If you are like me, you are using your smart phone more and more to search. It has become such a useful tool, and an addictive one at that, that I often find myself searching while doing other things like watching TV or even reading a book.
The fact that I can also use voice search instead of text search is even more satisfying since voice often corrects errors and actually seems to “think” about what I am saying. I watched, amazed, the other day when I did a voice search and I saw Google go through a series of steps changing the words as it tried to fit the phonetics of my words into a logical meaning that it could search. Really…So what does this mean for your website keyword strategy? In a word, content. And why is this happening? Mobile devices.
Backing up a step, almost every article you read today tells you that you need to be mobile friendly, optimized and responsive. It’s true. People are like me. They pull out their mobile device because it goes with them and it is handy to be able to look up that lodge location, or restaurant name, or that rafting company they saw advertised last week and now they’re in town and need to find the operator.
Tourism is done on the fly now days. And voice search is going to make you rethink how you optimize for best results.
There is a great full article on this subject on Forbes online magazine at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/11/05/how-voice-search-could-affect-the-future-of-seo
Speaking is different than writing and people will use different language when searching vocally.
- Write more content that answers questions as they might be spoken. “What is the address of the rafting company in Revelstoke?” Your post or page should have content that answers the question.
- Forget keywords. Instead of trying to build rankings, focus on giving your customers information on the topics they seem to want most. For example, we know that our website visitors want to know more about online marketing and online sales, so we have lots of articles on this subject.
Don’t forget to connect the dots for people by making it easy for them to complete the search with an online reservation or purchase. Mobile purchases in travel are a significant portion of sales for many companies.