SEO For Voice Search Complete Guide : How to Optimize for Voice Search?

Are you still using the Google’s keyword planner to search keywords and targeting them to ranking, traffic and leads for your business? Wake up guys, it’s 2018. Look at the way people search for information online, it has completely changed over the past couple of years. Voice search is growing at a rapid pace. 

What’s Voice Search?

Voice search is an emerging trend in the world of search and as SEO professionals, we should keep eye on this. Voice search means the searches that you perform using your voice. Instead of manually typing your search into the browser on your phone or computer, voice searches are conducted with a voice assistant like Siri, Google Home, Cortana, Alexa, etc.

People are continuously using voice search on their smartphones using voice assistant features like Google Home or Amazon Echo to find products/services they’re looking for online.

Apple users are using Siri and Android users are using Google voice search frequently. Interesting thing is that the results of voice queries are also faster and more accurate than ever. The number of voice search queries is rising and many household products are equipped with voice search. In one survey it’s observed that 40% of adults perform a voice search once per day.

In future voice search will only continue to play a fundamental role in SEO. Now you can see a new type of SEO i.e voice search SEO and voice search marketing.

What is Voice Search SEO?

As the name says, it is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine when a user performs voice search on their devices.

Basically, you need to find out the terms/keywords people are using while doing a voice search and optimize your website for those keywords.

How to Optimize for Voice Search?

Now you know, what is voice search, what is voice search SEO and marketing? Now the question is how to optimize your website for voice search and be ahead of your competitors.

Here are some ways you can use for voice search optimization:

Keywords/Search Terms

As you know to target the right keywords is playing the important role in your SEO process. When you choose keywords for optimizing your website for voice search, consider the below points:

Look at What are People Searching For?

People are using voice search for a variety of searches over the internet. Most of the people are using voice searches for local content and information.

Use Of Natural Speech Patterns

As you know, there is a huge difference between the way people speak and type. When you’re searching for something through typing, you type short keywords and when you speak you’ll mostly use the complete question.

Long-tail Keywords

If we think from voice search optimizations prospective, short tail keywords are becoming less relevant. Hence you need to target the long tail keywords for voice search optimization.

Conversational Keywords

Keywords in the voice search world are long-tail conversational phrases. The searches in the voice search is basically a conversation with a virtual assistant. If you use voice search, you will probably ask a question.

Try to include the combination of keywords related to above points.

Title Tag

When it comes to voice search, it’s observed that very few voice search results contain the exact match keyword in the title tag of the pages. Hence, you should not create the individual pages for each voice search query. It will not be going to be an effective voice search SEO strategy.

Google Local Listing/Google My Business Page

If users search using the common local search phrase “near me,” the device will determine the user’s location and pull up listings from online directories like Google My Business and Bing Places for Business. People frequently use the search query for “things to do near me.”

Hence, ensure your Google My Business Page is up to date, with the correct address, contact details and opening hours listed. Choose the right categories, upload at least five photos, and put up a unique description for your business. Also, use the other ways to optimize your Google My Business page.

If your business listing is not claimed then claim it first. 

Social Media/Social Engagement Tends

As per the findings of Backlinko, “Content with high levels of social engagement tends to perform well in voice search. In fact, the average voice search result has 1,199 Facebook shares and 44 Tweets.”

Content Marketing

Linguistic Simplicity

“Simple, easy-to-read content may help with voice search SEO. The average Google voice search result is written at a 9th grade level.” – Backlinko study

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Pages

Best way to utilize those questions users are searching for is to create a thorough FAQ page that focuses on those long-tail+conversational keyphrases. Go for natural questions about the services and try to group these common questions on the same page. Most companies limit these efforts to a single FAQ page. We can create dedicated blog posts based on your customers’ questions separately.

Target Featured Snippets

It has been noticed that the content that the content ranks highly in desktop search is also very likely to appear as a voice search answer and Google Home and Google Assistant currently read out featured snippets when they answer voice search queries. Most of the voice search answers came from a Featured Snippet. Appearing in a Featured Snippet may help you rank in voice search. Hence aim for feature snippet. 

Word Count of a Voice Search Result Page

As many research and finding states that, the pages that ranking on top of Google has 2000-2500 words content on it. Same like our normal search it has been noticed that the average word count of a voice search result page is 2,312 words. Therefore, Google tends to source voice search answers from long-form content.

On Page Factors

More Emphasis On Mobile

As most of the voice searches are performed on the mobile devices, it’s become more important to optimize your website for mobile devices. Below are some important things you should consider while optimizing your website for mobile devices.

• Use a responsive design
• Optimize page load time
• Use 14 point font and buttons in the content

Structured Data Markup/Schema Markup

Schema markup, also known as structured data, is one of the factors search engines also look at besides content to determine a page’s relevance and position in their search results.

Structured data markup from schema.org is crucial for your site. Schema markup allows you to add structured data to your site, which helps search engines better understand your content. The use of microdata can give your site a local ranking boost for non-branded keywords.

HTTPS and SSL

“HTTPS websites dominate Google’s voice search results. In fact, 70.4% of Google Home result pages are secured with HTTPS.” – Backlinko study