Trends in Search Engine Optimisation: The Role of Voice Search
Gokkoeva, Marta (2020)
Gokkoeva, Marta
2020
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020060316648
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020060316648
Tiivistelmä
Search engine optimisation is an important aspect for every business. There are different features and methods to it and they evolve over the years as there are created new algorithms and software updates. At the moment, voice search is a topical matter and there are done many predictions and speculations of the future of it. This makes the subject interesting to research further.
The purpose of this thesis is to study what are the current trends in SEO, how voice search affects SEO and what is the role of voice search now and in the future. It will be also studied if it is true that voice search will grow as popular as traditional search and if it eventually be the only way of searching on search engines. The theme is limited to search engine Google, voice search optimisation and the future of voice search. Meaning that there will be introduced the technology enabling voice search but not explained thoroughly how voice search is optimised for different digital assistants nor other software applications. Search Engine Advertising (SEA) is excluded from the research because it is a small part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and the main focus is only on unpaid organic search SEO.
The theoretical part concentrates on SEO trends on Google and voice search in the USA and Europe. Whereas, in empirical part is highlighted the situation and future of voice search in Finland.
To answer the research questions there was conducted a qualitative research by interviewing four SEO professionals. The professionals were selected because of their long experience in SEO and marketing field. The interviews were carried out on 31 March 2020, 2 April 2020 and 8 April 2020. The topic of the thesis is rather new and therefore there had to be gathered more in-depth data which qualitative research method enables to do.
It was found out that there are many SEO trends in search engine optimisation. However, the trends that were mentioned now to be the most important ones are high-quality trustworthy content, featured snippet optimisation and user experience. As the most important aspect of SEO was seen content optimisation. It was also found out that voice search does not impact traditional SEO considerably. There are certain practises that work better for voice search but voice search optimisation was rather seen as a part of SEO than alone by itself. The last finding was that voice search is not yet popular in Finland, technology is not advanced and there is not much that companies can do at the moment to optimise websites to voice search results. It is also important to say that the voice revolution has not begun yet.
The purpose of this thesis is to study what are the current trends in SEO, how voice search affects SEO and what is the role of voice search now and in the future. It will be also studied if it is true that voice search will grow as popular as traditional search and if it eventually be the only way of searching on search engines. The theme is limited to search engine Google, voice search optimisation and the future of voice search. Meaning that there will be introduced the technology enabling voice search but not explained thoroughly how voice search is optimised for different digital assistants nor other software applications. Search Engine Advertising (SEA) is excluded from the research because it is a small part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and the main focus is only on unpaid organic search SEO.
The theoretical part concentrates on SEO trends on Google and voice search in the USA and Europe. Whereas, in empirical part is highlighted the situation and future of voice search in Finland.
To answer the research questions there was conducted a qualitative research by interviewing four SEO professionals. The professionals were selected because of their long experience in SEO and marketing field. The interviews were carried out on 31 March 2020, 2 April 2020 and 8 April 2020. The topic of the thesis is rather new and therefore there had to be gathered more in-depth data which qualitative research method enables to do.
It was found out that there are many SEO trends in search engine optimisation. However, the trends that were mentioned now to be the most important ones are high-quality trustworthy content, featured snippet optimisation and user experience. As the most important aspect of SEO was seen content optimisation. It was also found out that voice search does not impact traditional SEO considerably. There are certain practises that work better for voice search but voice search optimisation was rather seen as a part of SEO than alone by itself. The last finding was that voice search is not yet popular in Finland, technology is not advanced and there is not much that companies can do at the moment to optimise websites to voice search results. It is also important to say that the voice revolution has not begun yet.