What Is Voice Search? Simply put, voice search is voice recognition technology which allows people to perform searches by speaking into a device (similar to the “voice to text” features in our phones, etc.). These devices range from our smartphones, computers and tablets to home assistant devices sometimes called “smart speakers.”
The top voice search platforms in America are the Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana, but there are several others and there are probably new ones being developed as this article is being written. Just about anything that can be connected to the internet are becoming “voice-enabled,” e.g, Cars, refrigerators, TVs…….
If your digital marketing strategy doesn’t include optimizing your insurance agency to rank in voice search results, you’re missing opportunities to connect with home, auto and business owners who use these voice engines when searching for local goods and services, on your local market area.
Obviously, you want as much quality, inbound, digital marketing traffic as possible flowing through your agency; this type of traffic has a high propensity to convert into new policy holders that will have low lapse-can rates.
With today’s trends for voice search, we are seeing a massive amount of voice queries and the smart devices, using voice search engines, are delivering content and information to consumers. Users can make phone calls, conduct online shopping, fill up their week’s calendar with appointments and even order food for delivery without ever typing a single word.
With the increase of voice search combined with Google’s “mobile first” algorithm update (“mobile first” ranks off of the mobile version of a site rather than the desktop version), insurance agents must adapt quickly to the ever-changing digital landscape.
Voice search improves the user experience of search engines. Voice assistants can deliver results faster and more conveniently than typing your query into a search box. A key takeaway is that this means if your microsite’s content is optimized effectively, your business could be “listed” as one of the solutions that a digital personal assistant suggests. Voice assistants have gotten extremely fast and accurate. They’re quickly becoming the “Go-To-Engine.”*
One of the main differences between text searches and voice searches is how the query is submitted. Not only is it vocal vs. text. The query conducted in voice search tends to be more conversational and “long tail” than the queries that we have seen in typed queries.
If you as a consumer were searching for car insurance, you may type something like “Auto Insurance Tampa FL” into your search engine. However, if you were searching that same thing on a voice engine/smart device you’d be more likely to say something like, “Hey, Google, find a top-rated auto insurance agent in Tampa.”
Since conversation is the basis of voice search, your content needs to have natural-sounding language and it needs to answer questions that your ideal customer may be asking.
This includes having the answers to specific questions. It’s imperative that you update your microsite pages, with compliant content, to ensure that it is seen as informative and authoritative.
By publishing this compliant, fully “optimized voice” content, your insurance agency greatly improves its chances to get served up in the most popular voice engines. Of course, the key voice engines are Google Assistant, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa and other voice enabled devices and apps.
You definitely want to be served up in those “three (sometimes only one insurance agent gets served up on Amazon’s Alexa) results for your top performing keywords, e.g., Auto Insurance, Homeowners Insurance, Life Insurance and Business Insurance in your local community.
At Agent Branding and Marketing System, our SEO team works with our clients to develop and deploy known ranking factors and conversion elements for every SEO campaign. We create compliant, fully optimized content to add to your microsite pages to build relevance for targeted keywords and search terms. Our compliant, fully optimized, on-page content gets approved by corporate marketing 100% of the time. Once it clears compliance (normally 24-36 hours later), that content gets published to your microsite.
Our team has a wealth of experience, and we bring a unique approach to optimization (on-page, off-page and voice search). Whether your prospective policy holders are searching on their smartphones, tablets, laptops or desk-tops, we make certain that your insurance agency can easily be contacted via phone call, microsite quote form and/or drop-in visits.
Our experience with the insurance vertical gives you a competitive advantage and allows you to “stand out from the crowd.” *Comscore says, “By the end of 2020, more than 50% of all search traffic, in the U.S., will be coming over voice enabled devices and apps.”
