Existing companies that have implemented the right SEO strategies to improve search rank are able to take its advantage by improving traffic and conversions. Startup companies, however, does not have this particular “luxury” that they can utilize when it comes to boosting their sales.
Thus Paid advertising, such as through Google AdWords, have become a popular option for these companies. Since such a platform allows a business to attract buyer traffic (with the right strategies and keywords in place) without having to wait several months for their SEO campaign to take effect. Even long-standing businesses are still continuing to utilize paid search campaigns to help them drive more traffic to their online properties and to boost their income.
Paid search advertising campaigns have numerous advantages that companies can benefit from. On average, businesses find that they can usually double the amount of money they spent on AdWords campaigns. Paid search ads also get around 65% of all high intent searches. In addition, there is a 50% better chance that a searcher who clicks on a paid search ad will continue to buy something from the website they land on when compared to an organic click.
As the world-wide-web grows, new technologies are continuously being introduced to the world. Some present a successful trend for the future, and others dying out soon after its wave of popularity.
Voice search is a particular trend that provided the entire world with a more convenient way to find answers to their questions. But the rising popularity of this feature is holding many challenges for marketers and business owners. In 2016, 20% of all internet searches were conducted by voice. By the year 2020, it is expected that at least half of all internet searches will be done through voice search. With this trend in mind, marketers now need to adjust their paid search campaigns accordingly. If not, they risk missing out on a lot of opportunities!
The Rise Of Voice Search
Two decades ago, the idea of voice search and virtual assistants were a mere dream. Something which you would see in sci-fi movies!
Today, however, voice search has become one of the most popular ways to conduct a search on search engines. All of the latest devices come shipped with built-in virtual assistants that do not only allow the user to make phone calls or look up a location on the map but also provides an easy and convenient way to search for answers.
Just say “Hey, Siri” to your Apple iPhone or “Ok, Google” to your Android smartphone, and the virtual assistant will start up and await your query. After asking a question, the virtual assistant will search the web to give you the most appropriate answers to the question you asked. There are many other devices that now also provides voice search features and a virtual assistant without even needing a screen. Think of the Amazon Echo device, for example. You ask the device to switch your lights on, and it provides you with the request feature. You ask the device where you can dine out tonight, and it will search the web and provide you appropriate answers.
Preparing Your Paid Search Campaign For Voice Search
As of January 2018, more than a billion web searches are conducted by voice every month. Cortana alone has more than 133 million users. And at least 40% of all adults are now using voice search to seek out an answer to a question they have at least one time every day.
Voice search is, however, still a new trend for some people. Approximately 41% of all individuals using voice search at the moment have only discovered the convenience offered by this feature within the past six months. Only around 11% of voice searchers have started using this feature three or more years ago.
The fact that voice search is still a rising trend means businesses and marketers still have time to appropriately adjust their SEO and paid search campaigns to meet the needs of voice searches.
The sooner you start to make the necessary adjustments in your campaigns, the more you would be able to benefit from voice search. Preparing your campaigns to be ready for voice search does not have to be a pain or even cause you to go through an extensive amount of effort.
By simply doing some research to better understand how voice search impacts your business, and to understand how your target audience is using voice search, you will be able to take advantage of this feature without spending too much money or losing too much time.
First, it is important to realize that people are using voice search in a different way to how they use standard search.
Instead of inputting text through a keyboard, people are now rather speaking to their smartphones to obtain details. Details may be like, about a location, times for a movie or live show, or perhaps to look up a recipe. This means that you should avoid only targeting those standard keywords like “weight loss”, and start looking at targeting question-keywords and keywords with a specific user-intent. Instead of optimizing your paid search campaign only for “weight loss”, you will include search phrases like “how to lose weight in a week” or perhaps “how to lose weight without starving yourself”.
When it comes to getting your paid search ads to show up for voice search, only focusing on keyword optimization is no longer the most effective strategy.
Search engine technology and artificial intelligence are becoming smarter and more efficient in matching search terms to appropriate online properties. You need to discover what your audience is searching for, then optimize your website to provide appropriate answers to these questions. Your website’s content needs to be compiled in such a way that it has a conversational tone. It’s as if the content on your website is talking directly to the visitor and answering their question directly.
You need to do extensive research in order to achieve a better understanding of your target audience. Learn what they want, what they are looking for, what questions they are asking, and how they are asking these questions.
If you already have a steady amount of traffic coming into your website through SEO, then you would be able to gain a better understanding of what you need to do to better optimize your paid search campaign to be prepared for voice search.
Pull reports from your Google Analytics account!
And if you already have an AdWords campaign running, draw reports from your AdWords account as well.
Take a look at the search terms your ads are showing up for, as well as the search terms for your organic rankings.
No matter what keywords you are targeting for your SEO campaign. There will always be additional keywords you rank for and that your ads show up for. This is beneficial, as you would be able to discover appropriate search terms that your target audience is searching for. And once you identify these search keywords, you can better optimize your campaigns to target the right audience and to answer the right questions.
Mistakes To Avoid
Implementing the right strategies to make your website ready for voice search is important. While implementing these strategies, there are some common mistakes that businesses make.
As explained previously, updating your paid search for voice search is not only about keyword optimization anymore. This, however, does not mean you should not focus on your standard keywords anymore! While voice search is continuing to become more popular, there are still millions of people who are not using voice search.
Your website should cater to every single person who is looking for your products or services, not only to a select few. If you favor text search over voice search, you will lose out. If you favor voice search over text search, you will lose out. Find that perfect balance! Focus on every single individual who might conduct a search. Focus on keywords that will show up in text searches, and include keywords that will show up for voice search. This way, you gain the full benefits of both the searches.
Conclusion
Voice search is rising in popularity and is a technology that is definitely here to stay.
Marketers and business owners are advised not to overlook the importance it plays in their paid search advertising campaigns as more than half of all searches will be conducted through a voice search within the next few years. Preparing a paid search campaign for voice is essential to take advantage of the benefits offered by this new trend, but many marketers still fail to implement the correct strategies to ensure they can take full advantage. In this article, we discussed how voice search might implicate your paid search campaigns, and provided some essential tips on how you can better prepare for this trend.
