How Does Voice Search Impact SEO for Colleges and Universities

 

This blog will help you understand upcoming trends in search engine optimization techniques and how will voice search drives the future of SEO. After reading the blog content, higher education marketers will get to know ways in which they can reboot their SEO strategy and use voice search marketing to drive conversions.

But before we move forward, it would be a good idea to reflect on some voice search statistics. General voice search statistics suggest that by 2020, 50% of all searches across the internet will be voice-based. One fourth of the queries on smart android devices are voice-based. More than 50% of teenagers are using voice to search online. Smartphone-based voice searches are generally location-specific.

In 2018, the market growth statistics for voice search devices was more than 100%. The number of voice-based smart speakers in use globally is increasing.

All these statistics indicate that the future of online search is going to be voice-based. And since the younger generation is its biggest beneficiary, higher education institutions will have to keep a close watch on this growing trend.

So, what is voice search

Simply put, voice search allows users to perform a search by verbally asking a question in a natural language on a smartphone, smart device or a computer rather than typing the keywords to be searched.

Voice search works on speech recognition technology. It is gaining popularity because of the ease it provides to search for what you need. Voice-based search is a two-step process – first, the command or speech is accepted and then identified. Thereafter it is analyzed and converted to the text which is basically the keyword to be searched. And finally, the search result is shown on your screen.

As covered above, since voice search is expected to reach 50% of the global search market, colleges and universities need to gear up now. Higher education marketers need to follow voice search trends to come up with a robust marketing strategy to optimize voice-based search results.

How Voice Search Trends Will Impact SEO and Online Marketing for Higher Education Institutions

For the sake of convenience that it provides, voice search is likely to be more desirable by users than the traditional search methods. Voice search frees the users from the burden of typing. It is more conversational and therefore more acceptable. You don’t have to think too much about tedious things such as typo errors, syntax, etc.

The increased use of voice search through smartphones has made it one of the important SEO trends to track in 2019. Therefore, it will be interesting to know what are the upcoming voice search trends and its applications in the future.

Let us see some of the areas where voice search technology would create a new trend and affect higher education in times to come.

Innovative Voice Controlled Devices – Growth of Speech Recognition Technology

The growing use of these voice-first interactive devices or voice command devices such as smart speakers etc. is changing the way people search for information online. This new trend is getting accepted faster by the younger generation.

As a result, higher education institutions will have to bring changes in their website content and overall content marketing strategy to accommodate voice search patterns. With the increasing usage of voice technology consumption colleges and universities will experience an upsurge in search technology.

Besides smart speakers, speech recognition technology is also being used in modern-day smartphones. Google voice search is equipped with language preferences and is available in several languages. The increase of mobile search through voice is crucial to note since students are its greatest users. Therefore higher education entities will have to bear this trend in mind while designing marketing campaigns.

• Cognitive Technologies

Innovations in cognitive technologies such as Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (MI) are bringing a lot of impact on our interactions with smart devices and the way we search the internet.

With the proliferation in the number of AI devices, it would be interesting to see the changes in algorithms of search engines especially Google in times to come. Accordingly, search engine optimization will have to be re-aligned with emerging trends.

Any new web trend is going to have deep impact on online search marketing. Google often keeps changing its search algorithms to cater to the emerging needs of the people.

• Website Content

Keeping the above developments into consideration, education marketers will have to evolve their SEO strategy to ensure that the voice search is perfectly optimized. Ensure that the web content is up to date. Remove duplicity and obsolete content. These are some of the trends that will be making it big in voice search over the coming days.

Future of Voice Search Marketing

• Voice searches are going to completely transform text-based search. It is easier and convenient to search for things using voice command. No wonder then why so many people are getting used to it.
• Voice Search has become the latest paradigm shift in an online search. Due to ever-increasing usage of voice search among people especially young minds, the future of the voice search technology seems bright and long-lasting.
• Voice search technology will have to be closely watched for new developments in the year 2019. Only by understanding its emerging importance in SEO marketing, colleges and universities can gain useful insights to improve their digital marketing strategy.

If you want to stay ahead of the competition and remain connected with your target audience, then the time is ripe for your academic brand to take cognizance of voice search as this is the new big thing in SEO today.