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The history of SEO is relatively short but highly eventful. It has moved in just a few years from a rudimentary focus on basic, repeated keywords to a sophisticated suite of organic, intuitive and refined techniques aimed at delivering value, accuracy and customer satisfaction. Digital technology develops rapidly. Inevitably, SEO practice and the promotional campaigning methods it underpins do the same. As the way we search changes according to the options technology provides, so SEO adapts and evolves.
Voice search has become a very important part of any SEO campaign. As soon as AI tools such as Siri and Alexa appeared on our smartphones and virtual assistants, the expansion of voice search was guaranteed. However, rather than being simply an extension of standard search techniques, it developed its own unique requirements and practices. This meant that anyone conducting an SEM campaign now has to take account of this new medium, as the game changes once again.
How Voice Search Differs from Traditional Search?
We’ve all become used to paring down keyboard searches to single words or short phrases. For example, if you are on your laptop looking for a reputable online marketing agency in the south east you might key in ‘PPC management in Essex‘. However, how we use the keyboard is different from the more conversational way we address our virtual servants. Because they are programmed to talk to us, you’re more likely to say ‘Alexa, find me an agency that provides PPC management in Essex’.
Virtual assistants use automatic speech recognition to understand your question and text to speech technology to reply. The information from which they draw their answers comes from the same place as a Google search of course: websites. That means the selection and placement of keywords on your website must take account of this new demand.
Tailoring Content for Voice Search
It is essential to think of keywords in terms of fully formed questions so you should cover every permutation of who, what, where, when, how and why. Bear in mind, too, that voice search deals in complete sentences which you should endeavour to provide wherever possible. The same goes for the phrases known as long-tail keywords, which have always been important but are now crucial.
Even leaving aside keyword research, it is vital to ensure that your website offers a high level of readability. Traditional search engines have been responding to this for quite some time, but it is particularly appropriate for voice searches, where results, more than ever, depend on logical, authoritative ideas and information delivered in coherent sentences. Simple tactics like using a headline that poses a question, followed by a direct answer then a page of detailed content that expands on that answer can be extremely effective.
Ask the Experts on PPC Management in Essex
Search engine marketing is a skill that most businesses simply don’t have the luxury of time to develop for themselves. Add to that the fact that SEO is constantly evolving and you’ll appreciate the wisdom of engaging the services of professionals whose specialism is getting the best search rankings for their clients. Voice search is the future that the sharpest businesses are embracing today.
