Hey Siri, how can search marketing adapt to voice search?

“Okay Google…”. Who has never used their voice to search their phone. With the advent of voice assistants (Google Now on Android, Siri on iPhone, Cortana on Windows), voice search is becoming increasingly popular. ComScore also estimates that, by 2020,  200 million searches per month will be made by this mode , or more than half of all searches performed.

This explosion of voice search is arguably one of the biggest upheavals the search world has seen in recent years. So how should brands adapt to this change?

FROM KEYWORD RESEARCH TO CONVERSATIONAL RESEARCH

First, it is important to understand that with voice search, the user experience and needs are profoundly modified. Traditional research, which consists of typing keywords into a search engine, has given way to “conversational search”: Internet users use natural language, asking specific questions and expecting clear answers (“where to find a good pizzeria”, “how to make savory cupcakes”, etc.). Google has also understood that  improving the relevance of its search engine results requires taking into account the user experience , as evidenced by the update of its referencing criteria. With  Hummingbird first, the search engine's latest algorithm, which now allows it to better understand the search intentions of Internet users by interpreting natural language, thematic associations and semantic concepts. Then thanks to  RankBrain  , a new signal that Google now takes into account to evaluate the web pages most likely to respond to Internet users' searches.

THINK HUMAN AND USER EXPERIENCE… AND MOBILE!

With voice search, we are therefore seeing queries in a more natural language. Indeed, Internet users search by asking questions (expressions beginning with "how to" or "where to go" and "where to find") and by formulating more specific queries ("hiking shoes for women under $100" at instead of "women's hiking shoes"). Concretely, for SEOs, this marks the advent of long-tail expressions and encourages them to take a greater interest in the searches of Internet users: the content must no longer only be positioned on keywords, but must meet the needs of users ( moreover, the boundary between SEO and user experience is shrinking more and more). For PPC specialists, this leads to targeting queries made of several keywords,

Keyword drilling is therefore becoming an increasingly essential part of the job of SEO as well as that of SEM campaign manager.

One of the other aspects of voice search is that it is done on mobiles. It is therefore obvious that, to take advantage of this type of research, you must above all ensure that your company and your products are visible on mobile devices. This goes, of course, through a website adapted to this type of browsing, both in terms of ergonomics (possible tactile browsing and adaptation to small screens) and performance (fast display of the pages of your site, even when connected Wi-Fi or 3G). It is with this in mind that the  AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) format was launched , HTML pages with refined codes and displaying more quickly on mobiles.

In addition, Internet users very often use their telephones simply to find the telephone number or the address of a company or a point of sale. So be sure to give them what they are looking for quickly.

LET'S RECAP: 3 THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

Here are some points that can allow both SEO and SEM specialists to position themselves on voice search queries:

1. Think human and conversational rather than keywords  : target natural language queries, long-tail expressions, and questions starting with "how", "where", and "why" and  put the user at the center of your thinking  by offering them content that meets their needs and questions.
2. Make sure you are present on mobile  and give Internet users the opportunity to be guided to your store or to call you. Take care of the user experience of your site on mobile (technical optimization) and thus work on your  Local SEO  and don't forget to use extensions in your Adwords campaigns, for example call extensions, location extensions, even phone extensions. app (if you have one).
3. Help the user make the right decision  by providing as much information as possible, right from the Google search results page. So don't forget to use microdata and rich snippets  (tags that help search engines understand the semantics of your content) and consider review extensions in your PPC campaigns. 

In short, voice search is a trend that will establish itself as a norm in the near future. Web giants are turning their attention to it more and more to improve the relevancy of their results both in search, and with voice assistants. In fact, Google (Google Now), Apple (Siri) and Microsoft (Cortana) are getting into a fierce war in the race for the best artificial intelligence-based search experience.