How Can Institutes and Universities Use Voice Search in 2019
How can colleges and universities use voice search to create their brand image and increase their popularity. This is the most pertinent question in today’s time.
The growing use of voice search and virtual digital assistants is going to redefine the way colleges and universities will be discovered by prospective students. It will impact on how online searches are being currently done. All this will ultimately affect marketing of higher education products.
Millennials are constantly hooked on to their smartphones for making searches by simply speaking out. This is just a beginning of a rapidly growing phenomenon in the way we use technology. Cognitive technologies is driving many new vistas. Voice recognition is rolling out in a massive way across the spectrum. We are already seeing several changes in the way higher education is being delivered using technology.
Universities and colleges can use voice search technology to support student counselling at pre-admission level. Its early applications can focus on informational need of prospective students. Later, its usage can migrate to other areas of admission marketing.
Several advancements in AI technology are being done by tech companies to create a virtual student assistant that can perform advance voice searches which is analytical in nature. How far this technology will evolve only time will tell. But certainly with advent of smart assistants, educational entities are concerned as to how this technology will impact the way colleges interact and engage prospective students.
Voice search technologies are affecting the way in which prospective students seek information about educational offerings. Alexa, Google and Siri are becoming household names. The question here then is, “are we really leveraging such kinds of technological breakthroughs having deep impact on college-student relationship.
Colleges also need to understand that the strategy to optimize traditional search engine will not work in voice engine optimization. Getting top indexing in voice-based searches is going to be difficult. Therefore academic brands must anticipate probable fallouts of such marketing technology and adapt to change.
While moving ahead Colleges and Universities need to know about Voice Engine Optimization.
Marketing research firms predict that by 2020 close to half of the searches will be done through voice recognition technology. So, in order to get ahead, academic brands will have to create an optimization strategy for voice search.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning is at the core of speech recognition technology which is bringing big changes in the way online search is done. Tech giants like Google are constantly working to upgrade their product’s accuracy rate in understanding the search language and nuances of human conversation. These kind of significant steps will propel the acceptance rate of voice based technology.
Voice search optimization simple means optimizing your content, location, and brand information to increase your likelihood of ranking in top voice search results. You might take voice search lightly at the moment. But seeing its growing penetration, actually you shouldn’t.
It is tough to get high rank in a voice search since there is only up to three results. However, you can augment your VEO strategy by optimizing business listing, improve upon your website’s loading speed etc.
Apart from these, the most important step to voice search optimization is content. Your new content strategy should focus on conversational style since people engage in a human-like interaction while making voice searches. They don’t simply say keywords. They ask questions. You need to figure out multi-word phrases that your target audience is most likely to use while voice searching.
Colleges and Universities Can Use Voice Search to Help Students’ Admission Process
Millennials are born in an era of technological revolution and hence they are comparatively lot more familiar with the application of technology. This is a good reason, why it becomes more crucial for Universities and Colleges to give them those touchpoints of interaction which leverage the use of technology. Their marketing plan should focus on new technological advancements to create better engagement.
Today lot of mobile searches by the younger generation are voice-based. If students are using voice search to know about courses and careers options, how can an institute afford to ignore this new medium of online search?
To begin with, after sorting the website content to make it voice search responsive, the next crucial step is to integrate voice into those marketing campaigns and digital assets where some engagement touchpoints can be created.
Voice search can be a great tool to engage prospective students for specific purposes such as for admission counseling sessions.
Admission FAQ can be re-designed to support voice search algorithm. It can be re-written in a natural, conversational voice style as it will optimise for keyword phrases that students will search for.
Voice search provides lot of convenience. One can get rid of making typo errors. Speaking keywords phrases is always easy than typing them.
Moving Ahead in 2019
Moving ahead, voice search is going to re-define online search mechanism especially by student community. Since students are early adopters of technology therefore they will create the need and demand for Universities and Colleges to adapt rapidly to this emerging phenomenon. Marketing campaigns of educational institutions must address this emerging need.
With subsequent explosion of smartphone technology, voice search is the next wave. Academic marketers and marketing strategists should be ready to derive value out of this new wave of the future. Voice and voice-enabled devices are experiencing rapid growth. Voice enabled device interaction is becoming a part of consumer marketing process today across brands.
Voice interaction is directly linked to local searches and an increase in customer calls. There is huge potential in optimizing your marketing initiatives to drive engagement. So, how can institutes drive more admission queries from voice search should be the prime strategy to begin.
Voice technology has many inherent possibilities at the moment. Millennials are conveniently using smart gadgets such home voice assistant devices, including Amazon’s Echo and Google Home to drive online searches. The quick adoption of voice technology is compelling academic businesses to develop clear cut strategy for tackling its implications. Institutions need to incorporate it into their digital marketing plans, because voice is changing the way people search for and find information on educational products to engage with.
It’s becoming necessary for academic brands to adopt voice strategies. They need to change the way SEO is done to enhance user engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
Although, voice technology may still be in its early stages, but that shouldn’t make colleges become complacence. Your institute must create functions that allow voice assistants to react to user commands and queries. One need to be very creative with their voice strategies to leverage its full potential.
Universities must respond proactively to this new trend for driving admissions, generating leads etc. Make sure that your College is creating enough touch points to engage prospective students through this new technology. It is time to move on from search engine optimization to voice search optimization. Make your content is responsive to the dynamics of a voice search. Develop content that provides information in a conversational style.
The steps your University or College takes in embracing voice search technology can be small. But its potential impact for your institution could bring a paradigm shift in the way it reaches out to the target audience.
In the digital marketing world, keeping pace with fast-growing phenomenon means that marketers must develop new ways to tailor their marketing strategies according to the need of the target audience. This approach is also important if you wish to stay ahead of your competitors. So academic institutions should respond proactively to such technological advancements so that they do not miss out on new opportunities to increase their admission funnel.
These were some of the ways in which your College or University could use voice search in 2019 to optimize its brand outreach. Hope you make full use of this blog content. In case you wish to share something about how can Institutes and Universities Use Voice Search in 2019 or your own experience in using this trending technology, do write to us in the comments section.
Till then, Happy Voice Searching !!!
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