Voice technology has been around for a while now. We grew up with devices like Speak & Spell, are familiar with Stephen Hawking’s speech synthesizer, and now more recently, virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.
More and more people are using voice-activated searches and speakers all the time. Using these devises helps us to get things done easier, quicker and more efficiently. And when it comes to internet search, speaking into our smartphone is so much easier than typing on it. As the technology improves and voice searching becomes second nature to us, it will also become a preferred way to search the web on mobile devices.
Known brands and local businesses are already seeing the importance of voice search as people use it to find an address and business hours while they are out-and-about. But location-specific information isn’t the only thing; Google research shows that people are also asking about current sales, customer support, upcoming events and personalized tips.
“The benefit of attracting more traffic from voice queries is growing and now is the time to invest in optimizing your website for these kinds of searches.”
Search Engine Journal has identified some changes you can make to optimize for voice search today.
Optimize for Questions
When using voice search people phrase queries as questions and speak in a more natural way. There are a few tools that can help you discover the questions being asked and related target keywords people used when searching for your products or services:
- AnswerThePublic is a cool, search query visualization tool that fetches keyword suggestions and predictions. Just type in a keyword and it will map out questions associated with that keyword.
- You’ve likely seen the “People Also Ask” feature in Google search results. These accordion-like related questions and answer boxes are a peek into Google machine learning capabilities and can provide ideas what people are asking in search.
Organize Queries by Intent
Not only should content and keywords align with your buyer’s journey, but queries too. When developing a content strategy for voice search optimization, be sure to include queries regarding customer intent at the different stages. For example, if you have a page targeting awareness, include queries about product/brand/service comparisons. For targeting deeper in the customer journey — say customers who are ready to buy — develop questions around pricing or special promotions.
Consider the different types of questions asked in the customer journey:
- Awareness: What is the difference between SEO and local SEO?
- Interest: Why is local SEO important to your business?
- Consideration: How to find the right SEO expert?
- Purchase: How much does SEO services costs?
Use Structured Data Optimization
Optimizing for voice search can be tricky because unlike typed search queries which produce a full page of results, voice search only returns one result from the very best-optimized answer. So it’s key to try to make your content as relevant as possible for a specific query.
One thing you can do to help search engines better understand your page’s content is to use structured data in the page’s HTML to categorize and index your content. There are several structured metadata codes available that can highlight a variety of different data such as products, reviews, how-to content and articles. Businesses can use structured data for business type, hours, phone number and address for local inquiries.
Structured data also can give your website a boost in voice search results by demonstrating your content’s relevance for specific queries. Overall, it’s a good SEO practice since Google will feature many of these elements in search results, like your 5 star reviews!
Optimize For Mobile First
Google’s has already made the switch to mobile-first indexing for its algorithm. And the good news is what’s good for mobile optimization is also good for voice search optimization. Best practices include: improving site speed, using AMP and structured data and optimizing for local search results.
The Future of Voice Search
Google has stated it has future plans to add voice query statistics to Search Console giving webmasters more actionable, personalized insights into how visitors are reaching your website using voice search.
Right now it’s hard to tell if Google will one day switch to prioritizing voice-friendly results. But it’s a real possibility due to the benefits that voice search provides and its current growth into the mainstream.
One thing for certain is voice commands are set to have a big impact on search marketing and incorporating these SEO strategies can help to ensure your website is poised to capture new traffic from voice search results.