The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular, which means you’ll have to do some testing to see how appealing your content is to voice searchers. Voice-prompted searches tend to be longer since people speak faster than they type and ask more questions. San Diego AdWords experts discuss a few ways you can use PPC testing to determine how to make your content more appealing to voice searchers.
Look for Natural Language Queries
To get an idea of the natural language that is being used in relation to your business, do some keyword research and look for:
- Long-tail keyword strings that seem like regular sentences
- Questions being asked in relation to what you offer
- Queries using location-based words (a lot of voice searches use terms like “near me”)
Download Your Search Terms into Your Google or Bing PPC Account
You’ll get a search query report when you download your search terms into your PPC account. You can also get a search term report from Bing’s Webmaster Tools and Google’s Search Console.
Sort Your Data in Excel
Prepare a simple Excel spreadsheet to make visual comparisons of your data. At minimum, use columns to show the campaign name, specific ad group, search term used, and number of impressions. Sort the spreadsheet to display questions with five or more keywords so you can identify natural language queries, then sort by length of query and impressions. You’ll then have a list of queries you can assume are voice-based.
Organize Your List According to Intent
Use your data to discover what your customers are searching for and what they’re not looking for. Rely on your preferred keyword tool to get very specific data on paid and organic search terms. Search for questions being asked in relation to your desired keywords. Your Bing Ads Intelligence and Google Analytics reports can break this data down further by demographics and location.
Identify intent based on what questions are being asked. Some searchers will ask questions to seek general info and others will ask more specific questions when they’re ready to buy. Understanding your intended audience’s queries can help you adjust your PPC test content to target the correct searchers.
Optimize Your Campaigns
Now that you’ve obtained the relevant data, use your PPC campaigns to start testing. This is where you’ll find out what’s showing up on search engine results pages (SERPs) and digital personal assistants (DPAs). Run searches across multiple platforms to see what answers are considered the most helpful according to those forums. Make your PPC campaigns more helpful by:
- Making sure your NAP data is accurate
- Using proper schema markup on your site that includes relevant content, contact info, and reviews
- Limiting your PPC campaigns to a select number of queries from your list
- Adjusting your bid modifiers according to device and demographics (age, gender, etc.)
- Changing your bids based on intent
- Including negative keywords that aren’t relevant to what you have to offer (e.g. “who invented pizza?” would be a negative keyword phrase if you’re looking for people who want to eat pizza, not find out who invented it)
Offer Better Answers
It makes sense to create ads for “back-to-school shoes for sale under a hundred bucks” if your target audience is asking questions like “Where can I find good shoes for back to school for under a hundred dollars?” Fine-tune your content, whether it’s paid or organic, so you will be providing answers to questions people are actually asking about your products or services.
Review Your Performance
After you’ve gathered data for several weeks, decide where you need to focus your efforts for voice search optimization. Determine your preferred key performance indicators (e.g. video views and leads generated). Further review your performance by:
- Looking at key performance reports to get info on things like impressions, clicks, and conversions
- Getting the same info for each ad with your ad performance reports
- Filtering by demographics and device
- Creating a report to see how your product listing ads are performing
You’ll get a lot of valuable info from small PPC tests for voice search purposes, and it’s not something that’s going to stretch your budget. The information you get from this type of testing can be used for any type of content you present online, not just what you do for your paid search campaigns. You may end up seeing considerable improvements with your organic search results as well when you pay more attention to what matters most to voice searchers.
Creating a PPC campaign can be a challenging task. At Saba SEO, we understand the importance of paid marketing and offer customized PPC management solutions for a wide variety of businesses. Our team can create compelling online ads that increase your web traffic and result in more conversions. If you’re looking for a targeted and budget-friendly PPC campaign for your business, call one of the leading marketing companies in San Diego at 858-951-1717 today.
