Although voice search began as a simple notion, it has grown to become one of the most essential concepts in the internet search market. Voice search is faster, hand-free and works well in multitasking too. Google has now moved closer to its goal of transforming voice search into an ultimate mobile assistant that assists you with your daily life and voice search progresses from speech recognition to voice understanding. Today, we are witnessing a voice search revolution, with practically every age enthusiastically embracing technology.
What is voice search?
Voice search, also known as voice-enabled search, allows users to search the Internet, a website, or an app using a voice command as a substitute for typing the question in the search box. Artificial Intelligence allows devices like your phone, tablet, Alexa, Bluetooth speakers, and others to recognise your voice and submit your query to a search engine.
What is voice search optimization?
The optimization of keywords and keyword phrases for searching in voice assistants is known as voice SEO. Voice search optimization is the process of modernising and streamlining your website's content to make it appear in voice searches. Voice search optimization aims to optimise your website to answer visitors' inquiries when they perform vocal searches.
Why voice search is important?
Here are some known statistics about voice search:
Let us understand this through Google’s app and mobile voice search statistics,
- 20% of searches in the Google app are done by voice.
According to Google’s mobile use voice search statistics,
- 27% of the global population uses mobile voice search.
According to Google’s data on customer voice assistant experience,
- 72% of people use a voice-activated speaker regularly in their everyday lives.
According to TechCrunch,
- The future of E-commerce is set to be transformed by voice search, with voice shopping expected to reach $40 billion by 2022.
Some other reasons for voice search being important are:
- It is fast and easy.
- It is convenient.
- Can be best used with mobile.
- Voice search is better than conventional typing because while using voice for searching something, people tend to use clear keywords and hence voice search provides better search results.
- Results of voice search are more prompt and accurate.
- Voice search helps better with local search.
How voice search affects SEO?
How we type and search on Google is different from how we speak and search on voice assistants. When we type, we use a lot of keywords, but when we use voice search; our searches become a lot more conversational.
Google has led the way with its significant updates like Hummingbird, which have encouraged search engines to improve their grasp of the language and understand the meaning behind the words. This upgrade gave a boost to SEO, with a continuous focus on experience rather than keywords. Voice search has a vast role in this move, and it continues today.
Since voice search devices extract answers from the top of the search results, you must optimise your website to appear at the top. Voice SEO is necessary for websites to appear in voice assistant search results.
Advantages of optimizing your website for voice search:
- High rankings: On SERPs, the results of voice search often rank in the upper three positions. More people will visit your site if you optimise it for voice searches.
- High authority website: When you start ranking for voice searches and grow your viewers, you raise the authority of your website.
- High returns: More visitors lead to more conversions, which results in more profit.
Effective strategies for voice search optimization:
You must also optimise voice commands, mobile, and local search to maximise your voice search. Make voice search optimization a part of your SEO strategy and incorporate it into your SEO approach.
These voice search SEO methods will not only help you increase traffic from Siri and Alexa users, but they will also become vital foundations of your overall SEO strategy.
The SEO strategies for voice search optimization are as follows:
- Optimize local search:
- Focus on conversational keywords:
- The maximum type of keywords used by people.
- Most asked questions.
- Conversational style.
- Best suited answers for their queries.
- Most performing answers are shown in voice searches.
- Use Long-tail keywords:
- Create FAQ pages:
- Make your website mobile-friendly:
- Use structured data:
According to think with Google, voice search is used on the go by mobile users for “Near me” searches and it has risen by 150%. Google uses its GPS data to respond to "near me" searches. Thus, Voice search optimization has a lot of potential for gaining local customers. Building your local presence is a great way to start optimizing your voice search.
Your Google My Business Profile listing, which displays the local searches, is the most effective method for this. Your GMB profile must be claimed and optimised. The GMB listing ensures that when your business appears as a search result, the right name, exact location, phone number, and business category are displayed. Due to this, it will be easier for your customers to find the particular information they were looking for.
When people do voice searches, they tend to speak more naturally compared to typing a question into a search engine. The way customers ask queries to their voice assistants should be reflected in your content.
A primary characteristic of a voice search query is that it is conversational, and we must take advantage of this. The pages that provide the finest answers to people's questions while also providing the best experience will ascend to the top of the rankings.
You should research and anticipate the type of questions people ask in voice search.
This type of research will help you analyse your customer’s search patterns which ultimately leads to optimized voice search.
Keep your content up front, to the point, engaging, and, most importantly, it should be able to provide accurate answers to your readers' queries.
Voice searches run in a conversational style, hence they are longer than the typed searches. And since natural language searches are frequently lengthier and more particular, most voice search users are shifting to long-tail keyword searches. Additionally, we all know that Google favours long-form, comprehensive content.
You can create long-form content that incorporates all long-tail keywords found in verbal queries. Longer pages that contain more long-tail keywords have a greater chance of ranking.
When voice searchers ask a query, they usually start with 5Ws and 1H, indicating that they are seeking prompt solutions. So, adapt to their voice search and respond conversationally.
Google wants to give its users the smallest possible answer in a maximum of 30 words and FAQ pages can make it possible. Use Frequently Asked Questions on your product and blog pages since they include query type keywords and are relatively brief. Try to make voice search based FAQ pages. Furthermore, owing to the FAQ-style format, Google easily grabs the content from your website and shows it as a rich snippet.
How mobile-friendly your website is, plays a significant role in its ranking. As the audience uses mobile phones for voice searches more than other devices, your chances of landing in the highlighted snippet drop dramatically if you do not have a mobile-friendly website.
Users can access a mobile version of your site through responsive design, which makes surfing more convenient. Make sure your website is responsive, which means it can adjust to whatever device the searchers are using.
Moreover, you can also use Google’s mobile-friendliness test to check if your site is optimized for mobile.
To establish a page's relevancy and position in search results, search engines go through a variety of parameters in addition to content. These extra elements are used by professional SEOs to better improve their content for search engines.
One such factor is schema markup, often known as structured data. Mark up your content using schema to notify search engines what your website is about.
Users frequently check for information such as operating hours, contact information, address, and directions while searching for local companies. Microdata can be used to guarantee that search engines classify this information correctly.
Also, Google has shown in its guideline how structured data works.
Finishing up:
Voice search is becoming more popular day by day. It has an incalculable impact on customer behaviour, and so digital marketing fellas must be ready for it to fulfil the user expectations. You can be the next to attract more voice searchers to your business if you follow these above-mentioned voice search optimization tips.
Remember that voice optimization is not distinct from traditional SEO. The things you do to optimise the voice search will also benefit your SEO in general, hence voice SEO is the new benchmark for optimal optimization techniques. The methods you use to optimise these searches are an essential part of current SEO.
Confused about how to optimize your site for voice search? Don’t worry; we are here to help you. Cubic Digital is a well-established digital marketing company that is continuously winning the hearts of its clients by implementing the best SEO tactics to level up their business. Our SEO experts can assist you in optimising your voice search strategy and generating more meaningful leads for your business. Let’s get in touch today!
