The way of finding information on the web has changed across the globe. People are using voice search on their mobiles, tablets, or voice assistants to find the information they want online.
But, why the use of voice search is growing rapidly?
In this busy world, everyone wants to have technology processes faster and more convenient. You might have noticed how effectively voice search resolves your web search query in comparison to text search.
What Is Voice Search and How It was introduced
Back in 2011, Apple launched the Siri Intelligent personal assistant which is available in different languages, and takes orders from users via voice command wherein Voice search was introduced to the world.
Voice search is the newest frontier and nowadays becoming more and more commonplace.
Voice search has capabilities to evolve the industry and we really love it. Being a professional SEO services agency, we believe that voice search is vital to your SEO strategy and you must include it sooner than later.
In recent years people have gradually adopted voice search in the USA.
As per statistics, 50% of all searches will be via voice search by 2020 which shows that voice search is here to stay for the long run.
We anticipate that this will continue to increase, therefore we advise our valued customers to optimize their websites for voice search along with doing other SEO activities to be on top of the search results for their important business keywords.
Here Are Some Proven Ways to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search
1. Website Speed Optimization
We have optimized hundreds of website pages for Voice search this year.
The study says that the average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds (52% faster than the average page). This means that Page Speed plays a significant role in voice search SEO.
See the screenshots above, the page loads in less than 4.6 seconds. The keyword “herbal tea” for that website is ranking well on Google.ca using voice search.
The keyword has a search volume of 1600 per month which is not bad at all.
We suggest you review your web pages to resolve any loading speed issues. Gtmetrix is a great tool that can help you to improve your website speed effectively.
2. Voice Search Queries Are Conversational And Longer
Optimizing your website for voice search is a bit different than traditional SEO.
Based on reports, 22% of people use voice search for finding local results.
Also, Google has disclosed that “near me” searches have grown significantly over the years.
Typically when you use the computer to find any information on the web, you prefer to use short phrases to save physical effort.
E.g. “Best restaurant in NJ”.
On the flip side, you will probably use long-tail queries when you have an option to find information via voice search.
For E.g. “Which restaurant serves lunch near me?”.
Don’t get confused between voice search queries and long-tail phrases. Voice searches are most likely to have longer question phrases.
Keyword research tools might not be able to help you to find phrases that people use on mobile assistants.
Credit: Search engine watch
So you need to identify what your potential customers are searching online using voice search/voice assistance.
In order to find relevant text-based queries, I recommend Answer the Public tool.
You need to enter a keyword, it will show you a bunch of questions that you can utilize on your web pages to optimize for voice search.
If you want to use other tools to find similar voice search phrases that your customers might be using, I would suggest Question Samurai and StoryBase.
With the help of these tools, you can get a better understanding of the shopper’s mindset and implement them in your voice SEO strategy.
3. Answer length does matter a lot in voice search SEO
Google prefers short and to-the-point answers to voice search queries. A case study from Backlinko says average voice search result was about 29 characters.
Furthermore, keeping answers short and precise helps you to get a place in featured snippets which can help you increase CTR and boost keyword rankings.
4. HTTPS and SSL Integration
As per statistics, 70.4% of Google Home result pages are secured with HTPPS. It clearly shows that HTTPS websites dominate Google’s voice search results.
Moz is the biggest name in the SEO industry when it comes to selecting the right SEO tool for your website. It tracks thousands of keywords a day.
You will be surprised to know that the keywords they track for websites that are in the top 10, 79.8% are secured with HTTPS.
As matter of fact, HTTPS is the nitty-gritty of SEO strategy.
There are lots of other advantages of installing SSL. If you’re running an eCommerce website – discuss with your Woocommerce development company to confirm if you really need an SSL.
Moreover, websites with SSL configuration would get an extra boost in voice search SEO.
5. Use schema markup data
Do you write thorough and useful content for your target audience?
Well, the search engine sees lots of other factors to determine page relevancy and rank your web pages in the SERP, and schema markup data is one of them.
Schema markup is also known as structure data which doesn’t just help to improve your keyword ranks but can give you an extra edge over your competitors.
Any web designing and development company that has a team of SEO professionals can help you to optimize web pages for structured data.
This one is an underutilized strategy because it requires coding skills to implement on your web pages so SEO guys will not do this on their own.
It’s specifically designed for search engines so that it won’t appear on the website to your website visitors.
Want to see an example?
The following Metadata will help you to organize your contact information on search engines:
Also, you can use schema markup data to create well-formatted visually appealing results on search engines.
See this screenshot, you might be wondering how this microdata is relevant to voice search. Right?
When users search for any local businesses, they often look for business hours, contact information, direction, and that kind of information.
Therefore you should use microdata to classify this information on your web pages.
6. Claim Your Google My Business Listing
As we know voice search gives more preference to hyper-local queries.
Listing your business on Google my business would make this job easy for your customers.
It allows you to add information about your local business like business name, phone number, address, category of your business, operation hours, images, and more.
Choosing the right category of business is more important during creating my business listing.
You should select the categories that your business is associated with, not the products or services you’re offering.
For example, If you’re a Photography Company – you can select photographer as your business category.
That would be great if you add a business pitch that allows about 400 words and uploads high-quality pictures to persuade visitors to click on your website.
7. Get a Mobile-friendly Site
Typically voice searches happen on mobile devices. So it’s crucial that your site provides the best viewing experience on different sizes of mobile devices.
In order to check whether your web pages are designed with Google’s responsive guidelines or not, we suggest using Google mobile-friendly testing tool.
If everything is fine on your page, it will show you the message “Page is mobile-friendly”.
On the flip side, Google will recommend necessary steps to be taken on your web page to make it responsive. Contact your Magento development agency if you need to update your pages to make them 100% mobile responsive.
8. Create Blog Posts Answering Your Consumers’ Questions
There is no doubt FAQs pages are performing well in voice search.
Though, we would not suggest you stop your efforts to just creating FAQs.
First, you need to find out what your customers are searching online using voice search.
You can find common questions or phrases by conducting a survey or you can use the tools that we have suggested above in section 2.
Creating blog posts and answering common questions of your customers will not only help to increase the chances of appearing your business higher in voice search but will also help you to increase the number of leads/sales.
This is why it is important to have a blog on your website.
Conclusion
You might be aware that SEO techniques that were working well in 2016 are no longer working in 2018
The reason is quite simple. Google wants to make its search result more accurate to provide users with the best info and that’s why we see frequent algorithm updates.
We can at least say voice search is here to stay for many years to come. You need to incorporate voice search in your SEO strategy if you’re still using obsolete SEO techniques.
Speak to your potential customers & use relevant tools to collect their voice search queries and start creating useful content based on them.
