Voice Search Is Exploding: How This Changes Your Digital, Content And Social Media Marketing Strategies.

Voice Search Digital Content Social Media Marketing Strategy Quesenberry

Apple’s launch of the iPhone 4s in 2011 introduced the world to Siri. Since then we’ve had Google Voice, Microsoft Cortana, and Amazon Echo Alexis, but now voice search is poised for rapid growth. 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search more than once a day. Click To Tweet ComScore predicts that by 2020, half of all searches will be voice searches. Businesses can benefit from understanding how this shift will disrupt current search (SEO), content marketing and social media marketing strategies.

Voice Search Digital Content Social Media Marketing Strategy Quesenberry

Keyword searching is decreasing so sites optimized to keywords will see a decrease in traffic and engagement. Voice search sifts behavior from typing in key words or phrases to finding something by asking questions. This goes beyond long tail search strategies where marketers have combined multiple search terms to narrow results on smaller niche audiences. Long tail was in response to people using longer search phrases looking for more specific products and services. In voice search people use their voices to ask questions in full sentences.

Consumers are now asking questions of the Internet the way they would a person. With the growth of voice search, which uses natural language, there is increase in questions as part of the search phrasing. In fact, Search Engine Watch reports the use of search queries starting with “who,” “what,” “where” and “how” has increased by 61% year over year. This makes sense because many people now can use their voice and ask their phones.

Marketers must adjust so their content appears as a good answer. How? Think less keyword stuffing and meta tags and more full sentences and conversational copy. Respond to more natural language questions with more natural language answers – the way you would answer someone in person. Voice search results emphasize quality so you should think less like a marketer with heavy sales messages and more like a publisher or journalist – answering the “W” questions is the basis of writing a good news story. Also, all words become important Purna Virji of Moz gives the example that if the search phrase is “What is the cost for gas in my location?”, the words “is,” “the,” “for”, “in” and “my” are filler words. The filler words have nothing to do with a specific product or service, but they increase the words that match a voice query and can improve search placement.

Google Voice search has doubled over the last year. Click To TweetHow can you take advantage of this trend? Follow the four steps below.

  1. Research the most common questions asked by your target audience. Search industry, interest and product forums. Search comments on ratings and industry appropriate review sites such as Yelp, Trip Advisor or even Amazon. Search questions and answer sites like Quora and your own Q&A page. Survey front line employees and sales people about most common questions and analyze your own social media accounts for common questions. If you don’t have a Q&A section on your website consider adding one.
  2. Search these common questions using voice search and see how the current answers are written. Use Siri, Google Voice, Cortana, Alexis to see what is currently appearing as the top results. This will help you identify current competition and provide a guideline for how to structure your own answers. Are there answers that are not being given? Concentrate there first, then work your way to trying to overtake competitor’s positions.
  3. Create website and social media content that directly answers those questions in simple clear sentences. Here remember the “who,” “what,” “where” and “how.” Provide clear and direct answers but fill out the information around the direct answers. Once you get the consumer on your site for the direct answer you can expand the topic. Also don’t forget to create content based on variations of the same questions such as how to fix, “how do I fix ____?,” “how do I stop ___?”, or who can fix ____?, “what do I do if ___?” Don’t forget all content that can be searched including blogs and press releases.
  4. Consider local voice search. If you are a business with a physical address you should consider a new element to potential customer questions. Here people may be asking questions based on geo-location such as “where is the nearest BBQ place?,” “where can I get an iPhone charger?”, Who has the closest free wi-fi?” Make sure your business is listed with physical locations in Google+ Local and other geo-location social media sites like Yelp, Foursquare and Facebook. Reviews on sites like Yelp and TripAdviser can also impact these search results.

Voice search for product research is increasing. Nearly 50% of people are now using voice search when researching products. If marketers want their products to be found they should start to consider new strategies that emphasize natural language over keywords.

Digital and content marketing benefits to voice search optimization: Optimizing your website, blog and press/media pages with new information in the right structure can help get your content noticed over competitors to drive more traffic from highly qualified leads.

Social media marketing benefits to voice search optimization: Voice search optimized content will draw more engagement because you will be providing answers addressing your target audience’s most common questions. A focus on discovering and answering your target’s questions leads to more valuable and relevant social content that will drive awareness views and shares.

Business benefits to voice search optimization: Adjusting to natural language search helps you think more like a consumer and less like a marketer. This improved understanding of what your customers are currently seeking can lead to new product and service ideas to improve your business offering.

Over time the better you get at answering natural language questions the better your results. Bill Slawski from Go Fish Digital says that sites frequently selected and ranked highly can be deemed more authoritative and thus appear in more top results and drive more traffic.

We are still early in this trend. If you start adjusting strategies now you could benefit from a competitive advantage over your slower competitors. Have you considered how voice search will change your digital strategies?

For more insights into the big picture in social media strategy consider Social Media Strategy: Marketing and Advertising in the Consumer Revolution.

To consider the bigger picture in measurement see Why You Need A Social Media Measurement Plan And How To Create One. To consider the bigger picture in social media marketing Ask These Questions To Ensure You Have The Right Strategy.

As Smartphone Ownership Crosses 50% And Mobile Ad Spending Jumps 80% Keep 3 Key Measures In Mind

A new report by eMarketer estimates that U.S. Mobile-ad spending is projected to grow 80% this year, to $2.61 billion. What is driving this growth? The Pew Internet Project just released a report saying smartphone ownership has just crossed the 50% threshold to 53% of U.S. mobile consumers. And people are using those data plans. From 2010 to 2011 U.S. Smartphone data usage was up 89%.

As smartphone ownership increases more and more people are using their phones for search, web browsing and use of applications – that is where mobile marketing comes in. According to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. The MMA says mobile now includes advertising and media, direct response, promotions, relationship management, CRM, customer services, loyalty and social marketing. It can also engage to start relationships, acquire, generate activity, stimulate social interaction with organizations and community members, [and] be present at time of consumers expressed need.

The old way of thinking about mobile media is mobile advertising where you bring old school Internet banners and TV ads to the tiny screens of mobile devices. The new way takes full advantage of the new technology capabilities of mobile. It makes marketing on a mobile device interactive. With this definition in mind some of the measures of effectiveness of the Internet are very applicable to mobile media. I believe that ease of use, perceived usefulness and speed of interactivity are all important factors in measuring the efficacy and effectiveness of mobile marketing interaction.

1. Ease of Use is an important factor in measuring its effectiveness whether you are making an iPhone app or a text message pizza ordering system. Is the organization and structure of the marketing app logical and easy to follow? Is the app name or text to address easy to remember? Are the terms and conditions of a promotion easy to understand? Is content concise and easy to understand? Is learning to use the system or app easy, clear and understandable?

2. Perceived Usefulness is another important measure in mobile. People will not download an app, pay attention to rich-media ads or watch a video if it is not perceived as useful to them. Is your mobile marketing going to improve their shopping experience (I.E. get coupons, information at the point of purchase)? Will it increase shopping productivity (I.E. book a flight while waiting in line)? Or will it increase shopping effectiveness (I.E. pick out movies before you get to Redbox)? The best mobile marketing are the ones build around a consumer’s needs.

3. Navigability is also an effective measure because of the new uses of mobile. If voting for your favorite American Idol contestant was hard to navigate less people would do it. Is the layout intuitive and is the order of information clear? By now everyone knows they need to develop mobile enabled websites that meet the navigation requirements of the small screen.

Search, display (which includes spending on banner and rich-media ads) and video are expected to grow their share this year at the expense of SMS, MMS and P2P messaging, which are expected to drop according to eMarketer’s estimates. Search is expected to take up 50% of spending next year followed by banners and rich media at 35%. Video and SMS/MMS/P2P finish out ad spending at 8% and 6% respectively. If you are diving deeper into mobile this year or next, keep the three key measures above in mind.