Marketing your tax expertise is about to change radically in 2019 and many people will be unprepared for the changes, according to top marketing expert Neil Patel. The adoption of new technologies is driving these changes with the major one being voice activated search. For those individuals now talking into their phones or any voice activated switch product like an Echo Voice or a variety of other products, these are changing the way we live our daily lives. As I was sharing an article on voice activated search with one of my sons recently, he said “Our generation will do anything the easiest way they can figure out. If we do not have to type, and we can ask by voice, then we will do that first.” This was another one of those teachable moments in which one of my three sons ages (24,24,25) was showing me the way instead of the other way around. They can teach us so much about their use of technology.

In 2018, 2 out of every 5 people will use voice search once per day according to ComScore. This means more people will be using their voice to search for everything online. It is predicted that in 2020 fifty percent of all searches online will be done through voice search. It will not be just people speaking into their cell phones or laptops, thirty percent of web browsing will not even take place on a screen device. People will be searching using multiple products like Google Home, Alexa and numerous other voice activated devices.

How will the search engines deal with the increase in voice search activity? They are doing a lot behind the scenes right now that will totally change the way we search 2 trillion websites online. One of the things that they will focus on is how much time people are spending on websites. The time visitors spend on a site when visiting is a very big deal!  Let me put it this way, “If a million people are clicking on your website each month and spending less than 3 seconds, you will get very little business, if any. If one hundred thousand people are hitting your website and spending twenty minutes this is a big deal. They are very interested in the site so they stay a long time.” If you are advertising a product or service, you are much smarter to advertise on the site visitors are spending the most time looking around the site.

The amount of time visitors spend on a site is precisely how Google will determine which site they will direct the voice activated question.

For those of you who are TaxConnections Members, you are already reaping benefits in that people contact you easily and for free on TaxConnections (while prospective business opportunities are blocked from reaching you on sites who charge a fee to connect with you). Tax professionals are losing business opportunities every day; you have the power to unlock your business potential simply by getting listed TaxConnections. You must enable everyone to connect with you –  former and prospective clients, colleagues and others who could not reach you previously now do so when you are a member. However, there is something else pushing our tax professional members to the top of the search engines.

It is very important to take a close look at TaxConnections Alexa Metrics, see how much time people spend searching for tax expertise on TaxConnections. Getting your profile on a tax site where visitors are spending a lot of time searching for tax expertise is the holy grail to succeed online.

The point is securing a TaxConnections Membership now places you at the leading edge of the many changes about to impact all your marketing and business initiatives. Join us now and stay ahead of the curves about to effect all tax businesses online.

Have a question or comment? Contact Kat Jennings.