Can Google Hear You Now?
Just when you thought you had mobile search down, there is a new voice in the marketing game. It’s called voice search.
According to comScore, voice search will account for half of all searches by the year 2020. More than 20% of all Google searches are now conducted via voice query. Google’s research shows that 45% of teens want the ability to order pizza via voice search (which is not possible as of yet).
It might surprise you to learn that you use different words when you do a voice search than you do when you write out a keyword or a long-tail keyword string. So you must optimize for voice and written searches.
According to Social Media Today, here are 3 ways to optimize for voice search:
- Prominence—This is how well-known your business or organization is in terms of reviews and star ratings
- Distance—More than 40% of voice searches are looking for directions, so make sure citation info is synched across all directories
- Relevance—You have to match what people are saying in their long-tail search queries. You must make sure your website writing is truly relevant to searches
Your language must be more conversational in tone (“find me a pizza restaurant nearby”). The language will need to look and sound natural on your website. So, how does that sound?
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.