Despite their popularity, voice search and digital voice assistants are far from a new development. Its rise is driven by an intersection of increased mobile usage, machine learning algorithms, and the growing relationship between humans and technology – ultimately making it inevitable that more people will adopt such devices in the coming years.
Statistics already demonstrate this, with over a quarter of the global online population now using voice search on mobile devices, one-third of US consumers owning a smart speaker, and experts estimating that by 2023 the use of digital voice assistants will triple.
Moreover, with purchases made through these services predicted to reach $164 billion in 2025 – according to Statista – there is clear potential for significant growth within this market.
While many popular systems like Google Home exist within Western countries, others like Siri and Alexa are increasingly embedded into other products such as smartphones, cars, and vacuum cleaners.
As we look to the future, it is becoming clear that voice search holds considerable promise – suggesting that it forms an integral part of our ever-evolving engagement with technology in an increasingly tech-driven 21st century.
The Growing Importance of Voice Search in SEO
People have been using voice search for years. But with the rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing technology, voice search has become a lot more powerful and valuable. As a result, it’s now an essential part of any successful SEO strategy.
Let’s explore how voice search works and why it’s becoming crucial for businesses to take advantage of this technology.
How Voice Search Works?
Voice search extends semantic search, which uses natural language processing to understand the relationship between entities.
For example, when you ask your digital voice assistant, “How tall is the Empire State Building?” it first recognizes that you are asking about a particular object (the Empire State Building) and then processes the semantics of your question to arrive at the correct answer.
Google’s Hummingbird algorithm and Knowledge Graph allow for conversational searches tailored to individual preferences; by understanding context and user intent more effectively than ever before.
Voice Search & SEO
Voice search signals a shift in how content should be created and promoted through search engine optimization, as it requires more personalized results than traditional text search queries can provide.
A 2017 study from iProspect revealed that people use voice search not only for information but also for shopping purposes; major retailers have already taken steps towards utilizing this technology with the help of popular digital assistants such as Alexa or Google Assistant.
For businesses looking to optimize their content for voice search, there are several key factors to consider:
- Create FAQ pages that answer common questions.
- Structure content around long-tail keywords.
- Optimize page loading times.
- Include structured data markup such as schema code.
- Focus on local optimization.
- Use natural language throughout your content.
- Ensure that all content is mobile-friendly.
Optimizing Your Website for Voice Search: Strategies to Enhance Visibility and Boost ROI
Voice search technology is becoming increasingly popular. That’s why it’s essential for website owners and marketers alike to begin optimizing their sites for voice search to ensure their content remains visible and continues to drive traffic and ROI.
Let’s look at some key strategies you can use to optimize your online presence for the growing demand for voice search.
SEO Strategy
To increase your digital presence in the current market, it’s essential to understand how to optimize your SEO strategy beyond just your website. With more and more voice queries being used, optimizing your site for both spoken and typed searches can help you gain more visibility online. Let’s take a look at how to approach voice search SEO best.
Planning Your Products For Future Queries
One way to gain an edge in optimizing your digital presence is by anticipating what customers will be looking for in the future. This means keeping track of unanswered queries and using them as inspiration for products or services you can create down the line.
For example, if you find that people are asking about a particular style of clothing, but there isn’t much in the way of inventory available, this could be an excellent opportunity to fill a gap in the market by stocking up on those items.
Segmenting Typed Versus Spoken Search Query Reports
Another essential aspect of optimizing your SEO strategy is understanding how customer searches differ between typed and spoken queries.
While marketers are limited in their ability to segment search query reports or Search Console data due to current limitations, they should still be aware that these differences exist and seek ways to incorporate them into their SEO strategies accordingly.
Additionally, they should consider optimizing their presence across other platforms, such as chatbots, apps, and social media, with a consistent brand voice to reach a wider audience.
Content Marketing
Content marketing has swiftly become a key component of SEO success. By utilizing voice search, businesses can ensure that their content is optimized for these increasingly popular search queries. Let’s dive in and explore how you can use voice search capabilities to enhance your content marketing efforts.
Conversational Content
The key to optimizing your content for voice search is conversational content. Think about how you phrase questions when asking a question out loud—it’s usually different than if you type it into a search bar. Therefore, your content should be written in a conversational tone that anticipates common questions and pain points in the industry.
People are more likely to respond positively if they feel they are being spoken to engagingly rather than simply being presented with information.
Focus on User Intent
When optimizing for voice search, it’s essential to focus on user intent rather than individual keywords. This means that instead of focusing on specific words or phrases that people may use when searching for something online, you should focus on providing helpful information to help them achieve their tasks quickly and effectively.
This could include providing detailed step-by-step instructions or offering advice on how to solve a particular problem. By doing so, you’ll give people the answers they need without forcing them to sift through irrelevant results or click through multiple pages of content just to find what they need.
Develop a Consistent Brand Voice
Finally, brands must develop a consistent brand voice to sound as good as they look when read aloud by a search engine. When someone speaks their query into their device, ensure that your brand is represented with clarity and confidence.
This includes ensuring that your brand name is spelled correctly (or pronounced clearly) and that your content has been written with care and attention to detail so it reads naturally when spoken aloud. Additionally, consider using audio clips or videos to provide an even more immersive experience for users searching via voice commands.
Understanding Voice Search Assessment with Google
Furthermore, let’s look at how Google assesses voice search so you can create content that meets their standards.
Information Satisfaction: Google wants to ensure that the content they provide meets the user’s expectations regarding quality and relevance. Content should be accurate, up-to-date, comprehensive, unbiased, original, and authoritative.
It should also be tailored to meet the specific needs of each user – an answer about a local business would be different for someone searching from New York than someone searching from Los Angeles.
Length: Answers should also be concise – no more than three sentences long or around 30 words long if possible. This helps ensure that users get their answers quickly without having to hear too much information at once.
The shorter response times are also beneficial to those using devices with limited battery life or who may otherwise need speed when accessing information through voice search.
Formulation: Google also evaluates how well your content is written in terms of grammar and syntax. Answers should use complete sentences with proper punctuation and capitalization; they should also avoid colloquialisms or industry jargon that could confuse non-experts.
Additionally, questions should not only answer what was asked but anticipate any follow-up questions and provide additional context where appropriate.
Elocution: Finally, Google considers prosody (rhythm and intonation) and pronunciation when evaluating voice search results.
Technology such as WaveNet and Tacotron 2 have significantly reduced the gap between human performance in text-to-speech generation; however, providing clear audio still requires the human touch in areas such as word choice selection or emphasis on certain syllables within a sentence.
Technical SEO
As a website owner, you know that the competition to rank at the top of Google’s search results is fierce. This means staying on top of all the latest technical advancements in SEO; otherwise, your competitors will rise past you.
Speed and Mobile-Friendliness
Google has recently announced its “Speed Update,” which is now rolling out for all users. This update is intended to prioritize sites with faster loading speeds and more mobile-friendly ones.
So if your site takes too long to load or doesn’t render properly on mobile devices, these are areas where you should start focusing your attention to stay competitive.
Structured Data from Schema.org
Another critical area of focus should be utilizing structured data from the Schema.org standard on your website’s landing pages. Structured data helps a search engine navigate code and understand its contents better, so using this type of coding can make a huge difference in how well your page ranks in a search engine result page (SERP).
It’s important to note that structured data does not affect how a human reader experiences content; it only affects how a search engine understands it.
Experimenting With New Formats Like Speakable
Lastly, experimenting with new formats such as Speakable can help content be read aloud by a digital assistant in the future—giving early movers an advantage here!
The idea behind Speakable is that content can be marked up in HTML so digital assistants like Siri or Alexa can read out answers to questions posed by users in natural language processing applications like Google Home or Amazon Echo devices.
Local SEO
As voice search technology continues to evolve and become more widespread, business owners need to understand how to leverage this technology to optimize online visibility. In particular, accurate names, addresses, and phone numbers should be supplied across all locations to take advantage of Amazon and Yext’s voice search opportunity.
Additionally, a specialist platform can help manage local listings and analyze local search performance. Moreover, businesses should include clear calls to action with directions for further information to make it easy for consumers to act on their intentions. Let’s look at each of these strategies in more detail.
Accurate Names, Addresses, and Phone Numbers
First and foremost, supplying accurate names, addresses, and phone numbers is essential for your business to properly capitalize on the voice search opportunity afforded by Amazon and Yext. Different platforms such as Google My Business or Yelp allow customers to find your business location without having a physical address.
Make sure that you keep all information up-to-date so that customers don’t end up at the wrong address or, worse yet, unable to find you at all!
Specialty Platforms
Utilizing specialty platforms designed specifically for optimizing local businesses can also provide great value when taking advantage of the voice search opportunity. These platforms will enable business owners to easily manage their local listings and analyze their local search performance.
This means businesses can quickly respond to customer queries using automated messages powered by AI technology, allowing them to utilize their time better while providing users with a seamless customer experience even outside regular working hours!
Clear Calls To Action
Finally, businesses must include clear calls-to-action with directions for further information to make it easy for consumers who have already expressed an intention through a voice search query.
For example, if someone searches “What time does my local store open?” the first result should provide the opening times and directions on how they can get there (e.g., links to maps/directions).
This will allow customers who have already expressed an intention through a voice query to take action immediately by following the provided instructions instead of spending more time searching elsewhere!
Conclusion
The rising popularity of voice search and digital voice assistants can be attributed to mobile usage, machine learning algorithms, and the relationship between humans & technology.
Businesses need to optimize their content for both spoken & typed searches to gain online visibility; this includes creating FAQ pages tailored around long-tail keywords and local optimization techniques such as structured data markup or schema code.
Content should be written in a conversational tone while focusing on user intent rather than individual keywords; brands should also develop consistent brand voices to sound good when being read aloud.
By following these tips, your business can stay ahead of the curve and ensure that it is visible when customers search for products or services like yours.