Digital assistants like Apple’s “Siri”, Microsoft’s “Cortana”, Amazon’s “Alexa”, Google’s “Google Assistant” and the microphone feature of the keyboard on smartphones are becoming an increasingly important part of our everyday life, and increasingly more information is obtained through voice searching. 48% of all Norwegians have used voice searches, while 16% use voice searches. The future voice search forecast is clear: the number of voice searching will increase.
Is voice search relevant to advertisers?
The evolution is today the most important work to optimise for voice searching, without doubt, in the organic search result. However, there is no doubt that over time advertisements will also have a greater place in the results of the polling. However, for so long, there is an important distinction between the voice search performed where the results appear on the screen and where the search results are presented orally (e.g. from your Alexa). Visually presented on screen, the paid search result is as known at the top, while the organic ranger is below. Relevance and placement become more important and more important in organic searches. Oral voice search results are all that is not “the best” for the user and present the most relevant result — and in many cases only.
This way of presenting the results of the search presents a challenge for the role of the content paid: Do you want to see a search advertisement present in search results if it is considered to be the most relevant or will the advertisements have a negligible role in oral presentations of voice searches?
On the one hand, advertisements could potentially impair user-friendliness and perceived credibility of digital assistants. On the other hand, paid search results are Google and Microsoft's money machine. In a world where the use of voice polling is increasing, it is therefore doubtful that advertising will not become an important part, including here. They will undoubtedly have a space across voice search results in the long run, but just how and to what extent is difficult to predict. Before we talk about a real “boom” in the growth of voice searches that affect paid searches, advertising must also be given a place in the search results now presented orally. A future solution from the digital assistants could be virtual screens, for example.
How can you start preparing to maintain paid visibility in the near future, and in the long term? In this article we give you three trends you should take into account in your further Google Ads strategy.
Longer Search Phrases
The way we look for information changes from text to voice. A Google study shows that more 70% of requests for a Google Assistant are expressed in natural language rather than search terms we would otherwise write in a typical web search.
What's this difference?
For most of us, it's natural to use more words when we talk because we're simply not used to, or need, to formulate ourselves in keyword form as we often do when we write. This is because, among other things, talking takes less time than writing the same words. Our written search habits are adapted to efficiency and speed and most search boxes carry a little bit of this by being small and inviting to shorter wordings. Porna Virji i Moz.com illustrates the differences between voice and written searches as follows:
If you wanted to find out who was CEO in Microsoft, how would you do this using:
a) Voice seeking
and
b) Written Search
The two different searches would probably differ in the following way: ‘Who is the current CEO in Microsoft’ in speech and ‘Microsoft CEO’ in written search.
An investment for a future increase in voice searching is to optimize your Google Ads account to trigger longer search phrases in addition to the shorter search terms we are used to. These search phrases often have less volume in themselves as they are more specific than the shorter, often more general, search terms. In contrast, longer search phrases take the advantage of lower competition, lower click prices and generally higher click rates, given increased relevance.
Be early out - already start identifying longer search phrases in your search term report with sufficient volume, and work on testing and detecting new search phrases that may have high value for you.
Querying Passphrases
A natural language indicates that we do more search in question form. As Virji outlines, it is more natural for us to use questioning phrases when performing voice searches than typically insplitted single words. A key measure to maintain visibility as the number of voice searches increases is therefore to optimise your Google Ads account so that your adverts trigger this type of questioning search phrase.
More search with question words can be used for our benefit by easier being able to interpret where the customer is on the purchase journey, what their intentions are, what probability it is for a conversion and how much we want to buy on their clicks from this information.
Local Searches
As many voice searches are carried out from mobile devices, it can be assumed that those who carry them out are on the move in many cases. Almost 1/4 of all voice searches are so-called local searches which concerns restaurants in the vicinity, shopping, road descriptions, home deliveries and the like.
Paid visibility of digital maps like Google Maps is alpha omega in local searches. Furthermore, an important measure to optimise for local voice searches is to have all relevant extensions in place. This applies, for example, to location and call extensions, for an easy way and for which a visit or contact is made. Also, carefully review the locational orientation of the account to ensure visibility where relevant and make any bidding adjustments where appropriate.
Examples of this are...
«Car workshop near me»
‘Where is the nearest make-up shop’
‘Who supplies pizza to Majorstuen’
If you are not already in the process of optimising your Google Ads search method account - get started!