The growth of smart technology is changing the way people search for products, services, and information on the internet. Studies show that 32% of consumers own a smart speaker, and 77% of the U.S. population owns a smartphone, which means voice search assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google allow the masses to search for products and services without a screen or text but simply by asking a question using their voices.
By 2020, 50% of all online searches will be voice searches, and in order to get ahead of the curve, businesses must start preparing and optimizing for voice search.
The Need For Local Products And Services Are Leading Voice Search Requests Throughout The Country
Voice searches are three times more likely to be used than text for local business searches, with 46% of voice searchers using smart technology to find local businesses daily.
As people become more comfortable talking to their smartphones, speakers, and assistants, they are embracing the ease and acceptance of leaning on their electronic devices for answers without typing a single word of text. What started with simple inquiries about traffic, music, and weather has evolved into searches for important services, including hiring a local attorney.
As technology improves, so will the seamless search opportunities that will require your firm’s online marketing efforts to be optimized for inclusion in the results.
Where Does The Voice Search Information Come From?
Studies show that just over 40% of voice search answers come from rich snippets, which are an integral part of any law firm’s structured data. This behind the scenes optimization is marked up by our site operators to ensure search engines understand and identify the important information contained on each page of your website, so they can deliver the snippet, or detailed extract, in the search engine results.
When it comes to local searches, assistants source their information in varying ways, including:
- Amazon’s Alexa partners with Yelp for search results from listings and review data
- Google Assistant searches within their own search engine data, Google Maps, and Google business listings
- Apple’s Siri sources information from Apple Maps, and listings and review data from Yelp
- Microsoft’s Cortana is powered by the search engine Bing
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Optimizing For Traditional Search Is Massively Different From Optimizing For Voice Search
Studies reveal the over 35% of clicks on Google’s search engine results page come from the first organic search result.
When people are using assistants to find services, the responses are extremely limited. Smart speakers deliver a single response to the person’s query, and smartphones only list the top three results based on the question asked.
This means ranking at the top means everything. And unlike text searches, where an individual may type in keywords, voice searches operate by answering questions, which means your content must be optimized to deliver results in a language that smart technology understands.
Optimizing your firm’s online persona for voice searches requires an in-depth review of your current SEO tactics to ensure they align with the requirements of new AI and connected technology.
How Can My Law Firm Increase Their Voice Engine Optimization?
Voice searches are going to become an integral part of a consumer finding products and services, and that includes queries to locate local law firms.
There are several ways to increase your voice search engine optimization, and the Attorney Marketing Network can help keep your firm ahead of the technological trends, so you are not left behind during text or voice attorney searches.
- Optimize Your Business Listing
A recent survey found that over 47% of respondents had a strong negative reaction to queries that produce incorrect local information. Missing phone numbers, old addresses, and outdated URLs cost people time and lead them to distrust the businesses who list the wrong information, so they search for a new firm.
It is essential to keep your business listings clean and your name, address, and phone, or NAP data, consistent in directories, online listings, and throughout your marketing efforts, including live maps and locations.
- Increase Your Website’s Speed
While Google has confirmed that site speed will be a ranking factor in mobile searches, it is also important to provide speedy results for your clients, so they can find the answers they need from your firm. If a website takes more than five seconds to load, searchers are 90% more likely to find another service.
If your site is not ranking well on mobile searches because of speed issues, then it might affect your voice search opportunities too.
- Develop A New Content Strategy: Create Frequently Asked Questions
When people are engaging voice-activated assistants, or using varying means of smart technology, they conduct voice searches using questions, which allows the response to return in the form of an answer.
Developing content that answers frequently asked questions about your firm’s services not only helps drive conversion but optimizes your website for inclusion in voice search returns.
Our content strategy focuses on a question and answer format construction, as even searchers who are using their keyboards are asking questions to get the best results. When your website’s home, about, and practice area pages include long-tail keyword phrases, it helps answer natural language questions that are posed to voice assistants.
Refreshing your content to include frequently asked questions can also solve the need for including mark-up opportunities for rich snippets that appear in the results, placing your firm at the top of the rankings.
- Markup Your Online Language Properly
Headings, subheadings, tags, and links are important to your search engine optimization, and even more important to your voice search engine optimization. Make sure that all questions that are incorporated into your site’s FAQs are marked up properly with headers, so they provide the proper impressions.
- Test Your Voice Search
If you have a smart speaker or smartphone, it is easy to test the voice search function to see where your firm lands in the results. Since the technology is still new, it is important to test different devices that employ different assistants.
Testing will help you understand how many listings each device or assistant offers, and where your firm ranks when answering the most common questions. It also delivers a simple competitive analysis, so you know where other attorneys are ranking in your area.
Google Is Propelling Voice Activated Searches Into The Mainstream
Last year, the Google Assistant improved how it understands the English language to include a clear understanding of the nuances of a conversation, resulting in a:
- 95% accuracy rate
- 4.9% word-error rate
Google’s significant breakthroughs are propelling voice-activated technology to be rapidly adopted in simple terms that are effectively understood, and it will take long before the other smart technology sources reach the same intellectual heights. This only amplifies the importance of expanding your marketing efforts to include natural language that answers questions about your services, so you can get the ranking you deserve.
How Can The Attorney Marketing Network Help With Voice Search Engine Optimization?
Optimizing content, locations, and overall brand information will increase the likelihood of powering your firm to the top of the voice search results. Our successfully developed approach to delivering conversion-based Local search engine optimization and marketing can provide a fresh look at how your online persona and advertising efforts can optimize your voice search engine results.
Contact one of our attorney marketing professionals today at 877-899-8311 to learn how we can help you get ahead of voice search technology, so your law firm is not left out of the newest way people are finding lawyers in your area.
