3. Voice search will explode thanks to IoT
The internet of things (IoT) has held much promise for quite some time, but 2022 could be the year we see exactly what can be done. Two areas, in particular, voice search and smart speakers, could be responsible for this growth.
It’s estimated that there will be 8 billion digital voice assistants in use by 2023 and it is expected there will be 163 million smart speakers by 2021.
The growth in both of these areas will impact how everyone from developers to users interacts with search engines, which means that developers and marketers will need to adapt how they do things.
Paul Thornton of Digital Hothouse explains.
“Schema Markup and Structured Data are going to be ever more important in web development to ensure that the search engines can fully understand your business, your products, and services and can provide them in search results. The Schema markup options are close to endless; the most common types of content are videos, faqs, products, recipes, blog posts – anything resulting in rich results or featured snippets. They are just a few examples of hundreds of potential types of Schema Markup that can help the search engines and smart devices.”
Schema Markup is microdata placed on your website which provides an improved description or rich snippet for search results.
Structured Data is the standard format for placing information on a page and it’s how data gets read by search engines. With more searches being conducted using voice, expect more emphasis to be placed on these areas.
What to do next:
Here are a few tips to optimize your site for voice search queries:
- Optimize your content for position zero with a short introduction of 40-50 words, and use tables or bullet points where possible.
- Don’t be afraid to strike a conversational tone in blog content and your product descriptions.
- Structure your keyword research around questions and answers, rather than on single keywords or key phrases.
- Mix up terminology to provide a more varied set of keywords and phrases, covering all the relevant (genuinely relevant!) ways of asking a question. Keep it natural.