Hey Alexa, voice search is about to change property marketing – claim
The increasingly popular (and lazy) way to search online for agents and property is set to be the next game changer for property industry says Veco boss Richard Murray.
First came the Xerox machine, then photocopiers, email and in 2000, the internet – all of which have revolutionised how agents work.
But the next revolution? It’s ‘voice search’, the latest online trend created by millions of us now ‘talking’ our online searches into our smartphones and smart speakers via Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant.
Richard Murray (pictured), CEO of property software firm Veco, says this latest tech trend is set to transform the work of property professionals just as profoundly as its predecessors.
“People constantly use their phones to look for locations around them at any given time and voice search is becoming increasingly popular in local searches, such as ’restaurants near me’, ‘one bed flat near me’ or ‘estate agents near me’,” he says.
Google stats show that 65% of 25-49 year-olds talk to their phones at least once a day, while 78% of smart speaker owners search for local business on a weekly basis, with 46% saying they perform these searches daily.
The most common action following a voice search is a call to the business they searched for. Other common follow-up actions are visiting the business’s website (27%), visiting its location (19%), conducting research on the business (14%) and conducting more research into other businesses (12%).
Quicker than typing
Murray says this kind of online search is catching on largely because it’s quicker than typing.
“For example, typing ‘three-bedroom house in Leatherhead with a garden shed and garage’ is a pain typing on a mobile. Saying the same phrase out loud is quick and easy,” he says.
“Voice search presents new opportunities for the property industry – from streamlining work processes and creating new channels of communication, to marketing properties and engaging clients in a more natural way.”
To take advantage of this, Murray says estate agents need to optimise their websites to take advantage of this new way of searching, target the questions are likely to be asking, and use a more natural, spoken language within your website – rather ‘corporate speak’.
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