Voice search is increasingly growing and changing the way people do local searches. According to DataReportal’s Digital 2021: Global Overview ReportOpens a new window , 45% of internet users used voice search or commands between December 2020 and January 2021. Studies further show that voice search sales are projected to hit $40 billion soon. However, have you optimized your content for voice search?
Voice search is becoming popular worldwide as it is more convenient to talk than type. The explosive growth in voice assistants and smart home devices such as Alexa over the last few years is an indicator of this trend. Ironically, only a small percentage of local businesses are optimized for voice search. Without voice search optimization, the chances are that customers are not even noticing your business.
Here are a few tips to help you optimize and increase your chances of appearing on voice search.
Learn more: Hyperlocal Marketing Strategies: How To Use Social Media For Better Customer Targeting
1. Optimize Content for Voice Search
When people use voice to search for a particular business or offering, it is slightly different from how they do a query on their laptops or mobile devices. People ask long and specific questions when using voice search instead of just typing in a quick query. They also use phrases that include questions like who, when, where, and how.
For example, instead of saying “restaurants around meâ€, people tend to ask, “Alexa, what are the restaurants within 2 miles†or “Ok Google, show me the nearest restaurantâ€. Hence, you should create content such that it addresses the user’s question. Here are a few tips to optimize for voice queries:
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- Use conversational language to answer the question.
- Besides being conversational, optimize your page for local keywords. This increases the chances of appearing high for local search results.
- The content should act as a direct answer to the specific question. According to SEMrush’s Leveraging Voice Search for Local BusinessesOpens a new window study, the average length of a response to a voice query was 23 words. The longest answers were 41 words long.
- Optimize the content for user intent. Gone are the days where you used a whole bunch of keywords. We are in the age where Google understands the user’s intent behind the query to a good extent. Hence, optimizing your content to address user intent is necessary to rank higher on search results.
2. Use FAQs and Featured Snippets
If your website does not already have an FAQ section, you may want to create one. You can either create a simple FAQ section within one of your existing pages or an entirely separate page. This section should have questions people usually ask and answers to them. Next, since voice queries use conversational language, use the same for your FAQ. To improve its performance, you can implement an FAQ schema for the section or the page. Marking up your FAQ content can help you rank for both SERP and voice queries.
Along with implementing an FAQ section, look for occupying featured snippets. You may have already come across featured snippets on the top of your Google search results. This is called the 0th spot since they rank higher than top-ranking links. Here is an example of a featured snippet.
Featured snippet
Ranking on featured snippets helps you when it comes to using smart home assistants like Alexa or Google Home. According to Google, featured snippets are particularly useful for those who are on mobile or using voice search. Having said that, keep in mind that an FAQ schema markup appropriately implemented can get you into the featured snippets section.
3. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Devices
Voice search majorly happens either on mobile devices or smart home devices, such as Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home. However, according to SEMrush’s researchOpens a new window , home assistants are mainly meant to be devices that understand voice commands rather than being used for search queries. Further, you cannot carry laptops and smart home assistants everywhere, unlike smartphones. Hence, it is necessary to optimize your website for mobile search. Optimizing your website for mobile devices works for smart home devices as well.
You can test if your website is mobile-friendly using this free tool by Google.
Mobile-friendly website test
Source: GoogleOpens a new window
Using a responsive web design helps you build your website optimized for various types of digital devices. If you are using WordPress or other modern web development technologies, they will support responsive design. On the flip side, if you need to fix your existing website, you can take specific steps to optimize it for mobile. Use the following tips to optimize your website for mobile devices.
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- Use accelerated mobile pages (AMP). AMPs are designed to improve the readability and speed of your content pages.
- Use a simple and responsive website design.
- Place content and information such that it is easier to find.
- Compress the size of your images and rich media content.
- Use large font sizes and buttons.
Learn more: How Can Local Businesses Maximize the Potential of Voice Search?
4. Take Advantage of Citations
Using citations and claiming their business listings are optimization strategies local business often overlook. There are two primary ways people may search for a local business:
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- The first way is to ask something like, “Vintage clothing shops in Austinâ€. In this case, if you have used local keywords, such as ‘The Drag’, there is a higher chance of appearing in the top few results.
- The second way to ask is, “Vintage clothing shops near meâ€. In this case, Google or other voice assistants will look for the person’s location and the business listings in the surrounding area to serve the appropriate results.
To gain an understanding of the businesses in the area, voice assistants refer to citations from trusted sources like Google. Citations are references to a business, such as a name, physical address, and phone number (often referred to as NAP). Hence, it is essential to provide these details clearly on your website and claim your business listings on the web.
Here is an example of how The Salon & Spa California does an excellent job providing the NAP details on its website’s contact page.
Contact details on the website
Source: Salon & Spa CaliforniaOpens a new window
In addition to your NAP, make sure that your business images and content are updated. Different voice assistants depend on different and sometimes multiple aggregators to deliver answers to the local voice search queries. Hence, you should ensure that your business is clearly listed and optimized in the following few places. Further, ensure that you claim your business listings on these aggregators.
- Google My BusinessOpens a new window
- Bing Places for BusinessOpens a new window
- Apple MapsOpens a new window
- YelpOpens a new window
5. Use Schema Markup
Besides content optimization, search engines look at a few other factors to establish a page’s relevance and search rankings. One such factor is schema markup, also referred to as structured data. While this does not impact your rankings directly, it can give you a competitive edge.
Schema markup is essentially metadata. Users do not see this data, but search engines use it to organize and classify your page’s content. For example, a markup on your ‘Contact Us’ page classifies the details as containing contact information.
So, how does this help in optimizing for voice search? When people search for local businesses, they usually look for details, such as contact information, operational hours, address, and directions. Using structured data ensures that Google and other search engines classify this information. Search engines and voice assistants use the schema as a tool to gain a clearer picture of a business page’s central topic and offerings. With structured data, it is more likely that your business is identified as a candidate to answer local voice search queries. If your content is more relevant to the search query, it will satisfy the user intent better.
Hence, prepare a detailed site map and submit it to Google. Further, ensure that your marked-up pages are not blocked using robots.txt.
Learn more: 4 Key Strategies to Ace Your Keyword Research
Are You Ready for Voice Search?
Voice search is growing in importance as more people can be seen using mobile devices and smart home assistants for performing local searches. Businesses worldwide are already optimizing their websites and content to stay on top of voice search results. Hence, it is high time you take cognizance and start putting specific efforts to take advantage of the growing trend. Use the tips given above to optimize for voice search, serve consumers better, and stay ahead of your competition.
Which other voice search optimization tips you need to improve your business’s ranking on search results? Do share with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .