Integrating Voice Search
How to integrate voice search on a website?
To integrate voice search on your website, you will need to incorporate voice search tactics into your digital marketing strategy. This includes your developer following the steps below.
What is Voice search marketing?
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of searches conducted though voice. The term voice search marketing is used to describe any marketing actions you undertake which have an objective of directing customers to your content when they speak into their search device. These devices include smartphones, computers and devices used around the home.
Who uses voice search?
One reason for the exponential use of voices search can be attributed to the fact that the technology has improved radically. As recently as three years ago, voice searches had speech recognition error rates around 25%. That figure is now as low as 8% and continues to improve.
While voices searches have always been pretty popular with Gen Y’s and Millennials (some of them have grown up with the technology) there is also evidence to suggest older people are using voice searches at an increasing rate.
People use voice search in a number of ways and for a number of reasons.
Asking a device for directions seems commonplace now. And, voice searches can help us find the answers to questions like “What is the time in Hobart?” or “What will the weather be in Perth tomorrow?” When it comes to commerce and trade, common searches now include “what is the best pizza bar in Adelaide?” and “where can I buy an IPhone?” Voice searches can help people find local products and services, and check availability of stock or supplies.
How do people use voice search?
People are often mobile when they conduct their voice searches- while driving, walking or shopping, maybe at times when their hands are full. Just under a quarter of all voice searches are thought to be done during cooking.
Using a voice search eliminates the need for browsing for the best answer and enables a person to get the information they want quickly. People also report a high degree of confidence in the response they get to voice searches.
Why is voice search marketing important?
Voice search is big business for enterprises and an important consideration in ecommerce. There are estimate 3 billion voice assistance devices already in use around the world, and sales of devices, smart tvs, voice activated tech and smart cars are only on the rise.
Commerce associated with voice search is expected to reach $80 million by 2023. The amount of people completing purchases through voice search queries is increasing. Taking steps to improve your position in voice search systems has been estimated to be able to improve sales by as much as 30%.
Responding to voice search opportunities can also improve your brand overall, building trust and loyalty in what you do and offer.
Customers often state that they appreciate easy access to the information they are after. If you can use voice search to quickly deliver information that your customers are after, they will have higher rates of satisfaction.
How does voice search work?
When a person uses their voice to ask their device a question, the will receive a single result, usually spoken directly back to them. This of course differs from when a text based search is conducted, in which case there are many pages of results that can be considered and chosen from.
To help get your businesses in front of the customer and be the single result they receive, you will need to invest time and effort into understanding how the searches work and improving SEO marketing strategies. If you don’t your chances of getting much new traffic will continue be reduced.
Where do voice searches look for data?
You can’t go too far in stacking your website content for voice only. It could make your site more difficult to read, which in turn might reduce repeat visitations. Furthermore, you need to continue to strive to ensure your content rates highly in both Google voice and text search, because voice results are almost always found within the top ten ranked pages on any search. Typically, voice search results are found in content that rates highly in text searches.
|
1 |
38.29% |
|
2 |
22.24% |
|
3 |
14.40% |
|
4 |
9.53% |
|
5 |
6.22% |
|
6 |
2.95% |
|
7 |
2.19% |
|
8 |
1.71% |
|
9 |
0.96% |
|
10 |
0.69% |
So as you can see, with the top three results making up almost 75% of the voice search results, it’s important to ensure that your webpage ranks well in Google searches to ensure it has a good chance of being a result for a voice search.
List of Top voice search engines and software
We’re seeing an increase in both the search engines and software that are using voice search. Here are some of the key players in both areas:
Top voice search engines
- Google Home
- Amazon Echo/Alexa
- Google Assistant
- Siri/iPhone
- Android Phones/Devices
- Microsoft Cortana
Top voice search software
- Microsoft Bing Speech API
- Express Scribe
- Microsoft Speaker Recognition API
- AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API
- IBM Watson Speech to Text
- Amazon Transcribe
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- HTK
How to create a voice search website
It makes sense to become familiar with how voice searches are most commonly composed. Consider this example. If you couldn’t remember who sang “Achy, Breaky Heart”, how your voice might search for an answer to this question differ from what you would type into a search engine? Take a moment to compose these two questions and read on to discover if we can identify what you might have said for each.
Your digital content needs to be well written and easy to understand. Think about it being written for an audience of high schoolers, with a literacy level that of around a 15 year old. Your content needs to use natural language that is conversational in tone. This language will not only improve your voice search changes, but will actually make your content simpler and more memorable.
You’ll also need to make sure that there is synergy between your content and what users are searching for. If you can access search terms plugged into your site- great! If not, don’t worry- simply take the time to make some notes about what you think the most common questions for people discovering your business might be.
Become familiar with the most common terms and questions, and make sure you’ve got copy on your site to address those. When you have identified your highest values terms and phrases, you can ensure you are optimising content towards those.
If you can’t get the content onto your homepage, consider some specially crafted and highly relevant blog posts.
Why use natural language for voice search?
So, back to Achy Breaky Heart. Might the question typed into Google have been “Achy, Breaky Heart singer”? and was the order flipped and extra words added to make your voice search question something like “Who sang Achy, Breaky Heart?”
Most text searches these days are short and don’t use contextual keywords. Voice searches are almost always longer, and are most often complete sentences. This means, they typically begin with one of the “5W and H” questions, namely who, what, when, where, why or how. Your site, your social media and blog posts should all reflect this.
Other tips for improved voice search results
- Security on your site - more than 70% of Google voice search results were to pages secured with HTTPS
- Trusted sites – content with extensive backlinks also fare better and are recognised as being more authoritative domains
- Long form page content- the average word count on a page used in voice search results is more than 2300. This means that longer pages are typically sourced for results.
- Page speed- faster loading pages to better in voice searches and reduce the chance that your customer will get tired of waiting for a result and launch into a new search
- Content that is short and to the point- the average answer given in voice searches is a mere 29 words
- Go back to grammar basics- you’ll need your content to be clearly written and properly punctuated so that it can be read and easily understood
Using Pimcore to integrate voice search
The benefits of using a master data management software solution like Pimcore for integrating voice search marketing lie in the fact that the solution offers “truth from one source”. This means, when you are making content changes and updates to accommodate voice search marketing requirements, you have complete control and consistency around how these pieces of content are updated.
Pimcore enables you to deliver tailored, customised and targeted content across multiple channels and devices. With its extensive API driven options, Pimcore gives you the chance to create response B2B and B2C search capabilities that will be responsive and flexible. It has the capability to manage customer journeys throughout your various channels and helps you get customers to where they need to be.
Voice search – the new frontier
The first rule of the enterprise business is know your audience; the second rule is to know how they search. By including voice search marketing techniques in your communications and marketing strategy, you’ll be increasing your reach exponentially and putting your product in front of the customer at every opportunity.