Voice search is nowadays one of the most popular way to do query on search engines. Few years ago when people like to site on desktop and do the internet surfing all day, but now desktop has changed mobile where people like to relax with a cup of coffee on their sofa and look for any product or services through voice command. Hence, it becomes really important for marketers and website owners to do voice search engine optimization for their website.
In this topics we will cover:
- What is voice search engine optimization?
- Why voice search engine optimization is so important?
- How does voice search engine optimization effects SEO?
- How to make strategies and optimize for voice search?
- Conclusion
What is voice search engine optimization?
Voice search engine optimization is the process of optimizing the webpage in order to get ranked for the voice searches. Voice search optimization gives you opportunities to get ranked read out loud by the voice search devices.
Most common voice searches is used for navigation. Local businesses can register their website on free listing tool google my business to improve their SEO and online presence on the google search and map.
Why voice search engine optimization is so important?
With the advancement & enhancement in technology voice search optimization has became a crucial part of it. Do you know from the pandemic situation 32% of smartphone users are interested in handsfree technology in order to reduce the chance of contamination.
Voice search is now considered as one of the fastest growing type search because 55% of smartphone users do their search query through voice assistant. Nowadays people are using devices where voice command is necessary.
How the voice search is effecting the SEO?
Voice search is transforming the way of our approach to the technology and the internet. With in just 10 years people transformed their web surfing approach from manual surfing to using virtual assistants at hands free devices and majority of their time is spent on smartphones only.
But the real question is how voice search is effecting the SEO?
- E-commerce
- Local search
- Natural language
- Keyword length
- Query words
- Semantic searches
E-commerce
E-commerce businesses are getting triggered by voice searches because consumers are making their purchases through voice commands. Now people are taking the help of virtual assistant to get information of any product which ultimately converts them into leads or customers.
Local search
Voice technology has boosted the queries for local search because majority of the consumers uses voice queries to search local business only. Researchers found that 46% of voice technology finds informations for local business only. Marketers should use this opportunities to promote the local businesses through voice search optimization.
Natural language
With the improved and advanced voice technology, handsfree devices are capable of taking commands from user in their native language. Companies are putting their so much efforts to improve the user experience so the users can feel like they are talking to a real person.
So with the advancement in technology it becomes necessary for businesses to do SEO for voice search in local language, because if your neighbour call for your service or product through voice search and the device couldn't recognize your business then you are missing a big opportunity.
Keyword length
Voice searches doesn't consists of shorttail keywords it requires longtail keywords. Hence voice search strategies should be made by keeping in mind about the longtail keywords only because the longtail keywords has the higher conversion possibility.
Query word
Major part of voice queries are consists of query words like how, what, where is etc. Hence it becomes important for marketers to deliver the accurate and relevant content for the right query keywords. The query answers which consists of short descriptions won't generate much traffic because for the queries which requires shorter description google has already provided the featured snippet.
Do you know by using only 25 types of query keywords, 20% of voice searches gets triggered, and these keywords are consists of question keywords and general keywords like is, can, top, easy etc.
Semantic searches
Semantic searches focuses more on the keyword intent rather than meaning of the query which is really important when it comes to voice search. The intent of the search is analysed by using your global search history, normal search history and form user location as well.
Do you know google's rank brain algorithm is specially designed for this purpose only, where this algorithm helps google to understand the intent of the search query, which in turns google improves the search engine at a very sophisticated level.
How to optimize and make strategies for voice search?
By now we have understood what is voice search engine optimization and why it is important for business websites. But now the question is how we can make strategies and optimize our website for voice search.
We can optimize our website for voice search by keeping these points in our mind
- Focus on local and mobile
- Build webpages and FAQa
- Understand your customers and it's devices
- Target the conversational keywords
- Create a compelling content
- Use schema markup for content
Focus on local and mobile
Majority of people are shifting from desktop to smartphone for their web queries. Now people prefer smartphones for their daily queries especially when it comes for voice search. Mobile device allows people to do queries on-the-go and the voice search enables the users to ask local questions, which we can target to promote our business or services.
Build webpages and FAQs
Virtual assistants or voice searches typically answers the queries which begins with what, where, how, who etc. The target the queries for which they can provide the immediate answers. That is the reason why it becomes important to make FAQ on webpages to answer such type of queries.
Understant your visitors and it's devices
All devices and voice search algorithm uses different real time data points and locations to understand the user and it's search context. Marketers can use these data and dig deeper to understand it's target audience and it's device behaviours to deliver what they are looking for.
Target the conversational keywords
The voice search majorly focuses on longtail keywords or conversational type keywords than the shorttail keywords. We can't say that there is no use of shorttail keywords but the chances for conversation is higher when it comes to natural language phrase used in voice search. Hence the marketers should target the conversational type keywords.
Create a compelling content
When it comes to optimizing for voice search it becomes important to focus on giving the valuable and detailed answers to common questions with clarity and concisely, because creating a compelling content which answers and solves the use's problem and their pain point can improves the chance to rank higher for voice searches.
A good content for voice search should consists of:
- A headline that asks a common questions.
- Immediately below the headline answer or definition to that question.
- Make rest of the content in elaborating or defining rest of the topics related to that question or query.
Creating a compelling content will help you to appeal for google's ranking algorithm and giving answers or definitions right below the questions can help you to get featured snippet.
Use schema markup for content
Providing the schema to your content will help the google algorithm to understand your content better. Adding this HTML add-on to your content will help you to rank better not only for search result but also for voice searches as well.
Google understands the language and the intent of the content through schema and also it's a great way to add more information to your website.