Voice search optimization refers to optimizing your website’s pages to appear first when people carry out verbal searches. Voice search SEO is critical for making sure that your website is listed on search pages for those who are using voice assistants.
Then what is voice search optimization? In this post, we’ll answer that question and more than that. Read on to find out answers to such questions as:
- What is voice search optimization?
- How does voice search work?
- Why is it important for me to incorporate a voice search optimization strategy?
- What is the best way to optimize for voice search?
Voice search optimization is the mechanism of optimizing your pages for presentation in voice searches. When you optimize for voice search, you are optimizing for the way people make searches in words. Voice search optimization will allow you to have your pages read aloud by a voice search gadget.
How voice search works
The voice search is very easy.
Here’s how voice search works:
- Users ask a question
- The voice search device speaks out the answer.
When you ask Google questions on such devices as Google Home, sometimes it will say to you, “I sent you a link in your Google Assistant” (something like that), and then it will send you a link to the website it read the answer from in Google Assistant. Devices such as Siri, though, are a bit more unique. A screenshot of a Siri voice search with resultsFor most queries, Siri will not read the answer to you but rather just tell you what it has found on the web about your search query.
Optimization for voice search: 4 voice search optimization tips
There are four voice search optimization tips to start your voice search optimization process!
1. Optimize for conversational queries
Voice search queries differ from regular questions. People write differently than they speak, and therefore, you have to consider this in your optimization plan. For instance, somebody may search “how to make your fried chicken” from the desktop, but on voice search, one would say “what do I do to make my fried chicken”. It’s a small difference, but one that makes these search queries different; voice search is communication.
Users interact with their devices on a personal basis, so they enter their queries as if they are addressing a member of their family or friends. In addition, some directional verbal queries are more directional than written queries.
Therefore, one might write “recipes for fried chicken,” but in a search on a voice search device, they would “show me recipes for fried chicken”. In this situation, voice searchers are giving a command to be followed by the search device to do what they want.
To know how to optimize for voice search, you have to optimize for conversational queries. Think up various questions that your audience may have as regards to topics on your pages. For instance, if the people were verbally searching for how to make fried chicken, they could ask the following questions:
- How to do fried chicken?
- How can one make the best fried chicken?
- What are the ingredients to make fried chicken?
These are all connected questions you’ll need to cater for and to optimize for in your search strategy.
2. Optimize your local presence
Do you know that more than half of the people use voice search to search for local businesses? If you want to find out how to optimize for voice search, the best place to start is to establish your local presence. The greatest aspect of this is your Google Business Profile listing, the listing that is used on searches done locally.
From that information aside, you’d want to:
- Update your hours of operation
- Add photos to your listing
- Have a mini-synopsis about your business.
The full listing will enable the users to get the information they require when they find your company through voice search. Others think claiming your local listing will make your business show up in more local voice searches, to be able to direct traffic to your location. Apart from claiming your local listing, you will also want to incorporate locally targeted keywords into your site.
Such keywords as “fried chicken restaurant in Los Angeles”, “fried chicken in LA” are locally tuned keywords and can increase the number of leads to your enterprise.
3. Focus on giving answers directly
To get the best out of your voice search optimization effort, start by answering queries directly. To make the best of your voice search optimization efforts, begin by answering queries directly. Did you know that featured snippets are used for half of the searches? The snippet featured gets displayed as the first search result in a box.
Screenshot of a Google search results’ featured snippet
Do you know what featured snippets are for? They answer queries directly. Featured snippets try to give the users an immediate response.
4. Follow SEO best practices
The school of thought is that since no one sees your website, it does not matter how it works or the type of experience it gives out. The truth is, however, that the voice search devices utilize search output to satisfy the needs of the users in terms of answers.
Voice search devices pick answers on top of the search results, and so you will have to optimize to appear on top.
If you are not doing SEO, if you are not optimising for SEO, then you are not going to come up in voice search. When it comes to ranking better on search results, use these best practices for SEO.
Integrate keywords on your page
If you want to show up on relevant searches and incorporate relevant words and phrases, integrate relevant keywords into your site.
You should target long-tail keywords, which consist of three or more words, so that you to come to the radar of more relevant leads. There are such tools as KeywordsFX that you can use to find key terms for your campaign
Optimize for mobile
Some of the voice search programs are found on mobile devices or are equipped with mobile apps to lead you to the website that suits your query.
Make your website responsive, which means your website can accommodate whatever device a person uses. By virtue of responsive design, users get a mobile view of your site so that surfing is more convenient.
Speed up your site
If a voice searcher is interested in knowing more about your business, he or she does not have to wait to get the information.
Make your site load effectively by using a tool such as Google Page Speed Insights to learn how you can increase the site load time. You can always invest in page speed services if you are not feeling confident about the tool.
Why optimize for voice search?
The consumers’ usage of voice search is common. According to one study, almost 60 percent of consumers between the ages of 25 and 34 use voice search daily. As of 2024, voice assistants are the most in-demand AI-powered smartphone functionality among US adults.
Voice search will certainly make up an ever-increasing proportion of the search volumes in the future. Analysts project that the market for voice assistants will increase the number of users by over 20 million by the year 2028 and attain a worth of almost $ 32 billion by the year 2033.
Voice search utilization and the sale of connected devices also grow, which means that the consumer is more conversant with this technology and is able to gain access to it more.
Businesses will be able to have a competitive advantage by optimizing their websites to be part of the voice search revolution. This may help you bring more traffic to your site and is in tandem with voice shopping abilities.
