Over the past few years, we tend to hear about voice search features everywhere. More often, we wonder whether voice search is the next big thing or not? While we shouldn’t depend on voice search all the time, content creators or digital marketers can’t ignore its importance in SEO. As per Statista, there were over four billion voice assistance tools in use in the year 2020. Google found that 20% of these searches were conducted through a voice-enabled device.
What is voice search?
Voice search is a technique that allows you to research getting specific results. Google Brain rank, a renowned voice technology, uses speech recognition technology to analyze what the researcher says. Then, Google will read back outcomes for you. More importantly, the tone of voice search is more conversational and natural. Most of the voice searches are conducted on mobile devices and are more likely to focus on local web results.
Here, the natural result implies search terms are lengthier than the text-based research topics. Generally, the voice search aims to provide quick results based on the user’s present location.
Let’s take a look at these tips for optimizing your content for voice search:
- Start with a few basics of SEO
Voice search is a vital element of SEO services. Voice search allows you to bring in new customers, increase website traffic and rank high in organic search. First of all, you should create authoritative, precise, and high-quality content to engage your audience.
You can follow these basics:
- Establish backlinks
- Create compelling and eye-catching contents for the readers
- Create a website that can meet the SEO guidelines
- Avoid keyword stuffing, include keywords within the content naturally
- Focus on conversational or longtail keywords
As noted, the tone of voice search is informal or conversational. Thus, users are bound to speak in a natural tone while communicating with a virtual assistant. For example, while having a conversation, we use full sentences (What are the best hotels in New York?). While typing on a desktop, we are more likely to use short phrases (luxury hotels around NYC).
Contemplate how audiences can speak about your industry or business to optimize blogs to increase organic traffic. Consider the following questions:
- The best ways to ask a question.
- What types of questions can people ask while looking for a website?
Here are a few tips to discover what your audience is trying to find:
- You should amend your contents by including search terms. Use terns such as – how, what, when, for, who, which, why, and so on.
- Tools like Google Search Console will permit you to detect the actual questions that are attracting users to your website
- It would be great to focus on the document questions the consumers are directly asking your entire team.
Remember: The longtail keywords can serve as a vital aspect for optimizing the process of voice search. It is ideal for incorporating shorter keywords within your content.
- Precise Answers to questions
Unlike short phrases, the longtail keywords should serve as one-line answers to user’s queries. The content you’re creating should be able to answer the queries of your readers. Voice search queries can include several questions: why, where, how, when, and what. Whenever a user enquires about a voice assistant, he/she is more likely to anticipate an accurate answer.
Create specific contents that can answer specific questions like:
- Infographics
- FAQ website page
- Blog posts
Apart from these analytic tools, you can use social media to understand your potential customers’ needs.
- Think local and mobile
Undoubtedly, voice search techniques are easier and faster than searches through texts. Speaking to your smartphone’s voice assistant can allow you to multitask while you can still search for quick answers.
As per BrightLocal study, while 56% of the voice search is done through mobile devices, 46% of the netizens are looking for local businesses.
People often use smartphones to enquire about directions or finding out the nearest corporate houses. So, if you can think about an important local angle, you can optimize your websites and posts that revolve around local information.
You can use the following tips to start optimizing for your mobile search or local business results:
- Create a mobile-friendly blog or website.
- Try to gear up your website’s loading time.
- Register your work destination with Google My Business.
- Include information such as phone number, business hours, and locations on your personalized website.
- Try to answer maximum near me queries in your blog.
- Format for featured snippets
The foremost voice search characteristics in SEO are the featured snippet, commonly known as the “position zero.”
It is a precise description of the webpage that can be seen above the search list and underneath the paid ads.
- Have a look at these tips for optimizing the featured snippet:
- Use more longtail keywords in your content initially.
- Use more numbers, H-tags, and bullet lists that can be identified by Google easily.