Being a small business owner can be tough. If that small business is dependent on local clients, the challenges can be enormous. Trying to stand out as a local small business requires savvy marketing and skilled communication to reach your target audience and attract potential customers to your business. As voice search becomes a more prevalent part of local search marketing efforts, many businesses are asking how can voice search help local businesses, and how can their company benefit. Let’s take a closer look at voice search and what it has to offer local small businesses.
Voice search has grown significantly over the years. It is a speech recognition technology that allows users to search by saying terms aloud rather than typing them into a search field. Voice search can be done through a mobile device or on your computer if you have a microphone. Basically, a query is spoken, and then the device starts the query based on the spoken word. Google’s voice recognition accuracy rate now exceeds 95% for the English language. By nature, most voice searches are asking a question or in search of facts. Many of those are queries about local businesses. Local companies need to understand the impact of voice search and target their marketing strategies accordingly. In fact, mobile voice-related searches are three times more likely to be locally based.
If small businesses are cognizant of voice search and how it can drive targeted traffic to their brick and mortar location, the opportunities are numerous. Savvy business owners that ensure that their digital presence is voice search friendly will find that the exposure for their small business can increase exponentially. Being easier to be found via voice search can not only provide greater exposure for a local small business, it can drive new customers to their brick and mortar location that are better aligned with their target audience, increasing the potential for business. More foot traffic can mean more potential customers and ideally more business.
At least 20% of all voice searches show intent, which makes sense considering 61% of voice searches are conducted while someone is preoccupied with a task such as driving. To address this, use localized keywords in your site content, and make sure your business has a Google My Business page to improve your ranking. Optimize long tail keywords to include terms like “store hours”, “near me”, and “price” so that you can take advantage of a mobile user’s GPS to drive foot traffic. Here’s a handy list of 8 ways to optimize your website for voice search:
Voice search will continue to grow in popularity. If you’re a local small business owner, understand how it works, how it impacts local search, and what that means for your business can help you benefit from voice search. Reach out to a small business marketing pro if you’re unsure how to incorporate voice search tactics into your overall marketing strategy.
Running a small business is not easy. New startups especially struggle when it comes to…
If you’re a small business owner, you want your website to be creative and interesting…
One of the easiest yet most overlooked sources of new business for small businesses is…
Marketers have a lot of different tactics to choose from when promoting a small business.…
Creating a marketing budget for your small business is essential for achieving your marketing goals.…
Link building is an important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) and plays a significant…