Nowadays, voice search optimization has emerged as a foundational or fundamental component of modern SEO service strategies. Google has highlighted that with smart devices like Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa, voice search is soon to set another trend, which means faster responses and businesses need to have their content as per the voice search. To stay ahead of the competition and be seen by customers who might be interested in your business, you need to get used to how voice search works and how you need to optimize your digital content for it. In this guide, we’ll dive into voice search optimization and its importance for your SEO strategy.
What is Voice Search?
Voice search is a relatively new method in which a user poses a question to a search engine instead of keying it in. This is due to the advancement in artificial intelligence (AI), where voice search has become accurate and robust because of speech recognition. Whether through mobile devices or voice-activated speakers such as Amazon’s Alexa, voice is quickly becoming the go-to input and interaction for common, everyday activities such as checking the weather, making a phone call, or finding a restaurant near you.
Why Voice Search Optimization is Important
Voice search is growing rapidly. According to a recent study, 55% of households in the U.S. are expected to own a smart speaker by 2024. Along the same trend, how people interact with search engines is changing; rather than short and scattered keywords, vocal search format users are likelier to speak in a conversational and natural language. This change has turned voice search optimization into an essential promotional tool for digital marketing.
Voice search enables enterprises to find potential customers quickly and display their content on voice search result pages. As Google Voice search gains popularity, your content must be optimized to rank in this approach to remain visible and pertinent online.
How Voice Search SEO is different from Traditional SEO
Although classical search engine optimization consultant (SEO) concerns keywords, backlinks, and page layout, voice search optimization requires a different strategy. When a user conducts a voice search, they commonly ask a closed question or use natural, conversational language. For instance, specific search queries like “best pizza near me” might be an entered phrase, while a voice search query would be “What is the best pizza place near me?”
You have to use keywords, questions, and conversational language that can help you rank on voice-based search. Long tail voice search queries often use words like how, what, and where compared to short ones. Your content requires you to answer those queries in a natural language as if writing a conversational copy, yet bear in mind SEO.
Key Elements of Voice Search Optimization
- Focus on Long-Tail Keywords: Voice search optimization requires considering long-tail keywords. People tend to share more elaborate and specific statements when speaking into a voice search device. For instance, instead of a keyword such as “best restaurants,” users will say, “What are the best restaurants around me?” Voice search SEO optimization requires using long-tail keywords that address specific questions the target audience may be looking for.
- Implement Conversational Language: Many voice search queries are conversational, so the tone and style of the content should correspond to this style. Avoid focusing on single fragmented keywords; write texts that are more similar to normal human conversation. Informal speech and everyday language can improve your chances of appearing in a voice search.
- Use Structured Data and Schema Markup: Structured data assists the search engine in understanding the content better and enhances the possibility of features in voice searches. Schema markup is structured data that helps search engines understand your content best. By marking up your content with schema, you can help search engines better grasp the meaning of your page and its relevance, for example, in Google Voice search.
- Optimize for Local Search: Voice searches are frequently location-based. It is important to note that when people make a voice search query, they are likely searching for nearby businesses or services. Localizing your website to enhance its local search targeting can help your business rank for the voice search when people search for nearby businesses. Make sure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are the same across all your online presence, and add a Google My Business profile to get more chances to rank in local voice search queries.
- Improve Page Speed and Mobile Optimization: Since voice searches are mainly executed from mobile devices, confirming that your website is mobile-friendly is particularly important for voice search SEO. Google also likes fast-loading sites, which will help your voice search optimization and user experience. A mobile layout interface with fast loading will enable searching and accessing content using voice search.
- Create FAQ Pages: Using top FAQs is effective in voice search optimization… Since voice search queries are usually phrased like questions, creating a separate section on the website with answers to frequently asked questions about the products or services provided will help generate possible voice search results. Avoid using jargon in your answers; instead, use a conversational tone when responding to the questions while ensuring that you include long-tail keywords in your answers where necessary.
How to Optimize Voice Search Local– A Step-by-Step Guide
Optimizing your content for voice search is a strategic task. Here’s how you can get started:
- Target Conversational Keywords: Concentrate on natural, long-tail keywords, which are how people speak. Identify questions your audience will likely ask and answer them on your website.
- Optimize for Local Search: Google My Business includes your company and your content is customized for local search queries.
- Create Content That Answers Questions: It is important to note that many voice queries are asked in the form of a question. Produce articles, blogs, and other techniques that answer your customer’s most common questions.
- Use Structured Data: Use schema markup to improve your rankings in Voice search and help search engines comprehend the context of the content.
- Focus on Speed and Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is fast-loading and mobile-friendly; align them with the voice queries on smartphones and other portable gadgets.
- Leverage Google Voice Search: Google Voice Search is still the market leader. Be alert to Google updates regarding your voice search ranking.
The Future of Voice Search
Due to the growing popularity of voice assistants and smart speakers, voice search will stay relevant. A Comscore report revealed that by the end of 2020, at least 50% of all searches people perform will be voice searches. Businesses cannot afford to lag in the ever-evolving market by not continuously improving their digital content for voice search.
Voice search has become a daily practice, where different web mappers that adapt content in that particular direction will benefit from increased exposure and traffic on the Web. Interestingly, optimizing for voice search is essential now to see your website at the top of the search results and attract more customers.
Conclusion: Optimize Digital Content for Voice Search
Voice search is one of the things that SEO involves today. This has led to corpus, conversational tone, local search optimization, and long tail keywords to form the perfect foundation for voice search. Do not overlook an opportunity to become relevant within an ever-growing voice-first paradigm.
Doubling down on voice search optimization is the new way to enhance the website’s growth in the present day. Digital Concept, where we created our SEO/CRO System, has already been helping over fifty DTC brands to grow. Let’s generate traffic to your site and optimize it to drive more voice search exposure for you and more customers by utilizing Google Voice Search and many others.
