The way that people see and use the internet is rapidly being changed by the growth of voice search.
This has in a large part happened due to improvements in speech recognition software. Due to this, we no longer interact with the internet solely through the keyboards on our computer or mobile devices.
These days, we are talking to our devices and listening as they respond.
These days, we are talking to our devices and listening as they respond. This is creating a monumental shift in how we interact with the internet.
Have you accounted for this on your web site? Does your company’s information cater to query based searching? Or is your web site still catering to people keying searches into Google by hand?
Most web sites that have taken the time to optimize for search engines have done so based on how people used to search.
When a person wanted to find something, they would open a browser, go to Google (or other search engine, but Google is the most relevant) type in a phrase based on what they are looking for, such as “restaurants near me” or “Crocs in wide sizes”. Google would then return results based on their complex and ever changing algorithm. This algorithm would rank the answers according to what it views as being the most relevant and then send them back to you as a list. I am sure you have done this thousands of times.
Based on this pattern of searching, businesses would create content that they hoped would help them rank high according to Google’s algorithm.
This all worked really well when you were reading the results on a desktop or laptop computer, but it’s not so great if you are asking Siri or a smart speaker, such as Alexa, a question.
The Google Years
If you used to search the internet using Lycos, Excite or Alta Vista, you know how much Google simplified search. Based on the quality of its results, people started Google more and more until it completely dominated the market. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave you much more relevant results than previous search engines did, eliminating the need to scroll through page after page looking for the right result.
Their algorithm has been updated many times to deliver better, more relevant results. Now days, you generally can find what you are looking for in the top few results and if not there, they are almost always on the first page or two.
An entire industry was born to help businesses benefit from search engine. Companies all over the world hire Search Engine Optimization companies in an effort to help them place as high as possible on Google when it returns search results.
This pretty much sums up our search experience until recent times.
The Dawn of Voice
Voice search capabilities are rapidly changing this. When you search by voice, there is no list of results to look at. Alexa and Google Home deliver one result to you in an audible way. Because of this, it is essential to be in the top position.
While the internet of yesterday (and today) was based on textual interaction, the internet of tomorrow will be driven by an oral and aural interaction. Spoken word will replace the written word, which will dramatically change how we need to present our information online.
Rather than searches being base on a search phrase like “cat hammock” you would say something like “Siri, find me a hammock for my cat”. If you are a retailer of cat hammocks you will now need to adapt your website for this new style of searching, focusing on how to deliver results based on these changes.
Image: NDB Photos (Flikr) http://bit.ly/2ORmPIE
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often be viewed as a difficult, tech driven discipline that is expensive and not something that all companies need. Small businesses often think they won’t benefit from spending money on online marketing or don’t know where to focus their budgets. To help you understand the potential of SEO and how it should be key to your marketing plan, take a look at these compelling stats:
1 – International Telecommunication Union (ITU) research reports that the number of internet users across the globe has now exceeded two billion. In 2010 more than 226 million new people became internet users. IDC predicts that 2.7 billion people worldwide will be online by 2015. That’s a lot of potential customers.
2 – The average adult that is online, in the UK in this study, spends 22 hours and 15 minutes on the internet each month (according to the UK Online Measurement Company). That’s an increase of 65% compared to just three years ago. The internet is becoming a more important part of each of our lives each year.
3 – People are spending a lot of time and money online, but does that necessarily mean that you need SEO? Yes. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine (Forrester). You cannot afford to be missing out on that many potential visitors.
4 – Although you should optimize for all search engines, it makes sense to prioritize Google. Google dominates all search engines and this allows you to focus your efforts like a laser. Google received more than 92% of search engine traffic in 2010, according to Statcounter.com. The runner up, Bing, gained just 3.17% of search engine traffic.
5 – Optify showed in a recent study that the top ranking website has an average click-through rate of 37%, while 60% of the clicks go to the top three results. It is crucial to work your way to one of these spots using search engine optimization in order to build a high volume of site traffic.
Clearly SEO is crucial to businesses big or small in efforts to generate business and is often has the best ROI of any marketing medium available due to the focused nature of searches.