No doubt, search is king. According to Serpwatch, search engines generate 300% more traffic than social media when it comes to content driven sites. Despite Google’s increasingly ad-saturated search environment, most of the users worldwide have come to rely on search engines for just about everything. From finding out how to do things to locating businesses nearby, search is seeing tremendous use in everyday life. Digital marketing trends have shifted since usage has gone mobile. In the last year alone, mobile phones generated more than 50% of all web traffic. As a result, the way people conduct searches has changed drastically, with voice search becoming the new mode.
The continued development of intelligent voice assistants and voice search capabilities will only spur mobile use around the world even more. Here’s what you need to know to successfully adapt to this era of voice.
Mobile Marketing Optimization Checklist
1. Make your site “mobile-first”
“Mobile.” “First.” Get it? All jokes aside, let’s talk about what that term means. Google rolled out mobile-first indexing with the Hummingbird update last year. It just means that Google now crawls mobile web pages first, prioritizing them over normal desktop sites.
If a site doesn’t have a mobile version, Google still crawls the desktop site, so it’s not like you won’t rank at all without one. Still, lacking a mobile-friendly site can sink your rankings because of the prioritization that’s in place. In any case, it is in your best interest to have a mobile version anyway since more users are browsing the internet on their phones.
2. Target long-tail keywords and understanding user intent
Voice search queries are more conversational in nature. Instead of keying in “Bahamas cruise,” users are more likely to ask a fully formed question like, “Hey Siri, how much are tickets to a Bahamas cruise trip?” Because long-tail keywords or phrases mimic natural speech better, they’re more effective for voice SEO and are more useful in targeting user intent.
3. Implement structure
A 2018 case study by Backlinko found that FAQs turn up a huge chunk of the time in voice search results. This makes sense since often times, FAQs are set up to answer questions. Aside from better organization within actual content, structuring data using markup formats like Schema helps search engines crawl your site and parse information much faster. This, in turn, helps increase visibility.
4. Leverage local SEO
Another trend we’re seeing is that users are doing far more “near me” searches to find local businesses. According to Google, “near me” searches specific to product offerings have surged by 500% in the last two years. Tap into lucrative local search opportunities by making sure that your business listings are correct and up-to-date.
5. Accelerate Page Speed
Voice interactions are quicker than manual entry search. In the same manner, user standards for how quickly information is provided is also much higher. In fact, there is a direct correlation between rankings in voice search and a site’s loading speed, with voice search results pages loading 52% faster than desktop counterparts. (That’s around 4.6 seconds, by the way.)
John McElhenney – life coach austin
@jmacofearth
more from uber.la
