How the Future of Retail is Being Affected by Voice Search

There is nothing that can beat SEO, but voice search has added a complex wrinkle to the entire landscape of search. People are constantly searching for something or the other, and this is why most of the retail businesses have started focusing on search engine optimization and they are constantly revising the SEO strategies to appear within the search results. If your business is not showing up when the target audience is looking for something similar to your services and products, you are missing out on lucrative business opportunities. SEO is not easy and on top of that voice search has introduced numerous other challenges as well. According to www.forbes.com, voice search will keep dominating SEO in 2019.

Various sources have stated that all the searches are going to be made by voice by 2020. Whether you are going to reach that point within 6 months is a matter of debate, however, voice search is going to see a massive change in the behavior of your consumers. The objective of text and voice indeed remains similar but there is a huge difference in how your customers are going to approach them. If your business has not started to look at voice search strategically, it is time that you start considering the techniques of voice search optimization.

Given below is a list of the three important questions that have been answered for businesses that are constantly raising these questions.

What are the consumers exactly looking for when they are using voice search

Indeed, the voice search users are not making purchases frequently with the help of the voice assistant currently, however, they are using voice for helping the shopping experience. According to statistics, 58% of customers use voice search to get information on local businesses. They are interested in getting basic information like phone numbers, hours of operation, addresses, directions, etc.

Apart from that, various surveys have also stated that 51% of the device owners are using voice for researching products before making a purchase. Researching products is one of the most important and universal parts of the journey of every customer. Whether consumers are buying something online or from the physical stores, they will not spend a single penny without researching the products. This is why they are shifting to voice search. This is an important reason as to why you have to ensure that you are optimizing voice search and also the information that you are providing is accurate.

What does the voice search trend mean for retailers?

Voice search has been responsible for transforming how retailers are constantly thinking about search. If you were of the thought that the competition that existed in traditional web search used to be fierce, you need to wait for voice search. One particular online search can yield thousands of results and 10 results are displayed every page. Also, the paid search results are not counted. This is responsible for providing the users with the opportunity of evaluating options and diving deeper when selecting relevant information.

Alternatively, a voice search on mobile devices is responsible for yielding only 3 results. Searching on voice-only devices will give a single relevant result. Therefore, if you do not have top rank for the queries of the consumers, the voice of your business is going to be drowned completely by the voice of your competitors.

What can be done to improve the capabilities of voice search?

Building successful voice engine optimization strategies are going to be a daunting task. However, if you understand your customers, it is not going to be difficult to address the search needs that they have. Any particular voice query is completely based on intent and how your business is capable of answering the where, when, and how will be responsible for determining the search ranking. This means that answering and asking questions based on your expertise will be an ideal opportunity of aligning with voice queries.

It is also essential to remain short as well as succinct when you are answering the questions that your consumers have. Your consumers will not be interested in listening to long answers and answers that are far too sophisticated and complex. According to Backlinko, the result of any voice search should have a length of 29 words and need to have the English level of 9th grade.

Another important piece of information is that 40% of all the answers of voice search are responsible for coming from featured snippets. These snippets are considered to be valuable and direct answers to your queries. Indeed, this is not the excuse for abandoning voice or your flow of content, however, it is one of the strategic measures that you have to consider when optimizing voice search. To receive professional help, you can visit the New York SEO agencies.

Advantages associated

Voice search optimization is undoubtedly a great method for both the medium as well as small businesses for attracting potential customers. Given below is a list of the benefits that are associated with voice search.

• Voice search helps in increasing website traffic.
• It is responsible for raising brand awareness as well as visibility.
• It helps in directing more users to the stores.
• It helps you to connect better with your users.
• It helps in enhancing customer engagement.
• There is a greater scope of conversion as well as sales.

Getting the business ready for voice search optimization

Given below is a list of the things that you need to consider to get your retail business ready for voice search optimization.

• You need to improve your page speed. There is no denying the fact that people are constantly expecting quick results for the searches. This is why you need to take care of the load speed of your page to get a high rank.
• Your content has to be simple and easy to read.
• You need to optimize your website for mobile devices.

Conclusion

There are no two ways about it that voice search will be extremely important for channelizing the retail experience. Therefore, you need to concentrate on voice solutions. You need to know that voice is not only the future of retail, but it is also the present.