Finally, like its name states, this is voice search. That is to say that we’re voicing queries, not typing them out.
And because we’re saying them out loud, we tend to speak more naturally.
In the same vein, we often speak to our digital assistants as we would a real person, which leads to conversational search queries that not only mirror how we speak, but also provide more intent.
On the former, we tend to speak more straightforward and simple than we type. For example, Backlinko found that the average
Google voice search result is written at a 9th-grade level, meaning that the simpler the language, the higher your chances for appearing on voice search queries.
On the latter, because they’re conversational, voice queries contain more information than text, i.e. information that provides intent by asking who, what, where, when, why and how:
● Normal query: pizza place nearby
● Conversational query: where is the best pizza place near me?
Because of this, search engines can better match queries to answers; they now have an idea as to what the searcher truly wants, not only what they think they want based on one or two keywords.
Going off of this, natural and conversational queries also mean that the shorthand keywords that dominate text-based search are replaced by long-tail keywords that also contain more information and relay intent.
As
Neil Patel wrote in a post about integrating long-tail keywords in blog posts, “[l]long-tail keywords are actually more important these days, because user intent can only be determined by the keywords they’re searching with.”
Intent, again, is the buzzword here.
Even the addition of an extra word or two can make a huge difference on what the searcher really wants. For example, consider the difference between buy heels and buy luxury black heels when shopping for designer heels.
The shorthand keyword presents results from online stores like:
● Shoedazzle.com
● DSW.com
● Heels.com
● Etc.
Long-tail, on the other hand, looks more like this:
● Nordstrom.com
● Neimanmarcus.com
● Bloomingdales.com
● Etc.
As you can see, the inclusion of “luxury” and “black” completely changes the SERPs and leads to results more closely aligned to what the searcher wanted: designer black heels.
Additionally, Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz, points out that “[long-tail keywords have] very low competition, because not a lot of people know about these keywords. There's not a bunch of sites targeting them already.”
1 Comment
Really great article. Voice search is a very interesting trend for sure. Thanks for sharing. Keep it up.