Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today, we're talking about voice search revolution, optimising for the era of voice. That's a lot of words. So what is voice search?
Melanie
Well, It was actually one of the things that was mentioned as something happening this year by one of our panel of people in our review of the forthcoming year, wasn't it? I'm not sure if you remember who it was.
Esther
It was, yeah. Sarah Jane Vincent.
Melanie
Right.
Esther
I remember.
Melanie
And she was saying that this was going to be something that we need to watch out for this year. And I have actually noticed an uptick. Sometimes in your latest updates on your phone, you'll find that they're allowing more voice search capabilities using different tools and apps on your phone, for instance.
Esther
Yeah. So there's lots of places that you can use voice search. I'm sure one of the places that most people have is, I'm going to have to say her name, even though she's going to turn on and I have one right beside me, Alexa. Yeah, she's blue. Okay, so she didn't catch that. She's talking to me. Anyway, she is one of the... She, I call her she, it. That is one of the voice activated searches that you can use. There's other ones. If you are an Apple user, then you have Siri. If you are an Android user or Google phone user, you have Google Assistant. If you even go on to search on Chrome, their Google Assistant is there. But one of the things that still bugs me is that they don't always get the question right.
Melanie
Yeah. The speech recognition software does still need to work a little bit harder for some people who are talking.
Esther
Yeah, probably more, I think she would understand you more than me just with her accents. And I pity my nephews in Scotland who really don't get any correct answers from the voice searches. But it is something that Because it's so time saving, I mean, my kids come in and say, what's the time? And instead of taking out their watch or opening their phone, they'll ask, who shall It will not be named because I have one right beside me. And every time I say the name, it will activate. She gets asked every time, what's the time?
Melanie
Do you remember years ago when people had landline phones, you'd call a number and the time now is... And we've moved a long way from that now. I'm just trying to think, when was the last time I used voice search? And it was Probably on the way in today, and I was looking for the open hours of my hairdresser.
Esther
Somewhere that you go quite regularly.
Melanie
Yeah, but I'm not normally calling them at the beginning of the day. I wanted to know what their open hours were. I frequently use my phone when I'm driving through voice search. If I'm running late something, I'll ask Siri to call my husband or send a text. I've done that numerous times as well to the kids through voice search because I'm driving.
Esther
Yeah. And it is very, very handy. And I know my kids use it a lot for their homework, and they use it... They will ask me a random question about something, and I will turn around and ask it a random question about something. But It's those random questions that it's getting incorrect more than anything else. I use it a lot when I'm cooking, and some of the recipes are American with using cups of stuff and cups of spinach. And I'm going, Which is handfuls, not cups. Tell me how many handfuls or how many grammes or how many other measurement. If it's liquid, tell me in millilitres, not in cups. I mean, I need to know these things. And I would say three four times a week, I'm asking it for recipe ideas as well. So it's a lot of things that it's useful for. And a lot of people, a lot of people have these devices. And it's becoming more and more and more popular to have in homes and to have on your person as well, whether it's through a watch, a smartwatch, a smartphone. You might not want it listening to you, though. That's another point.
Melanie
I've got to ask, If we're using all of these for so many ways to search things online, then is this something we should start considering having on our websites as well, Esther?
Esther
Well, it's something that within your own SEO, which is your search engine optimisation, it is something that you need to have thought about because people will ask for, for example, social media trainers in my area, and they might type it in or they might say it, but you want to be popping up. So it's all part of your SEO. And the way that it is written will impact whether you're found through voice search or not. What I mean by that is if you're in America or you're wanting to reach the American audience, having your website written in American English will help with that. Because obviously there's Zs and stuff that they use that we don't use. But it is one of these things that as long as your written SEO is up to scratch, then the voice search will be along with it. So the top three results that come out on SEO make up more than 80% of voice search results. So you want to be coming up in the top, not just on the first page of Google, you want to be on the top three, which is a little bit tough. But if you have something, like if your name is unique, then that will be helpful. If your business name is out there, unique, crazy, brings me, reminds me of an advert that they show here in the United Kingdom, because apparently, nobody knows how to pronounce a certain car brand, which we all lovingly call Hyundai. But when people go to voice search it, it brings up things like high-end pie or Highland guy, and stuff like that, because the proper pronunciation is Hyundai. So because nobody in the UK... They actually brought out a TV ad to show was how to pronounce this, because when people were voice searching it, it wasn't popping up because we were saying it wrong. So if your name is strange, you may need to explain to people how to pronounce it before they go voice searching, because otherwise it won't come up in any search.
Melanie
There are certain places where people will typically voice search as well, isn't there? I think it's more common to voice search for stuff Spotify, for instance. I would more think of asking to look for stuff that is music or podcast related, than I would just looking up a business. I'd probably more mentally think of writing that down.
Esther
It's a game, how does your audience search for stuff?
Melanie
Exactly.
Esther
So you and I, I wouldn't search like that for music. I would actually go to Google and hum a little bit of the song in, go, What is this called? Because I'm really bad with remembering names of songs.
Melanie
You can do that.
Esther
Yeah. You can go to on your phone.
Melanie
You can recognise humming.
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
So it can't recognise your accent, but it can recognise your humming?
Esther
I sing better than I talk. What can I say?
Melanie
That's just so Esther.
Esther
It is, but I remember it from... It has been out for a few years now because it was during the pandemic that the Dance Monkey song. It came out and people were looking for it and Google brought out the option of humming or singing into the microphone to figure out the name of the song. Obviously, there's been Shazam for a long time that you can hold up to something, but it doesn't recognise your humming as well as listening to the music on the radio or whatever. But yeah, all of these advances have been, just in the same way as AI in general, have been coming on leaps and bounds in recent years because people are just... Do we want to say lazier? You're still a pen and paper writing down the name of the company, but the younger generation coming behind us are probably remembering the logo, the slogan, the what's the name of that company that says blah, blah, blah. All of these things are what you need to be thinking of when it comes to your SEO as well.
Melanie
So when it comes to you doing the voice search, how many times have you tried to do a voice search, maybe from somebody else's phone, looking up your business because there will be cookies involved. And to see how quickly you can find your business in a voice search. And maybe if you're in a geographical different area, I mean, I'm going to be visiting Esther over the next few weeks. We've got some meet-ups and some catch-ups to do, and that might be a good time for me to see how I'm found locally, if you like, online, because I'll be out of my geographical area and maybe try and do some voice searches that way.
Esther
Yeah, and I'm going to throw out a challenge for our listeners now to ask your a smart speaker to listen to the Monday Morning Marketing podcast and see if we pop up in your kitchen or living room or wherever you have a smart speaker.
Melanie
And if you do, make sure to let us know. Give us a tag.
Esther
Exactly. Exactly. But there are some people who are still scared of voice search, same with all AI advances that they don't want their phone to be listening to them. They don't want their devices to be always on always listening. I mean, even in our house, we speak in spanish all the time so that she doesn't understand everything that we're saying. But then again, advances are being made in all of the voice search technology to recognise any and all languages that are spoken around the world. So I think I read a statistic that about 50% of the world's population has voice search capability in some device.
Melanie
That is mental.
Esther
Isn't it? When you think there are over eight billion people in the world, that's over four billion people with a B, with a B. It It's just mad to think. But this is your chance now, guys, to go and check your SEO, check that you're being found online in that way, as well as through voice search. And it is the future. The future is now.
Melanie
And listen to Sarah Jane Vincent. She knows what she's talking about.
Esther
Yes. That's it for today, guys. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Until then, do go and test our smart speakers and see if you can listen to us from there. We'll chat with it then. Bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye.
How many people do you reckon are talking to their smart speaker right now?
Esther
I've already tried it.
Melanie
Did it work?
Esther
Of course it did.
Melanie
Yeah, but cookies.
Esther
True.
