Speaker 1: 0:05

Should I still be optimizing for voice search? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. Today we're talking about voice search. Is voice search still a game changer or is it just another buzzword for marketing people like me? We're going to really dive into this and figure out whether voice search optimization, or what it is sort of becoming AI optimization, is actually worth your time and resources as we're going into 2025.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Just a couple of years ago, voice search seemed like the next big thing for internet marketing, with early predictions suggesting it would become the most significant way that people search for information, including legal services. And sure, it's true. Voice search usage has grown significantly, but it's probably just not in the way that people initially imagined. Today still, it's over 40% I think in some cases it's 50% of internet users, especially in the US, say they use voice search at least once a day. So it is a large number and that's substantial for us, especially when we consider how quickly it became part of our daily routines, and for us as law firms and lawyers, the potential for actually capturing this voice-based search traffic could make a big difference to your bottom line, especially when we're talking about local searches or questions that people just ask on the go. So what does this actually mean for our practices? What does this mean for the business we're trying to do? Think about this example, when someone asks what should I do if I've just been in a car accident, or what is the best law firm near me? And they're asking this through a smart speaker, a mobile assistant, maybe in their car, after the accident. In these scenarios, there's a real chance that this person is actively looking for legal help.

Speaker 1: 1:50

But while the opportunity is there, we've also seen some big shifts in how people are using voice search. Instead of it becoming the most dominant, most significant way people interact with search across the board, voice search is more used for kind of specific situational queries. A lot of these are location-based or very straightforward informational requests. And as voice-capable devices have grown from smart speakers in our living rooms to mobile assistants thinking Siri, alexa, chatgpt's new stuff, and even our Apple CarPlay stuff, our Android car thing Voice search has become so much more convenient in all the places that we are and it just fits into our routines. So even if you haven't been consciously making a decision to use voice search more, you probably are using it more. And all of this raises a question that's really relevant for us in the legal world. Does voice search fit into our marketing strategy? We're going to dig a lot deeper into this topic today and we're going to explore whether it makes sense to optimize for voice search, what the real ROI might be on these optimizations and how can this actually benefit or, in some cases, distract from other marketing priorities.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Voice search has opened up a lot of exciting possibilities for us in the legal world, but it's not without its quirks. So for law firms, the primary impact of voice search can be seen usually on local-based searches and quick, question-based searches. So let's picture a potential client that's asking who is the best personal injury lawyer near me, or how do I file for divorce in my state? Voice assistants are designed to answer these kinds of direct questions and when you do your optimization correctly, your firm can actually show up at the top of those responses, meaning that's what the user receives as an answer from this trusted device in their house. This can be a really valuable entry point into, essentially, people's lives. That helps us capture more local traffic and it helps us ultimately reach more clients that are searching for immediate legal guidance. But the thing is, while voice search can help us connect with clients.

Speaker 1: 3:55

There are some really common pitfalls that firms get into. One of the biggest mistakes is focusing too much on sounding conversational without entirely considering the user intent. A lot of law firms jump to just adding casual language or Q&As or whatever kind of easy content it is to their website without really planning around what people are looking for. And just because voice search kind of sounds informal, that doesn't mean people aren't asking serious questions or expecting professional, relevant answers. Another big one is ignoring the connection between local SEO and voice search. Studies show that over 50% of voice searches have local intent, which means our firm could miss out on leads if we're not targeting the near me searches or specific service areas. Let's put this simply voice search is most effective when it's integrated thoughtfully into a larger SEO strategy, one that is considering both the format and the substance of what clients might need.

Speaker 1: 4:53

When we do this right, optimizing for voice can help our firm's visibility. But the thing is, if we don't do it right, a scattered approach is going to help us miss opportunities, dilute our marketing in general and ultimately it'll help us do some bad things to our bottom line. And I just wanted to make that point because voice search can be a really powerful tool for law firms, but you generating a return on this depends pretty much entirely on how well this optimization is integrated into your firm's broader SEO and client acquisition strategies or marketing strategies as a technical term. One really big area where voice search can give us a big competitive edge is in this local SEO area, since a really large portion of voice searches focus on local needs. We're thinking family lawyer near me, 24-7 legal help I've just been in a car accident. Optimizing specifically for these location-based queries can help your firm capture some really high intent leads, and this is particularly true for mobile users who are on the go.

Speaker 1: 5:54

But the thing that can be tricky for a lot of marketers is that when it comes to conversions, voice search doesn't really give us the best picture all the time. It's kind of mixed Voice search users are usually looking for a quick, straightforward answer, which can mean much shorter engagement on a site or much shorter engagement with your content. But this doesn't necessarily mean it's going to lead to a lower conversion rate. I know it's uncomfortable, but those things aren't necessarily connected if we have the right positioning. The thing is many voice search queries most are from users who are ready to take action on something like setting up a consultation, finding a law office, getting directions, and firms that rank well for these types of queries are going to actually still see conversions even if they have low engagement time. Because voice searchers have that high intent, they're ready to go.

Speaker 1: 6:44

The reality is, overall, the potential ROI from voice search optimization can be really meaningful, particularly for firms, if you're focused on local stuff, if you're focused on mobile-friendly, if you're not doing a lot of paid ads. But success requires a really strategic approach to capture the right leads while actually addressing the unique behaviors and feelings of the voice search users. Voice search can seem like a really attractive trend to jump on, but it's not always a good fit. That's just the reality and it gets more attractive as AI develops. But we need to start by looking at when it actually makes sense to prioritize voice search optimization over other types of work on marketing.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Practices that are focused on personal injury, criminal defense, family law and consumer-facing services usually are going to benefit more from optimizing for voice search. This is because clients that are seeking these types of services tend to use local, action-oriented searches, like you know. Pi lawyer near me. Can I get out of a speeding ticket. I've just been in a car accident, those kinds of things. In a car accident, those kinds of things People can go straight to voice search when they need an immediate answer or maybe they can't use their hands, making voice search optimization a perfect tool for firms that thrive on these high intent, location-based searches. So if you're really trying to target those people, then voice search is the main thing and for these firms, voice search can help support visibility, increase inquiries and just generally be a relatively inexpensive way to acquire new clients.

Speaker 1: 8:16

But not all legal practices need to prioritize voice search optimization. So if we're focused on complex business law, ip, corporate services or just our market isn't going to be using voice search to ask questions about this we might find that the voice search is a not great investment. This is because the clients that are searching for these services if we're talking about business law, ip they're going to conduct a little bit more research. They're going to use computers, maybe they'll use their phones depends how old they are but they're going to have some slightly more detailed queries and they probably want to see a few more results than just whatever Siri gives them these clients because the questions are longer. They're just less likely to use voice search for these nuanced technical searches and they're probably going to rely on traditional search and direct referrals. In these situations, our resources are usually better spent on optimizing for text-based queries, optimizing for AI or just working on other elements of website and content and things like that where we can actually answer complex legal questions in a thorough way.

Speaker 1: 9:20

So where is the middle ground here? At this point you might be thinking it's not for me. It is for me and the reality is for most firms. It's a matter of finding a balance, figuring out what makes sense for you. So instead of investing really heavily in conversational keyword optimization or entirely restructuring our content, let's just start small. Let's make some little adjustments for voice search and we can do things where we focus on local SEO type terms for voice specific keywords. So we say near me phrases questions that potential clients might ask on the go If you're, you know, doing accident stuff, dui, those kinds of things work really well for this. But near me is a key one, if you can't think of the immediate question, integrating these keywords into FAQs on your site, blog posts, whatever it is. It's all a really practical way to cater to voice searchers without doing a big overhaul and while actually adding valuable information for your client. Even if it doesn't work, you've done something that's positive for your rankings. On top of this, it's helpful to really stay on top of the analytics. I won't get too far into this, but we need to be checking if these voice search queries are driving traffic. So if we notice that certain types of searches lead to conversions, then let's put the focus there.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Ultimately, the goal is to use voice search optimization as a supplement to all of our other strategies, rather than a replacement for a well-rounded SEO strategy. By focusing on the types of voice searches that are most relevant to us, we can make the most of voice search without compromising all of our other priorities relevant to us. We can make the most of voice search without compromising all of our other priorities, and this doesn't again have to mean a complete overhaul, but these little adjustments. They can help us reach more users more effectively, and so let's go into four tips that are going to help us enhance our voice search optimization efforts. Number one is to focus on local SEO, because voice searches they're often location-based, with phrases like near me being common around me. That kind of thing. Prioritizing local SEO can help our firms rank higher for these local intent searches and it helps us on GMB. So start by ensuring that your Google business profile, your GMB, is accurate, up-to-date, fully filled out We've talked about this a whole bunch before and make sure we're using the local keywords in the right places across the website.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Make sure we're doing content on things like lawyer near me If we're a family law, family lawyer near me and using our city name, and we want to be doing all the things that we would normally do to optimize for local SEO, like citations, all of that stuff. We've talked about it plenty. That's the first thing we want to do is really focus on that local SEO, because so many of these searches are location-based. But number two is to start leveraging conversational keywords and for some reason, this seems a lot more fun to you guys. I like the local SEO part, but this is an interesting area for sure. That's because most voice searches are phrased more conversationally than text searches, because you know you can actually say what you're saying instead of having to type it out. Users are asking full questions. They're using natural, everyday language. This means shifting from short, formal keywords to things that are more conversational If we think of questions that clients might ask. We've talked about this a little bit, but let's say what should I do after a car accident? Or how do I file for divorce? These are keywords essentially they're phrases, but we can use the entire phrase as a keyword and then we can incorporate these phrases naturally into some of our content, maybe some of our FAQ sections, but we want to make sure we have a page or two where we can use some of these types of phrases and, as we adjust to this conversational style, it's going to help voice assistants recognize and start to surface our content when users ask related questions that are best answered by the content that you have. This helps us capture a lot more traffic from voice search users, and that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Number three is improving our website's mobile experience, and this is one that I'm always shocked by in the legal universe is that people are completely ignoring where most of the world's internet traffic comes from. But we need to make sure that our site works well on mobile. Now what does that mean? Well, a well-optimized mobile experience means your website loads quickly, is easy to navigate and presents the information that you have in a clear, accessible way. Google has some specific standards for this, but what's important here is that they consider mobile usability as a ranking factor, and this applies to all their organic results. So we need to ensure that our site design is responsive, the buttons are easy to tap, it's easy to navigate and the text on the screen is readable even if we go to a much smaller screen. Fast load times are also a really big part of this. Slow load times, whether it's for regular, organic, really don't have a slow website. That's really important, not just for Google, but it can result in high bounce rates and this, on top of all the other things we're fighting, can really reduce the chance of converting any user nonetheless voice search users into actual clients. So making sure we're focusing on the mobile experience I mentioned mobile first earlier and it's a really good time to be shifting to that as we go towards 2025, is to being mobile first in your office, at least when it comes to the marketing.

Speaker 1: 14:31

But number four is we want to answer some of the most common questions and we've touched on this. But this is really the way we can capitalize on these rankings is to, you know, have an answer, because voice search users are often asking really specific questions. So if we don't have the answer that they're looking for, we can start structuring content around these questions, because it's one of the most effective ways to handle it. So options like creating a new page, creating a dedicated FAQ section, creating a blog post that addresses some kind of legal issue you guys can come up with these but what we really want to be doing is making sure that our answers are concise, informative and something that a voice assistant would want to use. Clear responses are really valuable and we want to make sure we get to the point relatively quickly. Addressing these questions doesn't just help with voice search, but the reality is it is great for our authority because it's showcasing our expertise, and it's showcasing our expertise in areas that potential clients really care about.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Now, with all of this in mind I know I've skipped a big part of the question and there is a concrete answer to this Should I still be optimizing for voice search, if you have the resources?

Speaker 1: 15:46

Yes, because the big thing we're seeing with voice search is that the way that they generate answers and the relatively small amount of information that voice search users are able to get from a voice assistant is very similar to how AI searches are performing. So this is something that's going to continue to evolve. It's something that's going to continue to grow and we're going to see the effects of it over the next months and years and we'll see how regulation affects that. But what we know right now is that it is going to happen, and so what we can see is that voice search is one of the most similar things to AI search, and whether or not AI search takes over entirely, we know that voice search is going to stick around in some format. We know that local is going to stick around in some format, and so, whether or not AI works, this is a bet I generally like. If we have the resources, I like to go after it. That's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more Thanks.