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Voice search is the next (and some say final) frontier for marketing – so what is your business doing to prepare to meet your customers there?
Everyone has a mobile phone constantly in their hands today, and that means they’re also are carrying around personal digital assistants like Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa and Google’s Assistant. So, the internet isn’t just at people’s fingertips alone anymore – it’s on the tip of their tongues too! While only around a one-third of people are using voice search now, it’s easy to overlook… but not for much longer. Let’s discuss voice search, what it means for your business and how voice search copywriting can help you take advantage of this trend. 
Digital marketing changes at such a rapid pace
We’ve been witness to this for years now.
Right now, video and live streaming is all the rage. But only a decade ago, social media came onto the scene as just a minor past-time experiment, only to quickly explode and become a permanent part of our culture today. It was Smartphones and Apps before that, SEO, content marketing, and all the way back to the introduction of the Internet itself. All of these and much more started from humble beginnings, only to be rapidly adopted by society and ingrained so strongly into our daily lives that now, we can’t imagine life without them. Voice search will be the next digital marketing trend
If famous marketers like Jayson DeMers, Neil Patel and Brian Dean (not to mention Google themselves), are all indicating that voice search will be the next frontier for marketing (which it will be), then your business needs to start preparing now.
Voice search is being embraced by your customers. How are you going to meet that demand? There is quite a bit of data out there indicating how much your audiences are beginning to utilise voice commands to look for information and, it is predicted that by 2020 (only a year from now), voice will account for around 50% of all search queries online, up from 20% in 2016. I feel that it will be much higher than this! 
Why voice search?
Voice search is becoming more popular with people today due to three factors:
It should come as no surprise as to why searching via voice is a growing trend. How much easier is it to ditch the small-button typing in favour of simply yelling out, “Hey Google! What is the recipe for date scones?” or “Hey Siri, direct me home.”? MUCH, MUCH easier. With Australian laws now making it illegal to touch our phones while we drive, voice prompts are actually solving a lot more problems than just convenience. Already, 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, so it’s not just the younger generation who are catching onto this trend; and the numbers as a whole are growing quickly. Your business can’t put it off any longer. How does voice search affect content?
With the rising affinity to use speech to hunt around the internet, and new technology providing more opportunities to use voice search, the whole approach to how people find and access digital content is completely changing.
Right under the noses of content marketers and content producers. This means that if you’re a business that wants to gain customer attention online, then you need to change with them. After all, if they’re starting to use voice, the best way to connect your brand’s content with them is by providing answers to the voice questions they’re asking! This all begins with voice optimised copywriting. 
The evolution of search behaviour with voice
The first step to understanding how this impacts your content is to appreciate how people’s searching habits have shifted only over the last few years.
For example, when people type, they would write something like: “learn content marketing” or “content class”. This is why SEO has been so focused on individual keywords to optimise content – because these keywords were how people searched using a keyboard. However, with voice search, people will now say things like: “How can I learn content marketing?” or “What classes are available in Sydney where I can learn more about content marketing?”. Rather than typing a collection of keywords to try and find the right answer, voice search allows you to easily ask the exact question you want – and advancements in technology are getting better at finding the right answers to a greater range of complex vocal commands. Plus, it’s faster for people to use voice. Stanford University recently discovered that speech recognition technology is now three times faster than typing! Your customers are all going to catch on very soon! How is voice search changing how customers look for information?
Because people can speak faster than they can manually type, search queries are quickly becoming:
These longer search phrases are what your audiences will be using to find answers and information online, which means that your content needs to be seen as relevant by voice assistants, or it will be overlooked. This represents a big shift in content marketing and SEO practises and has huge implications for businesses to adapt or get left behind. If you want to adjust and take advantage, it all starts with quality voice search copywriting. 
What is voice search copywriting?
Voice search copywriting is when you write digital content to be optimised for voice searching so that your information is seen as relevant by devices and AI assistants and therefore chosen as the response to someone’s vocal query.
Your copywriting needs to be directed towards creating website pages, landing pages, FAQs, blogs, videos, podcasts and so on, all of which have voice search optimisation (which I coined VSO) in mind. Whether you use a freelance copywriter to do this for you, or you’re doing the copywriting yourself, you need to start thinking: “how will my customers use voice search to find my brand?” How does voice search copywriting help your business meet voice search needs?
Voice search isn’t magically pulling responses from nowhere- it’s looking for existing content and copywriting, and either presenting search options, or reading a snippet aloud.
When a person uses voice commands to search, the smart algorithms scour the internet for relevant content to return the right information to the user who asked for it. Just like typing a query into a search engine, the voice assistant is trying to match the right content with the specific question. This means that your copywriting is the essential component of what these assistants are looking for. Your copywriting is the backbone to voice search success, which means you must offer it up for them to find. 
How to adjust your copywriting for voice search
It’s somewhat simple - your content and copywriting needs to start reflecting the changes in search behaviours that I mentioned above.
That doesn’t mean you throw out everything and start from scratch – your digital content still must cater to typed search and traditional SEO too (as that is still the most popular search method right now). However, just remember that as you begin to commission your copywriters to create content, you need to keep voice search in mind.
How Can Melotti Media Copywriting Help You?
To engage your customer and achieve ongoing business success today, you need quality copywriting and consistent content. However, we understand that this is easier said than done.
You’re time poor and spread thin, and writing isn’t your expertise. So, focus on what really matters, while we take care of all of your copywriting and content marketing needs! For more information or to speak to a quality copywriter to get the results your business deserves, contact me now at chris@melottimedia.com.au. I can sharpen your words to achieve your goals, today! Christopher Melotti Melotti Media Copywriting and Marketing Solutions www.melottimedia.com.au Click here to view the Copywriting FAQ page for all you need to know |
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