Thanks to Apple’s wonderful marketing we have all used Siri, or some type of digital assistant. Most of us have at least done fun or silly searches. My own kids crack up when they ask Siri what her favorite color is, but seriously, this is going to change the future of business marketing as we know it…

Public vs. Private Usage
While many of us are embarrassed to use Siri or a voice assistant in public, it is guesstimated as many as 20% of people use them regularly in private (in the car, at home, while your hands are dirty/greasy). While Apple is sitting tight on how much Siri is actually used, they recently just hired an employee or multiple employees with the job description of giving Siri much more personality.
If you’d like the specifics on the ubiquity of siri, check out thenextweb.com (for more on Siri, Google Now, and Cortana Microsoft use in public)
Multitasking is at an all time high, and all of us at work, home, or on vacation pressed to do much more faster, and connect quickly; it comes as no surprise that we are using digital assistants much more than ever before.

The digital world is gearing up for this explosion of new ways of searching more quickly. It will narrow the funnel and get our customer to reaching our more specific niche easier.

Getting found with voice search 
What does this mean for any business? How will this affect how we market our businesses? How do we get our sites, brands, or products updated so we are at the top of our SEO (search engine optimization), and ready for this shift in the digital world?
Let’s understand a little of what is going on here, I’ll try not to get too technical….I leave that up to my husband at Francis Ventures 😉
Siri is basically getting a brain update and will be more in tuned to what her customers actually want. Google+, Google+ Local, and Google Now are using more predictive searches, they are gathering information from our location, searches, Gmail, google calendar, google +, google finance, and interactive posts. Your digital assistant will be taking all these bits of information and more easily giving you the answers to your questions or finding the specific information you want faster.
There is so much information, so as a business how do we sort this all out?
Here are a few tips to get us started being found, so we can meet a need, fulfil our niche, and gain customers or growth.

Three tips for voice search to use your website

1.  Customer focus on how they are searching for you
First, we need to get found when people are looking for us or a service we provide. We will start focusing more on customer orientation and less on page orientation. How are our customers searching for us? What questions will they be asking to find us? We will be going through voice searches looking for common pronunciation errors and making sure our business will be found. This is especially important for a business that doesn’t have English names, as mispronunciation may happen more often.

2. Customers are using natural voice patterns
The next main thing to remember is that our customers are using natural voice language and not typing their request in a search like Google. We need to set ourselves up to be found when they ask, “Where should I get my nails done?” vs. typing in a search “Nail Salon.” With voice search we will be using longer tail queries, and question based searches. Another example of this is when you search for a home for sale, Siri or your digital assistant could open Twitter and show you homes for sale through that app. There are many possibilities depending on the specifics or your brand, company, or product and who you are trying to reach.

3. Location, Location, Location
Voice searches like Siri, Cortana, Google Now all use location and time as a key element when searching quickly for what is most relevant. Make your location clear to the search engine is a necessary step. Making your businesses purpose and authority clear to the search engine is crucial.
Which brings us to the next thing of taking a step back and understanding how customers or consumers interact across all their devices. Once we have an understanding of how they search for things and how they are finding our products, or services then we are well on the the last step of making a strong connection with them and being found in all this information!
Maybe you need to make some pins on Pinterest, maybe it is time make your own company app to inform the voice search engine. Maybe it as simple as getting yourself found by adjusting your links, spellings, backend structuring, navigational structure and adjusting how your brand shows up in voice searches. Keyword optimization is going to be even more important, as well as negative keywords that are relevant to your service, brand or company.

Let’s use this information and shift in the digital world to do what we love better and easily connect with more people!

G.J. Francis