If you’ve ever picked up your phone and asked Siri a question, you’ve already performed a voice search whether you realized it or not.
Millions of people do it every day, to find out what the weather is going to be, the local sports scores, or just to learn how long it will take to get from “Point A” to “Point B.”
According to one recent study, about 58.6% of people say they’ve tried voice search at least once in their lives. Not only that, but about 21% of people use voice search regularly – a trend that shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
When people perform voice searches, there is a high chance they’re doing so in their car. Which means that if they’re looking for a business like a law firm, they’re conducting a search for a law firm “near me.” That dramatically increases the chances that they’ll actually visit your practice or pick up the phone and give you a call – provided that you rank highly for competitive keywords in terms of voice SEO, that is.
In no uncertain terms, the importance of optimizing your law firm’s online presence for voice search in the context of local search marketing cannot be overstated. Thankfully, getting to that point isn’t necessarily difficult – but you will need to keep a number of important things in mind along the way.
Understanding Voice Search
In a larger sense, voice search influences local search not necessarily because of the technology itself, but because of how people tend to use it.
According to another recent study, about 30% of Internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 use voice assistants on a weekly basis. A significant number of these people are going to be doing so on mobile devices. They’ll also likely be searching for businesses “near me.”
Making sure that your website is optimized for voice search helps to make sure you rank highly for these types of tasks, which drives more traffic to your website and improves your larger search engine optimization efforts as well.
Another study indicated that about 80% of voice searches are predicted to be conversational by the end of the year. This is a major divergence from traditional search methods. People aren’t searching as precisely as they would if they were using a desktop or laptop computer. They’re asking questions the same way they would if they were talking to a friend.
Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana are the major voice-enabled platforms on the market today, with more debuting all the time. Siri is baked into every iOS device on the planet, while Alexa is used on Amazon devices. Google Assistant is tied to a Google account, so capturing this traffic is a great way to help your larger SEO in general. Cortana is the voice assistant built into newer versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Why Voice Search Matters
As per recent research, about 45% of all Americans say that when they do explore the possibilities of voice search, they do so on their smartphones. But that won’t always be the case.
Remember that smart speaker sales are increasing all the time. About 71% of people who have wearable devices like the Apple Watch say they’ll likely perform more voice searches in the future. Not only will voice search continue to get more popular, but it will also continue to grow as an important part of the algorithm that search engines use in the first place.
People love voice search in large part because it’s convenient, which is why they’re planning on using it more. Make no mistake: this is a tremendous opportunity for local businesses to connect with nearby customers, especially since a lot of these devices have GPS chips inside that know where the user is by default.
Even though voice search may not be the dominant way that people search for local businesses right now, the tide is always changing. At the very least, it makes a lot of sense to establish a foothold in this area now so that your competitors have a more difficult time doing the same thing later on.
Voice SEO Strategies for Local Visibility
When it comes to actually establishing the proper local voice SEO tactics for lawyers, the first thing you’ll want to do is conduct as much local keyword research as possible.
Long-tail, conversational keywords are particularly important in this context – as are ones with local intent and that address specific local queries in the content itself.
Think about the words and phrases someone might use if they were conversationally asking a friend for a lawyer recommendation. They would ask about the specific type of lawyer they need and in the area they live. This is the way that you need to start thinking about local keyword research.
You’ll also want to carry that insight forward with you as you work on your larger local SEO tactics – particularly as it relates to claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile. This is still a big part of your ongoing success, as that Google Business Profile will still be one of the main ways that people find your law firm. The same is true of your Yelp profile, your Bing Places profile, and more.
While you’re at it, be sure to create an Apple ID for your law firm so that you can optimize your Apple Maps listing. This is yet another chance to create locally relevant content that you absolutely do not want to pass up on.
When someone does successfully perform a voice search and finds your business, they’re likely going to head straight to your website. Remember that they’re doing so on a mobile phone, which means that you need to embrace responsive design and other best practices to guarantee an optimal experience on mobile devices.
Take care to make sure that your website loads as quickly as possible, for example. You literally have about three seconds for your site to load and if it doesn’t, someone is likely to hit the “Back” button and never return. You don’t want to see that happen, so put work in now to make sure your site loads as fast as it can.
You should also make sure that all pages are filled with local information to again improve that geo-specific visibility. You don’t have to go crazy – even just making sure that your law firm’s contact information is on every page.
To that point, make sure that you’re maintaining consistent information as much as possible. Your NAP – name, address, phone – are especially important. Every platform and profile that they appear on should maintain the same uniformity. The last thing you want to do is confuse someone and send them directly into the arms of a competitor for a problem you could have easily solved yourself.
You should also be mindful to not neglect structured data markup for local businesses like law firms. This is the part of SEO that people tend to not think too much about because it’s on the “back end” of things. Implementing schema markup for your law firm will enhance your local search results thanks to the structured data and how well it works with the “spiders” that Google and other engines use to crawl the web.
Surefire Local: The Partner Your Law Firm Has Been Looking For
In the end, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that voice search is here to stay. There are millions of people who use voice assistants like Siri on a daily basis and that number is only going to grow as these solutions become more effective. That means more voice searchers, which translates to an increasing need to prepare for this impending wave.
Local SEO tactics like claiming your Google Business Profile, making strategic mobile optimizations, and structured data markup for local businesses will help enormously to that end. They’ll collectively make sure that, regardless of how someone takes to the Internet in search of a product or service, the first business they find is yours. But the only way to get to that point is if you invest in voice search best practices and enhance your local presence today.
At Surefire Local, that’s part of what we want to help with. We assist small businesses like yours as you work to establish your online presence by creating local signals across platforms and profiles. We do this in the form of not only compelling, relevant content, but also photos, reviews, ads, and more. All this makes it easier for new customers to connect with you, which in and of itself is the most important goal of all.
We’re proud of the reputation we’ve been able to earn as the #1 marketing platform for local businesses, and all it will take is one look at our robust feature set to see why. We make optimizing your online presence for voice search as simple as possible by managing all aspects of voice SEO strategies within one place, all so that you can focus less on these matters and more on running the most successful business that you can.
If you’re interested in finding out more about local voice SEO tactics for lawyers, or if you have any additional questions you’d like to go over with someone in a bit more detail, please contact us today. You can also click here to attend a Surefire Local demo so that you can see what our technology can do up close and personal.