The Future is Vocal
Voice technology has been on the rise for a long time. In fact, as of 2014 55% of teens and 41% of adults were using it already. By 2016, 20% of all mobile queries were voice searches. And this is all just on the cellphone with built-in apps, and Siri.
By now we’ve all heard of Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Microsoft Cortana. These three sleek little devices are ushering in the era of the smart home, where everything is on a network. Because, why bother going to your computer to ask a question when you could instead ask it the moment you think of it, in any room of your home?
So, how can you, as a marketer, make virtual assistants all around the world work for you?
The Evolution of Content
Start off by thinking in terms of content. When browsers type in a phrase, content is what brings them to their destination. When it comes to virtual assistants, your voice is what brings you to the same destination.
Voice search was built to be more conversational than the searching we’re used to, meaning it won’t work in quite the same way. If you’ve been aware of the growth in popularity for long tail keywords in content, this goes hand in hand with vocal searching.
While the old content methods aren’t entirely lost, there are a few things to focus on when optimizing for our brave new world.
- Use long tail and conversational phrases
- Create more detailed answers
- Make sure your site is optimized for mobile
Upping the quality of your content by creating more detailed and conversational content helps in making your website more human. This is clearly a goal everyone in the tech industry is working towards right now, what with A.I being on the rise.
Virtual assistants work to understand the human way of asking questions, and so, your content is going to have to mimic that as well. We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: Gone are the days of keyword stuffing. Quality is king!
Searching, Optimized
Did you know, that as of 2016 Google’s speech recognition error rate is at 8%, down 17 points from 2014’s 25%? This is due to the growth of conversational and long tail keywords.
Internet users search differently when they’re typing than when they’re speaking. We may type on Google “computer monitors Montreal” but if we were asking a friend we’d say, “Do you know where I could buy a computer monitor in Montreal?”
The differences between those two questions is a perfect example of where the internet is headed and how it’s evolving. Search engines are thinking more and more like we do every day. They can predict what we’re looking for better than we could imagine.
Optimizing your website for these changes will ensure that you’re at the top of the pack as the evolution continues.
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