What is Voice Search Advertising?

Firstly, let’s quickly explain what voice search is. Essentially it’s when a user conducts a search using their physical voice on a personal device, for example, HomePod, Google Home or Amazon’s Echo. The device will process the question or demand and then verbally reply.

But this leads us to some important question that will need to answering, namely, are Google voice search ads the future of your marketing campaigns and how will it affect your PPC strategies?

How Voice Search, SEO and PPC Strategies Go Together?

Understanding just how voice search will impact the PPC advertising sector could be crucial in order to improve conversions. A Google voice search campaign, SEO strategy and PPC approach should not be viewed as isolated entities, instead, they can be effectively synchronised to drive success. Technology is rarely ever stationary and it is perpetually evolving. As it does this, your digital marketing strategies need to be best orientated to meet those changes. Voice search is already a very prominent part of people’s daily lives and it is only set to increase as this technology develops. Adapting your PPC campaign and SEO approach to perform well with respect to voice searches is vital to ensure you stay ahead of your closest competitors. In today’s market, knowing how to optimise your retail brand for voice search is more important than ever before.

Tips on How to Optimise Your PPC Campaigns for Voice Search

1. Be Natural

This one is first for is a reason. It cannot be overstated enough that a huge part of utilising voice search is to use natural language. People will type a search into Google in a different way than would do verbally. Seeing repeated success through voice search for your PPC campaign must involve the incorporation of natural language.

If you want to appear in voice results, you must consider how your audience verbally searches for things. This can include factors such as the way people phrase and pose questions. In a typed search, they may put ‘flower shop delivery’ but searching verbally, it might become ‘flower shops that deliver’. This may seem like an impossibly small detail, but it can be all the difference between improving your conversions and falling behind to competitors. PPC campaigns that are optimised to include natural-sounding language and questions will always produce better results.

2. Long-Tail Keywords

Users utilising voice searches will typically use more words in their queries and tend to ask more complete and grammatically-correct questions or phrases. So while they may type ‘Indian restaurant near me’ they will more likely say ‘What are some Indian restaurants that are near me?’ out loud.

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When people conduct voice searches, they will frequently use words like who, what, where, why, when, and how so considering the effects that posing questions can have on your long-tail keywords is important in relation to your PPC campaign. As well as this, words like “for” and “to” are incredibly common in voice searches so this will also affect your overall approach. With 65% of voice searches being conversational in tone, targeting long-tail keywords can help reach valuable leads.

3. Stay Local

Typically, voice search is used to find information about local businesses. People search for restaurants, shops, and any other relevant locations with their devices so performing well in relation to voice searches means thinking on a local scale first.

Using long-tail location keywords is a great way to draw in users. Keywords like “sushi near Clapham” will draw in local customers that are specifically looking in a certain city or town, as most voice search users will be doing.

Another way to optimise for voice searches is by the inclusion of keywords relating to landmarks near your business. So if you had a business near a train station or famous landmark, optimising searches such as ‘Where can I find a coffee shop near King’s Cross Station’ would be a no brainer. Staying local is a surefire way to achieve national success.

4. Focus On the Buying Cycle

Depending on what stage of the buying cycle a potential customer is in will affect how they ask a question. Firstly, the buying cycle can be broken down into four sections:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Evaluation
• Purchase

Generally, when people ask “who” or “what” questions they are at the beginning of the buying cycle where they want to learn information about a product. In a voice search, questions involving “when” and “where” usually indicate they are closer to converting as they want to find out business hours, delivery timeframes and other important information pertaining to a product. Understanding where in the cycle your customer is and how it will change their voice search will need to be considered during the creation of your marketing campaign to achieve the best ROI.

5. Be Mobile Friendly

People are going to visit your mobile site more than your regular site when they perform a voice search. With a voice search, users will often receive a link to their personal device which they can click on to find more information. In the majority of cases, this will be a mobile device and if your site isn’t fully optimised for mobile, these will be leads you will lose more often than not. A mobile-friendly site will eventually lead to improved results with respect to your voice search PPC campaign.

Why Voice Search is the Future of Paid Ads

It cannot be denied: The voice search future is here. More and more people are use device that includes Siri, Google Assistant or Alexa on a daily basis. This is a major way that users are interacting with brands and if you are not utilising it effectively it can mean you are losing out a huge number of potential leads. It is predicted that by the end of this year, half of all online searches will be voice searches and voice shopping as a whole is set to rise to $40 billion by 2022. This is what the landscape is changing too and if you are not ready to embrace it you will be at a significant disadvantage in relation to your competitors. Syncing voice search with your PPC campaign is more important than ever before.