Doing Voice search SEO is fruitful for both small and big businesses to improve their ranking and visibility.
Imagine how easy going and comfortable your life will become if you have a personal assistant who follows your commands and gets you what you want!
Sounds cool right?
In the real world, it may be difficult to have so unless you are rich enough to hire one. But the digital world has made it possible for you to enjoy such lavishness in the disguise of Voice search assistant.
Here are the quick stats about Voice Search.
You must have heard the names like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Echo, and Bixby. These are the names of some of the major digital voice assistants. The most widely used market leader out of all these is Google’s own Google Assistant. When you open Google, there is a small microphone icon in the search box, you just need to click on it and ask your query.
These voice assistants transcribe human speech into text, analyze it, find the relevant information and show the result to you. There is no doubt that this voice search feature has made it easier for you to search for any information. This is probably one of the main reasons why it has grown popular in recent years.
Its popularity can be estimated from the fact that in 2016 there were 35 times more search queries than in 2008. In fact, according to the prediction made by ComScore, 50% of searches will comprise the voice searches by 2020.
Thus, you can say that Voice search holds a nifty future and this has made the voice search SEO necessary. Optimize your content for Voice Search to gain more traffic which makes Voice Search SEO more important.
In this article, we are going to discuss the ways in which you can do Voice Search SEO to rank high for Voice searches.
#1 Tip for Voice Search SEO
Make Your Website Mobile Friendly
According to the research by Hitwise, around 60% of searches are performed on Mobile devices. Thus, Mobile users dominate the total no. of searches.
The introduction of new features like Voice searches contributes majorly to this number. Since Voice Searches takes place mainly on Mobile devices, it is necessary to have a mobile-friendly Website.
Having a responsive design and making your website mobile friendly is the first thing to do to rank on mobile devices for both text and voice searches.
Even though your website doesn’t rank higher on the desktop but if it is mobile friendly then it may rank on the top on mobile devices. Make your website easily accessible for mobile users and easy to navigate.
Also, the loading speed of a page holds a major place in your bounce rate. If your website is slow then the user may leave your website. Whereas fast loading websites tend to have a low bounce rate. Provide the best experience for mobile users. You can test if your website is mobile-friendly or not through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
In fact, Google has updated its algorithm called ‘Mobilegeddon’ on 21 April 2015 to boost the ranking of Mobile-friendly pages on SERP.
#2 Tip for Voice Search SEO
Improve Your Google My Business Listing
Most of the Voice searches comprise local queries. According to Internet Trends Report 2016, 22% of Voice searches are intended to find local information. Thus it is important to claim and optimize your Google My Business listing.
To those who are wondering what it is, let me explain. My Business is a free platform where you can provide your business information like timing, contact details, and address. This information will be fetched from Google My Business and displayed if you search for it on Google Maps.
So, its listing is necessary for local search terms. For example, suppose if a user searches for “restaurant near me”. And if you have claimed to Google My Business listing then your chances to rank higher for such keywords will be more.
Make sure that the information provided by you is updated. Also, try to garner maximum positive reviews for your business listing.
#3 Tip for Voice Search SEO
Target commonly asked queries on Voice Search
Most of the Voice searches are Long-tail keywords and conversational in nature. For example, in a text search, a user may type “curry recipe” but in Voice search, a user will say “What is the recipe of curry?”
This is because while typing we use short phrases to save our physical effort. Whereas in Voice search there is any physical work required so we tend to use long conversational phrases.
The keyword in Voice Search is in mainly in question form. Make your Keyword strategy more conversational and identify the questions that a user may ask in Voice search related to your niche.
You can even take the help of the tool called ‘Answer the Public’. This tool is easy to use all you is to type the related keyword and it will show you a bunch of questions regarding it.
Try to think from the perspective of a user. And collect common phrases or questions to create content for them. Or you can optimize the existing content on the basis of these queries. Make different pages or blog posts targeting these commonly asked queries on Voice Search.
#4 Tip for Voice Search SEO
Add F.A.Q on Your Site
Believe it or not but your F.A.Q pages might help you in ranking for voice searches. Once you have collected the common search terms and long-tail keywords on voice searches, you can create and incorporate it in F.A.Q pages.
You can club common questions on the same pages. Find out what your audiences want what they are looking for and make a list of their queries. Then answer them succinctly.
Voice assistants look for the direct answers of the search queries for their users. So keep your answers to the point. Moreover, you can also read the present product reviews to know what your audience wants so that you can answer them in F.A.Q.
#5 Tip for Voice Search SEO
Add Structured Data to Your Website
Structured Data is also known as Schema markup is a code which is added to your website or page that gives detailed information about your content to the Search engine.
This provides easy access and understanding of your website to the Search Engines like Google and as a reward, it may highlight that information on SERP. Hence, it increases your chances of ranking higher.
Go to your Google Tag Manager and use HTML tags enforce Schema Markup on any page. Furthermore, you can submit a detailed sitemap to Google. Question schema and FAQ schema are two useful schema types that you can employ targeting quick answers. This will help to improve your ranking and gain the top spot in Voice Searches.
Also, you can test your structured data using the tool called the Structured Data Testing Tool.
#6 Tip for Voice Search SEO
Leverage your Social Media Strategy
Content with more social shares and high social engagement tends to perform exceedingly well in voice search. To strengthen your social media presence.
Share valuable and attractive content on your social media accounts so that you can get more views, likes, and shares. You can share the links of your web pages.
Strong Social Media presence helps in ameliorating your authority, makes you trustworthy and brings more traffic. It allows connecting with your audiences to know their needs. You can ask for their reviews and opinions regarding your services, this will also provide room for improvement if require any.
Conclusion
Voice Search assistants is a revolutionary invention in the field of Online Marketing. So use this feature to grow your business. After viewing its great future prospects and usage, it will be stupidity to ignore its power today. So know the importance of voice search SEO and implement it to rank high and to outflank your competition.
