Posted by Have you set up voice search on your online business platform?
If it’s yes, then you have done a great job to get more customers already. But, that’s just a step towards innumerable milestones yet to achieve!
As per some of the statistics,
- Google CEO, Sundar Pichai told that over one-fifth of the Google queries are voice searches.
- As per research by Techcrunch (2019), 66 million Americans now have a smart speaker of which 75% (Study by Brightlocal) of the total search for a local business every week.
- In a study done by Voicelabs, voice search ranked third place in the list of SEO Trends for 2017 and beyond.
- In all age groups that use smartphones, the highest percentage of 71% of mobile personal assistant users were of 18-29 years of age group. This survey was carried out by Thrive Analytics.
With all the jaw-dropping statistics listed above, you must be pondering over the fact that is voice search supposed to be the future of search and engagement?
Well! The below stats will provide you with the exact answer for it.
The above graph would have made it clear to you the importance of voice search in your business. To say, in particular, it is crucial for the SEO strategy you utilize it for conversion and engagement.
So, to begin with, we have sorted out the top-notch ways in which you can optimize your content for this trending search method. Let us understand how the Google algorithm is affected by voice search and how you can excel it.
The Update by Google
Updates like Google Panda and Penguin weren’t that awakening as compared to what the Hummingbird update did. It was the first of its kind in all updates released by Google that analyzed the intent of the user to give results.
What was so special about this update?
- Well! Before it, people used to enter only keywords in the search bar with no assurance of getting answers related to exactly what they wanted.
- With the Hummingbird Update, you can search for anything using your origin language (syntax and words) for which Google will provide you answer using Natural Language Processing (NLP).
But, how did hummingbird update promoted voice search?
- Without the update, you would have to search for theatres playing a movie Wonder Woman just by the keyword, ‘Wonder Woman’, and filter out the results for yourself.
- With the update, you can directly search for, ‘Show me theatres playing Wonder Woman nearby’ in your conversational language and get exact results in one go.
Interesting, right!
How can it help your business?
- It added ease and speed to your search. Based on the voice search of the user, the Google algorithm also learns about the search pattern, voice texture, behaviour, interests, accent, and more of the user.
- Using the semantics enhances the user experience on your online platform.
- For your business, web content optimization to voice search is thus crucial to rank and grab the attention of your users for more traffic.
So, how do we optimize the content for voice search?
Start by learning the kind of voice searches the audience perform.
Conversational and Long search
With the end of the hustle of typing into the search bar, people tend voice search for queries in a conversational tone and long sentence and not just a keyword.
For instance:
While searching for dining places near you, if you search on your computer, you will be searching with a keyword, ‘Restaurants near me.’
But, with the voice search, you will search for, ‘Which restaurants serve the best breakfast near me?’
Your voice search had more words than the keyword search on your computer which was more of a computer language.
Now, there’s a loophole here. Avoid committing the mistake of optimizing your content for long tail keywords. This is due to the reason that voice searches mainly have question phrases in it.
As per a study done by Campaign, text search queries are short and voice search queries are long. Voice search queries are characterized by question and mostly start with who, what, when, where, why, and how.
How to use this characteristic for your business?
- Optimize the keywords that the audience use to search for your product, service or business.
- Start your research with the tool, Answer the Public that will help you understand the kind of questions people ask related to a particular keyword. It will help you give a perspective of the thought process of your customer’s mind.
- Storybase and Question Samurai are two other renowned tools that will help you to pick natural language phrases with which you can interpret the user’s mind.
- A user in the research phase uses ‘what’ and ‘who’ and in the purchasing stage uses “where”. So, this will give you an idea on how to lure the customers towards your platform and increase engagement.
Local content marks up to be 22 per cent of all voice queries
Brightlocal Study (2018) concluded that 58 % of people use voice search for finding local information in the year 2017 which may have shot up till this year.
- With over 50 per cent nearby searches resulting in-store visits, you can gain a lot more growth in your business with the right keywords in your SEO Strategy.
- Use landmarks in your content or keywords including the same so that people can be redirected to your business with it.
- Include ‘Near me’ in anchor text, meta descriptions, internal links, title tags.
- Use phrases in your content everywhere that people use to describe your surroundings.
- Incorporate the same of the institutions that are relevant to your business.
Users Are Attracted To instant Results
- From teens to adults, voice search queries are used mainly by these age groups for all information.
- For this, you should have a good number of positive reviews on your business listing with updated office hours, contact details, physical address, and others
Some other strategies that would help you optimize your content are listed below.
Tip 1: Google my business listing
As we saw in the above-listed statistics that voice searches include a higher percentage of local business searches.
Google my business listing is the best way to let your customers know about your presence in their nearby location. Queries with ‘near me’ offer a result of Google my business listing based on user’s location.
For example:
Voice searches like, ‘Food delivery in Detroit’ will make your business appear in the search results if you have optimized your site for local keywords.
Voice searches like, ‘Food delivery near me’ will present you result of Google my business listings.
That’s how Google algorithm works in each case.
To avail results from this technique,
- Make sure that all the information provided in your business listing is true and accurate.
- Put up a clear cut introduction to describe your products and services and upload some high quality pictures to invite more visits to your store.
Tip 2: Mobile-friendly site
The percentage of voice searches is highest on smartphones. Thus, a mobile friendly website is mandatory.
You need to design your website as per the reading habits of the user for more engagement. Take a look on the reading pattern of multiple users in the image given below.
To make your website friendly for a mobile user, use short sentences, small paragraphs, simple words, lots of white space, and attractive sub-headings.
Another factor that affects mobile-friendliness is website loading speed. It is the first interaction a user gets on your website.
Your website loading speed should be lightning fast as it is the main factor in enhancing the user experience on your website. Check for the same with tools like PageSpeed Insights.
This tool will provide you with a waterfall graph and content breakdown to offer you detailed info about which parts on your website are affecting the website loading time.
Fix the speed and design of your website with all the information you get.
Start testing your website with Webpagetest.org to exactly know what elements are creating a delay in the loading speed of your website.
To check your website for the same, you can use tools like Google Mobile-friendly Test.
Tip 3: Create Blog Posts That offer answers to your customer’s questions
Pay attention to the words users use in a voice search. Collect their mostly used questions and phrases and create answers for the same in your blog posts.
Don’t write the answers to your customer’s queries to a FAQ page on your website. Instead, create informational content in the form of blogs that will optimize your content for voice searches.
Tip 4: Utilize Structured Data
It is the information that you provide in the meta descriptions that is the information on your website. It is not visible to the user, but it helps search engines to organize and classify your content. It may not affect the ranking of your page directly but still is a great point to pay attention to.
Conclusion:
It’s hard to predict the future of voice search. But with the pace it is trending, it’s going to affect SEO trends largely. Businesses can take great benefit by using it in their business and can give tough competition to their competitors in the market who are not utilizing this trend in their SEO strategy. So, incorporate voice search optimization in your SEO strategy and jump on the voice SEO ship for the speedy growth of your business.
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