As digital marketers, we are forced to keep up to date with emerging trends and the latest and greatest marketing changes. It’s a fast-paced industry and it can be difficult to stand out. However, one of the key trends that has been identified as showing no sign of slowing down is voice search – and it’s an easy-to-learn skill that you can add to your CV.

Why voice search?

With the rise of Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google voice-activated commands, the use of voice search is expanding at an incredible rate. More than 50% of all searches now come through voice, but more crucially 25% of those searches are for local services. This is the perfect opportunity for marketers to utilise voice search to help local clients win more business.

Key voice search SEO tactics

The thing with voice search SEO is that it is actually very similar to many of the SEO practices we already work on as digital marketers. This is excellent news as it means you only really need to brush up on why it is important for voice search, rather than learn a new skill itself.

Here are two examples of using voice search you need to add to your CV:

Google My Business – It has been best practice for some time to complete Google My Business listings on behalf of clients or your employer. However, more than ever before this is an important opportunity to appear in voice search results. For clients, it is also essential to ensure reviews are completed, and any negative reviews queried. Businesses need a 4-star rating or higher to have any chance of ranking in voice search so having experience optimising these listings will win you a few admirers.

Snippets – When Alexa reads out answers to the questions she is asked, these answers are those which display as snippets in Google search. But how do you get your answer to be the snippet answer? Good SEO, great content. Nothing new to marketers. However, the trick is to create succinct and focused answers that serve users better than any other answer. Aim to excel in this area and you have an opportunity to showcase both your excellent copywriting skills and digital marketing know-how to boost your job prospects.

As you can see, brushing up on voice search tactics is reasonably straightforward, and can be an impressive skill to add to your CV or to bring up at an interview, showing you are keen to stay at the forefront of digital marketing.