subscribers would follow advice on what to buy from their favorite creator over their favorite TV or movie personality.

And there’s the consumer dependence and preference for their mobile device. Technology companies are investing across the board in assistants and AI. Duane asked the audience, “Who believes in the mobile-first Google index?” Well not only should you believe in it, Duane says that it is certainly live now and in use. He expressed that there’s one index and it’s filtered for mobile. He challenged marketers with the question, “Why would the search engine trust your site for the desktop user when you haven’t invested in the mobile user?”

Another area where user behavior is opening new avenues for marketing is local search. Location search is exploding. Note, however, that the growth in “near me” searches is flattening as it becomes assumed.

Want some more eye-opening stats? Duane shared these ones on local search and map behavior:

• 76% of people who use location search visit a business within one day.
• 28% of location searches result in a purchase.
• Digital maps reduce travel time by 12% on average.
• Digital maps save people more than 21 million hours per year.
• 63% of digital map users take advantage of them to plan safe routes.
• Digital maps have supported more than $1 trillion in sales for businesses.
• Geospatial services help companies raise revenue and diminish costs by more than 5%.

There are hundreds of attributes that contribute to local visibility:

Anyone hear about RankBrain lately? No one? That’s because it’s too busy out there learning.

Voice search is an important inflection point for us in the marketing community. Where we saw mobile coming, voice search is now here because all the tech that makes it possible developed independently.

There are 180 companies in China developing voice search speakers. Duane predicts that in a year, North America will be inundated with cheap, accurate voice search systems. The current players will carve out the higher end and the newer players will carve out the lower end that is able to perform nearly as completely.

Voice search is going to take off because people are lazy. Now we can just talk and get what we want. The next stage is visual search (image-based search) where the Alexa or Home device will show the searcher what they are trying to buy to confirm that’s what they are looking for.

Voice search tech is being embedded into home products like refrigerators and coffee makers. Your refrigerator will ping your phone when you’re at the store and tell you that you’re out of milk.

Tactics to Compete in Voice Search

Google’s not going to tell SEOs via Search Console which organic queries were performed with text search and which were voice search. Look into your site’s organic keyword data and find the queries that brought one visitor, maybe with the stop words removed, and then bundle those up and consider them your voice search terms.

Make sure your site is clean and accessible. Mobile-friendly matters and consumer behavior is happening on mobile devices. PWAs are the future – one code base for all UX and devices. Your developers are going to love having only one code base to manage, but it’ll be a few years for the technology to allow for this.

Secure your site, move to HTTPS. Check out the Wired.com articles where they detailed their move to secure. It was hard.

Today’s consumers want to attach to businesses that reflect their values. That doesn’t equate to donating to a cause, it’s more like getting your whole company to do a 5K in support of that cause and documenting the whole thing. Really invest in developing your brand in terms of its support of relevant and interested communities. Brand loyalty dropped a while ago and now businesses have to demonstrate their mission in their actions.

Skills Required of the Digital Marketer of the Future

This is your future: the digital knowledge manager. It’s a senior-level, cross-functional position. The digital knowledge manager requires a deep, varied career that has spanned many of the traditional core digital marketing competencies.

The digital knowledge manager needs to be able to speak the language of everyone. They will be adept at persuasion and convincing different groups to take on specific tasks. They are an investigator, negotiator, communicator, thinker, and builder.

As always in digital marketing, the future is now.

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By the latest stats, 20 percent of people searching on mobile are doing it with voice search. And we expect that number to grow significantly as more and more people adapt to voice search and voice assistants.

As a marketing officer, you might be wondering how voice search will impact your future search engine optimization strategy.

And that’s what I’m going to talk about today:

• Why and how your audience is using voice search.
• The impact of Google’s machine-learning system, RankBrain, on voice search, where voice assistants come into play, and what voice search means in a mobile-first world.
• Strategic recommendations on how voice search impacts your SEO strategy.

Why Your Audience Is Using Voice Search

Voice search, in many cases, is about convenience.

It’s no surprise that it’s popular among mobile users on the go. Would it surprise you, though, to find out more and more people are using it at home?

According to the 2016 KPCB Internet Trends report, 43 percent of people use voice search in their home:

And as the technology improves, so does the adoption of voice search on mobile devices and voice assistants like Google Home:

Google is leading the charge to improve voice recognition technology.

In November 2015, Google announced that the Google app had improved its capability to understand the meaning behind voice searches.

Just before that, RankBrain — Google’s machine learning artificial intelligence system — hit the scene. RankBrain makes interpreting queries (including voice searches) and matching them to the best search results easier for the Google search engine.

Voice Search Beyond the Mobile Device

The fact that over 40 percent of voice searches happen at home, versus around 20 percent happening on the go, presents a new level of complexity when we’re thinking about how our brands can become a part of a person’s daily search habits.

What we don’t know yet is the future of how voice assistants like Google Home will identify and serve up results.

In many cases, devices like Google Home have to make complex decisions for you about which answer or result to serve up. This is unlike the traditional way of personally choosing among a set of blue links on a page, and voice search optimizations must be accounted for.

Voice search adds further complexity to local search results, in particular. For example, someone who has a broken water pipe might simply tell their Google Home device: “My plumbing is broken,” versus a more traditional voice search like “show me plumbers in my local area” or “who are the best plumbers in my area?”

Let’s not forget that search must also evolve to fit the tastes of new generations as well.

What we do know is that third-party integrations are happening that allow brands to integrate with Google virtual assistants more seamlessly. And that’s worth looking into.

As search behavior changes, Google has more work to do to find the best answers, and we as digital marketers have more work to do to understand how to become a part of those results.

How to Prepare Your SEO Strategy for Voice Search

We do, however, understand some things about voice search to date, and how it can impact your SEO strategy.

Let’s look closer at what you need to know about optimizing for voice search to survive SEO as it becomes more and more the norm.

Know Your Audience

As part of your voice search keyword research strategy, your company needs to be aware of how someone would look for your product or service if they were using a voice search.

Remember, voice searches are more conversational and tend to center around questions instead of the two- or three-word queries that many people type.

But they can also be declarative statements, like the one I used in the plumbing example earlier.

As part of your research, create a list of voice searches you believe users would use. Brainstorm with your team. Peruse social media. Look at forums. Do whatever you need to do to come up with a good starting list for research.

Know Your Results

We recommend in our SEO training class that people start querying their brand, products and services using voice search to find out if they show up and how.

Most companies haven’t taken the time to figure out how to do a search for their products or services on a device using voice search. But, with your newfound keyword research, you can start.

Once you perform that real-time voice query research, if you find your website isn’t showing up, your web pages and their content need some work.

It’s likely that your website pages aren’t doing a good job of answering a where, when, why, what or how-type question.

Know Your Competition

As part of your SEO strategy, you want to find out who is, in fact, showing up for those voice search queries if not you — or who is ranking above you.

Performing page-by-page analyses of the top 10 rankings, for example, for a voice search important to your business can help you better understand the logistics of the content on those top-ranking pages.

Apply Voice Search Keyword Strategy and Website Optimization

The approach to optimizing web pages is the same — meaning you want to ensure you’re following SEO best practices.

But you may choose to tweak your content.

You might decide to include the same target keywords in your meta information and heading tags, but tweak the content to be in the form of a question posed by someone using voice search.

For example, “planets in our solar system” might become, “how many planets are in our solar system?”

This keyword modification tactic could be applied page-wide where it makes sense and feels natural. You might also use the data you gleaned from your voice search keyword research plus the competitive research I mentioned to identify content on your site that’s missing.

Where could you better answer many of the questions your target audience has?

While it’s ultimately Google’s job to best match a search query to a web page, it’s also our jobs as website publishers to do as much as we can to help make that match.

So, many of the SEO practices we’re used to still apply to help make your pages relevant.

I mentioned integrations with Google Home, and those are the types of things you’ll want to watch out for, particularly for certain types of businesses.

And it’s worth mentioning again that voice search today is a highly mobile experience. But we can easily imagine a time when voice search is a desktop function.

Still, with Google planning to take a mobile-first index approach, you can’t afford not to be there.

Right now, it’s safe to say we’re in an experimental phase, where we’re learning how voice search works across devices, how search results surface and how to be a part of it all. And there’s still much work to do.

As brands, we need to figure out how to become a seamless part of our audience’s search habits across technology and devices. Imagine the competitive advantage you would have in being a leader in the “new” search.

But we also need to continue to implement the SEO best practices that help search engines understand our website and its content. Only now, we have more contexts than ever to consider.

What do you think? Do you think a brand can be the last to implement a voice search strategy? Can you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Let us help you develop your voice search SEO strategy. Bruce Clay’s tailor-made services drive your competitive advantage. Let’s talk more about growing revenue through smarter search marketing.

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Read on to find out how Google Home will deeply impact our interaction with search engine results pages (SERPs) and, subsequently, digital marketing strategy.

How Google Home Will Impact Our Interaction With the SERP

The Star Trek computer isn’t a bot that analyzes external data and catalogs instances of things to return a list of entries that users have to peruse. It’s a knowledge base, much like Google’s knowledge graph. It’s simple, intuitive, and omnipresent. In the world of Star Trek, people spend very little time looking at lists of options; the computer makes the decisions for them.

So how do we get to the 24th century computer from here? The announcements Google made on Oct. 4 took a big step in that direction. Both Google Home and Google Assistant (the heart of the new Pixel phone) bring Google’s experience with artificial intelligence to bear — and Google is training us to use technology in new ways.

The Google Assistant landing page invites visitors to use voice queries: “Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. Tell your Assistant to play jazz on the living room speakers, set your ‘go to gym’ alarm, make a reservation …”

SEOs see that and wonder: Where is there space for a SERP in there?

A SERP presents many results and lets a searcher click their choice. But voice searchers talking to Google Home have a different experience. Google wants to let the Assistant eliminate choices when there’s a clear best option — and “best” is defined by the Assistant.

Obviously, not all queries can have a single response. As you might imagine, a lot of the things we search for need a selection of answers or opinions. But do we need 15,000,000 opinions? Do we even need 10?

Example: I have a pretty small selection of power tools in a very small garage, but I’m getting into some simple woodworking. I recently needed to figure out how to quickly cut a 4″ diameter hole in some 1″ x 8″ pine. So I Googled it.

I really had to comb through the results based on my limited tool collection; a lot of the answers I ignored because they just weren’t helpful.

Now imagine doing that as a voice search with Google Home. I might hear many options the first time I searched. But because of machine learning, eventually Google would recall the particular site (or group of sites) that really caters to my skill level and figure out that out of the 15,000,000 results for “how to cut circles in wood” there might be 4 that are actually useful to me. That’s important information for Assistant; if I ask a question to Google Home while I’m in the garage plugging my jigsaw in, I don’t really want it reading 10 articles to me.

How Will Google Home Affect My SEO Strategy?

A lot of businesses have been doing online marketing, SEO, and PPC for long enough that it’s easy to think we have lots of time to catch up, or surpass, competitors.

While I’m not saying the SERPs are going away anytime soon, I do think that the increased emphasis on personalization is only going to make it harder to find new customers.

If you make a living off of publishing restaurant reviews, and people start using Assistant to find out about a new burger joint instead of Googling it, then Assistant will (likely) pull from one source to get reviews. New users might not even see your site as an option.

By the way, we have no clues yet on where AdWords may one day fit into a Google Home result.

Be Indispensable

Is the rise of spoken search results bad news for sites that aren’t Yelp, Wikipedia, or YouTube?

No! But it’s bad news for businesses who aren’t putting in the work to understand their audience. It’s bad news for businesses who aren’t willing to grow with their customers’ evolving needs.

If your business is willing to talk to your customers, to find out what your competitors are missing, then this new search technology is good news. Because the only way to be algorithm proof, the only way to secure a lasting position in the evolving world of search, is to be indispensable. So ask yourself this: Would the SERPs be lacking without your site?

Do some user experience testing. Survey your customers. Talk to your customer service reps to identify common questions or complaints, then address them. Figure out what your customers do just before and just after converting on your site; if you can help them perform some of those repetitive actions, you’ve suddenly simplified their lives.

This can be as simple as a good “People also bought” widget that anticipates the next need. If the user adds a nail gun to the cart, why not suggest some popular nails that fit the gun? Or, if it’s a hydraulic nail gun, maybe the user would like to know about a sale you’re having on air compressors.

Understand Your Analytics

The other thing to keep in mind here is that less traffic isn’t always a bad thing. A broad trend some of us in SEO have noticed is that many sites aren’t ranking for as many queries as they used to, which at first seems like terrible news. But many of those same sites are actually seeing better rankings for more specific queries, and a concurrent increase in conversions. As the search engines get better at understanding user intent, and as search becomes more and more personalized, rankings will be harder to track, and (in many instances) harder to get. But if your visits drop while your conversion rate improves, then that’s a net gain (assuming that you’re in business to make money, of course).

The one exception to this, of course, is sites that are dependent on page views for revenue (i.e., ad-heavy sites). I think now would be a good time to start developing a secondary revenue stream/way to monetize your site that you can grow over time, as people are spending less and less time on the SERPs.

Missed the Oct. 4 press conference where Google announced the debut of Google Home, Google Pixel and more? Watch the announcement below.

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Bing’s Purna Virji on the Evolution of Voice Search

Purna Virji, the senior training manager at Microsoft, talked about how voice search is shaping our world. Everything from television remotes to hotel rooms can be powered by voice. By 2017, all Ford vehicles will come with Apple CarPlay.

Reasons People Use Voice Search

• It’s faster than typing. You can speak 110–150 words per minute, as opposed to the average person’s typing rate of 38–40 words per minute.
  

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  You can speak 110–150 words per min, as opposed to avg person’s typing 38–40 wpm. -@purnavirji #smx
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• People want quick answers.
• People are often second screening or otherwise occupied

Jennifer Slegg on Content for the Voice Search Generation

Like Virji, the founder and editor of The SEM Post, Jennifer Slegg, believes the time to optimize for voice search is now.

Consider the fact that more than half of U.S. teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, or that there are 30 times more action queries on voice search.

How Feature Snippets Work with Voice Search

Voice search has a higher percentage of featured snippets. Slegg says 43.3% for voice queries have featured snippets, compared to 40.6% for text queries.

Moreover, Google reads the featured snippets aloud to users beginning with “According to (site)” or “We found this information on (site).” Google reinforces your brand in voice search. (Learn how to earn featured snippets in 2016.)

Use Moz and SEMRush to track your own and your competitors’ featured snippets.

RankBrain and Voice Search

• Stronger influence on 15% of search queries Google has never seen before, and they tend to be voice searches.
• You’re able to better rank conversational search queries with keywords.
• It’s the third most important ranking signal, behind content and links.

How do you optimize for RankBrain? By optimizing for conversational search.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search queries are longer than text search queries. The average query length for voice is 4.2 words, and the average query length for text is 3.2 words.

Long-tail queries are less competitive and have higher intent. While they’re searched for less, they’re more likely to convert.

Use your content to answer questions. There is a 61% growth in queries starting with who, what, where and how. Furthermore, almost 10% of voice search queries start with who, what, when, where, why, how – as opposed to only 3.7% of text queries. “How” begins 3.6% of all voice search queries and “What” begins 3.5% of all voice search queries.

Tony Edward on How Humans Speak

Tony Edward, the senior SEO manager at Elite SEM, reminded digital marketers that optimizing for voice search begins with standard SEO best practices.

• Build in-depth content that answers commonly asked questions around your brand, services, products, etc., including content that answers who, what, when, where, why, and how.
• Leverage Structured Data Markup depending on the content type.
• Work to get your brand in the Knowledge Graph.
• Ensure content is structured well using headers and bulleted or numbered lists.

Edward shared his tips on coming up with content strategy:

• Mine call center, live chat and email data to find commonly asked questions surrounding your product, service or brand.
• Use third-party tools to get auto search suggestion topics, such as AnswerThePublic.com or UberSuggest.io.

By implementing the above best practices and creating useful content, Edward has been able to earn branded Knowledge Graphs and Featured Snippets. As noted earlier, getting a branded Knowledge Graph entry or Featured Snippet makes your result more voice search ready.

Want to learn more about Voice Search Optimization?
See our How to Optimize for Voice Search post for powerful tips!

Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.

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