This indicates that companies that have previously invested extensively in SEO should reconsider their search tactics. You should know where voice assistants obtain their information from and how you can ensure that any questions about your company are answered correctly.
In a voice-first world, there are three strategies you can employ to maximize your brand’s visibility and ensure it’s appropriately portrayed. Let’s have a look at what they have to offer.
Search Engine Optimization for Voice
When a user asks a question with their voice, the content that appears (voice-optimized web content) can come from a variety of places. Answers are typically derived from web pages with conversationally written material, which commonly includes keywords with natural language modifiers, such as inquiries and brief answers.
You should create a “featured snippet” to provide your material the best chance of being picked up by smart speakers. To be chosen as an answer by voice assistants, content should aspire to be in the top ten SERPs on Google and Bing.
While there is a lot of guesswork floating around about how to win voice SEO, it’s better to start with a landscape analysis to see what you’re up against. Although big sites like Wikipedia may be difficult to dethrone in specific industries and question categories, we’ve seen third-party sites with limited authority surface above brands themselves in many circumstances.
If your brand is experiencing this, make sure your content is voice-ready. It’s not just a matter of editing content to make it voice-friendly; you’ll also need to consider a variety of customer enquiry kinds.
Voice Encounters
If you’re creating a voice app right now, it’s a good idea to include information and answers to queries you could expect your users to ask. Alexa and Google Assistant will provide them as recommendations for select searches. Both firms have also released tools that make it easier for developers and brands to be discovered in this manner.
If you’re marketing your presence on voice and driving usage of your app(s), it’s critical to have answers readily available, regardless of whether your experience appears every time a consumer searches on a speech-first device or not.
Consumers’ curiosity about answers does not wane after they enter your app; in fact, it may even grow. More crucially, once someone becomes a part of your voice experience, the amount and quality of data you can collect about their interactions skyrockets, compared to the native platforms’ relative black box. Even if you only have a few users at initially, the data you collect about their searches and intents will be qualitatively valuable, therefore you should utilize it to inform your overall voice SEO approach.
Check out our post on the top 5 digital marketing trends as well.
Partnership Between Knowledge Graphs and Databases
Another thing to keep in mind is the always shifting world of knowledge graphs and data partnerships that big tech companies use with their voice assistant AIs. Wikipedia and Yelp are two popular graphs that the assistants use frequently because they are heavily trafficked sites where customers go for solutions. If there’s information about your company on these sites, double-check that it’s accurate.
Other behind-the-scenes collaborations will focus on addressing knowledge gaps for AIs in areas where factual responses are agreed upon or where trustworthy real-time data is required. Amazon Alexa, for example, uses Wolfram Alpha to answer complex computational questions, and Samsung Bixby uses the Score for sports scores and news. Yext also assists Alexa with local search results.
Last But Not Least
As more people use voice assistants, the main speech technology firms of today, such as Amazon and Google — as well as emerging voice technology companies – will have their own ways of providing responses. Brands and other organizations will need to understand how each of these alternatives works in order to ensure that their brands are correctly represented.
While the process and sources may change as the voice industry evolves, best practices are likely to remain consistent. To promote themselves as an authority in their field, brands might profit by updating their content and ecosystems.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from traditional search, it’s that once someone is judged a “winner” by the search engines, it’s difficult to get rid of them. Voice provides an opportunity to redefine your online presence, and brands may use voice search now to stay ahead of the technology in the future.
Read our post on why businesses hire virtual assistants as well.