Stand in any crowded area for long enough and you are bound to see someone pull out their phone and speak directly into it. What you may notice is that they aren’t speaking to someone on the other end of the line. Instead, they seem to be speaking directly to the phone. The most likely explanation is that the individual you are observing is conducting a voice search to help themselves find information faster. By hitting particular buttons on their phone and then speaking directly into that phone, users can find pieces of information that they need about the world around them. Indeed, it is one of the fastest ways to retrieve new information.
Voice Search is Gaining in Popularity
Small business owners should not be so quick to brush off the popularity of voice search. As it turns out, a full 55% of the population says that they have used a voice search tool on their mobile device. Additionally, 39.4% say that they have used a voice search tool in the last month. This is a significant and growing segment of the population who are turning to voice search to get the information that they require. Often, the types of requests that they are making may be fulfilled by small businesses. In other words, they are often asking about products or services that a local company may be capable of providing to them.
Why Do Users Like Voice Search?
One might reasonably wonder why someone would use a voice search when they could simply type their search into their phone and get fast results that way as well. Naturally, every person is a little different when it comes to what they seek to get from their searches, but some of the reasons why people like voice search include:
- Faster Access to Information – It is common for many people to say that they get faster access to the kind of information that they truly benefit from when using voice search programs. On top of that, they may find it easier to simply speak into their phone than to type out the words they need if they are not adept on the keyboard.
- Great for Hands-Free Situations – When driving a vehicle, it is best to keep hands off of any cell phone device. In some jurisdictions, it is illegal to be actively on the phon while driving. Thus, voice search may prove very useful for those who are trying to avoid holding their phone in their hands as they drive around. They may benefit greatly from using the hands-free features that are easily available to them to combat these situations.
- Better than Opening an App – One more thing to keep in mind when looking at different uses for voice search is the fact that some simply like it better because it is faster than opening an app, and yet it still gets them to the results that they are looking for. It is hard to argue with those facts.
Given this broad range of reasons why someone may want to use voice search, it makes sense that now is the time to incorporate it into any marketing strategies for small businesses.
Valuable Content Created for Voice Searches
Small businesses that wish to thrive in the search market that exists today need to look at how to create valuable content that is easy to search for using only one’s voice. The fact is, the days when one could simply load up their website with certain keywords to get attention online are past us:
The days of stuffing your content with keywords simply to please crawlers are long gone. To be successful with SEO, you’ve got to be authentic, use language naturally, and offer valuable content.
It is now important that any and all websites have authentic information that is packaged in such a way that it adds real value to the life of the reader in order to be seen. Thus, those who are creating small business websites and producing the content for those websites need to think carefully about the type of material they allow on their site. It is simply not acceptable to get relaxed about this. Failure to capitalize on the types of searches that today’s Internet user is conducting is a failure across the board, and no one should be satisfied with that as an end result. Now is the time to sharpen the quality of content.
Mobile-Friendly Approaches are a Must
Websites are great and wonderful things, but they are not a substitute for mobile-friendly options. It is completely necessary and vital to put out the very best mobile-friendly content for all to see. The majority of traffic on the Internet these days is via a mobile device. Therefore, any company that wants to get noticed online now knows that they need to use a mobile first approach to make it happen.
Using a mobile phone to reach the people who need to be reached is a great way to get content to people. There are a few elements to pay particular attention to including:
- Load speeds
- Mobile space optimization
- Ease of transactions on mobile
These are the factors that separate a successful online business from one that is floundering, and they are all areas that one can look at and improve simply by placing a priority on these aspects of the work that is done.
Overall, it seems very likely that voice searches are here to stay, and that they are likely to increase in the coming years. The amount of times that they come in handy is growing, and the number of people who are comfortable using voice search is also growing. Thus, it makes sense that businesses need to embrace the use of voice search and cater to customers who may be more comfortable using this form of information gathering. For more information on this new way of searching, please contact us for the latest details on how this works and what can be done to incorporate it into the fabric of virtually any online business.
Sources:
https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/voice-search-seo/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-for-voice-search/
