Ever wonder what high-growth brands have in common?
Is it a bigger budget for ads? It can help. Is it an incredibly sexy product or service? Sure, but good marketing can fix that problem.
A lot of times it’s SEO — how far ahead of the game their SEO strategy really is.
SEO is always evolving, but there’s one massive shift happening right now.
Voice.
Voice search statistics are showing us exactly where the search landscape is headed…and businesses that understand that are killing it.
If you want your brand to be one of those businesses, you need to know what they’re doing differently.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why Voice Search Statistics Are Impacting SEO Trends
- SEO Trends: The Habits High-Growth Brands Have in Common
- How You Can Start Implementing These Habits Today
SEO Trends: Why Voice Search Statistics are Impacting SEO Trends
Voice search stats are hard to ignore.
Looking over some helpful search engine optimization stats, one of the biggest jumps you’ll see year-over-year is in voice search. Adoption is speeding up, and brands who get hyper-focused on growing are taking note.
There are 8.4 billion voice assistants in use worldwide. That’s more than there are people on the planet. To put that into perspective, that number was 4.2 billion in 2020. That figure jumped from 4.2 billion to 8.4 billion in just TWO years.
In the United States alone, there will be over 153.5 million voice assistant users by 2025. That number is expected to grow at a rate of 3% each year.
All of that search is happening without one key component…
A keyboard.
Think about how you speak versus how you type. They’re totally different queries.
High-growth brands realize that voice is not something to worry about down the road. They are optimizing their content and technical SEO for voice now. That willingness to adapt is one of the biggest reasons they’re leaving the competition in the dust.
SEO Trends: The Habits High-Growth Brands Have in Common
They write content that reads like a conversation
Voice search queries are different.
Typing into Google “running shoes flat feet”
vs.
Asking your Google Assistant “What are the best running shoes for flat feet?”
Is night and day. When you speak, you use complete sentences. You’re specific about what you want. AND that changes everything about the way content should be written.
Content coming from high-growth brands naturally answers questions that people would actually say out loud. Instead of keyword stuffed pages with tons of fluff, they craft content in a way that answers questions plainly and simply.
The result?
Their content ranks for spoken queries. Like ones you’d ask on your smartphone, smart speaker, or connected car dashboard.
This one simple shift in the way they approach content creation makes all the difference when it comes to ranking in search.
Most brands are still thinking about content from an SEO perspective. Typing, not talking.
They’re losing a huge chunk of organic traffic because of it.
They aggressively target featured snippets
Here’s a stat you should know…
50% of voice search queries result in answers read directly from Google’s featured snippet. That box that lives above any other organic result on the page.
Google pulls the text right out of that box and reads it aloud as if it’s the direct answer to your question.
And brands that grow understand that featured snippets are the place to be.
Here’s how they do it.
- They create content purpose-built to win the featured snippet for a specific question
- Use bullet lists, numbered lists, and clean headers
- Add in FAQs that align perfectly with the questions their audience is already searching for
Sticking everything they want to rank for into a Featured Snippet is their top SEO strategy.
Brands that show up day in and day out in featured snippets dominate voice search. It takes effort to format your content perfectly, but once you do, Google hands over the prime real estate on a silver platter.
Local SEO is mission critical
Did you know local SEO and voice are closely linked?
The majority of voice searches have local intent. When people use voice search, they’re typically looking for “something near me” or looking to buy locally. Searches like “best sushi near me” or “are there any pharmacies open on Sunday” are loaded with buying intent. This is prime SEO gold — and the brands that show up for these searches are dialed in on their local SEO game.
High growth brands don’t leave local SEO to luck. They keep their Google Business Profile updated. Include location driven keywords throughout their site. And building citations like crazy.
Over 76% of all voice searches have local intent. If you’re a brick and mortar business that means most voice searches are talking about your business.
Not paying attention to local SEO is losing out on a huge opportunity.
Page speed is not negotiable
Page speed matters more than most business owners realize.
Voice search results are 52% faster than the average website. Sure, Google wants to give you the best answer quickly, but it also rewards sites that load quickly. If a site takes too long to load Google moves on to the next result. Period.
Businesses that grow never let their page speed dip too low. They compress images, remove extra code, and stay on top of their Core Web Vitals. A lot of this stuff is boring “behind the curtain” stuff.
But who cares if you can’t see it? Website speed is a quick win for SEO that you should prioritize ASAP.
If your site doesn’t load quickly it doesn’t matter what else you do.
Your website being slow is the equivalent to having poor customer service. Nothing else will matter if you don’t fix it.
They make data-driven decisions
Successful brands don’t take shortcuts.
They analyze their competitors’ backlink profile. Figure out what content is ranking for featured snippets. Pay close attention to voice search statistics to know what’s trending before Google does. Once they see something shifting in their data, they react immediately.
This is what ties all of the above habits together. Brands that grow year after year aren’t afraid to put the work in.
SEO isn’t a one time thing you do to “get on Google.” It’s an investment. Every keyword they target, every piece of content they publish, and every technical change they make is carefully considered.
Once you embrace that, anything is possible.
Wrap Up
Voice search isn’t happening. It’s already happening. And brands that are growing like crazy have already adjusted how they think about SEO because of it.
Let’s recap:
- Write content that mimics natural conversation
- Target featured snippets with well-structured answers
- Put time and effort into local SEO (especially for queries with “near me”)
- Make page speed a priority you don’t compromise on
- Follow voice search statistics and adapt when necessary
You don’t need a big budget to do this. You don’t even need a big team. You just need to know what works and have the discipline to stick with it.
That’s how high growth brands approach their SEO strategy. Want to grow your brand like they do?
You can too.