Among the roaring chatter of the bar, a friendly but anxious banter is occurring.
“WHAT?! There’s no way the Cheetah is the fastest animal on the planet!”
“Well it isn’t a Bald Eagle either!” you holler back.
Caught in a tension-filled frustration, the two of you know there’s only one way to solve this riddle. With a confident smirk, you take out your phone to find the answer to this pressing question.
“Google what is the fastest animal on the planet?”
You wait patiently as the answer loads…
Turns out you are both wrong. It is the Peregrine Falcon
Why Voice Search?
What was once thought of as a small feature to help you answer silly questions, has now turned into an important opportunity to capitalize on.
People are choosing to use voice search primarily for two reasons:
The first of which is convenience. Once you get over the hump of finding and pressing a miniature microphone button, or saying a command such as “Ok Google,” using voice search is fairly intuitive and only requires that you speak into your device.
The second is that it is feels more conversational. Rather than trying to be logical, typing words into a search bar so a machine can understand it, without you realizing it, you probably treat the voice assistant more human, and speak in conversational phrases in order to find what you are looking for.
What Should You Do?
The biggest difference with voice search is that the keywords are much more likely to be long-tail keywords. This means digging through your search term report and Analytics looking for the phrase “Ok Google” and other questions that begin with who/what/where etc. Look for popular searches and trends just as you would for typical keyword searches – where possible try including popular questions in your keyword list.
Likewise, this also means adding question phrases to your negative keyword list as not every phrase is an actionable question. Some searches the user is simply looking for an answer to a miscellaneous question and ready to move on.
If you are trying to reach your local audience, then voice search can become your new best friend. The majority of these searches are coming from mobile devices, which means users are more likely to be out of the house or ready to take action. Adding words like “near me” to pre-existing keyword lists can be beneficial. It’s a perfect way to capitalize on pedestrians walking around, trying to find their new favorite Italian restaurant or taco joint.
Going with the trend that users are more likely to ask questions in voice search, it might prove to be valuable to answer the keyword phrases you are bidding in the ad content itself. Along with typical call to action and copy that prompts the user to link on your ad, provide them with specific information that answers the question they are asking. Combining both of these elements may elicit more user engagement with your ads.
Using mobile is no longer a tool solely to help you look up fun facts or end a heated argument with an old friend, but now can be used to increase your PPC performance when utilized properly.