What Voice SEO Is Really About (and Why It Is a Game Changer)

Have you ever tried asking your friend what day Mother’s or Father’s Day falls this year but said he’s not sure? Or have you asked someone what 169 centimeters is in feet and ended up having difficulty converting? Now imagine having the same conversations with a search engine capable of giving accurate and reliable details without using your laptop or mobile.

Yes: With just your voice, one can garner all the available information in search engines using voice search optimization. So, what is voice search optimization, and why is it a game changer in today’s digital realm? Read on to know more about this strategy, and how it can help your business today.

What is Voice Search Optimization?

“OK Google, what is voice search optimization?”

Voice search optimization, or voice SEO, has become common in social media platforms and search engines where users can inquire or access information through voice commands using smart voice assistants. Some of the most commonly used voice assistants include Google Assistant, Siri from Apple, Amazon’s Alexa, and Cortana from Microsoft. Their primary goal is to streamline reliable and accurate data or content based on the command of any user.

Many experts see voice SEO will take over the global village, if not already, due to its convenient accessibility, especially with the prevalence of artificial intelligence, which made voice search queries more precise based on the user’s search history. Much like its sister text-based queries where users type in words, voice SEOs have become a norm on any device, including laptops and mobile devices. However, according to Google, recent statistics showed that the latter is the most preferred device, such as smart speakers.

For someone looking for convenience in looking for answers to their questions and searches, voice search optimization is an advantage. But how can businesses and website owners make sure they stay on top of the game with web traffic on their side?

Voice Search vs Text-Based Queries

What makes voice search SEO distinct from text-based queries? Let’s differentiate them from each other with three basic identifiers.

1. Location and Locale

While text-based search encompasses a broader reach in its query, voice search optimization prefers local proximities. This means that with voice search, the local audience is the main focus. This bodes well for searches involving products or services that are near the users. Using voice search affects what information or results that will show up in the search results page, since it often prioritizes local businesses first.

2. Mobile Platforms

Today, mobile remains the dominant voice search platform. As noted above, mobile searches depend on location, unlike text-based searches that still prefer desktop and conventional platforms. This means that the design and layout of your website should also be mobile-friendly. Otherwise, users wouldn’t bother clicking it.

3. Longtail Search Queries

Given the conversational tone of voice search, keyword phrases used in contents should be longer and conversational too. Whereas normally a text-based search ranges from two to four words, voice search queries can be a sentence long.

Benefits of Voice Search Optimization

In line with the identifiers above, it’s clear to see that voice search optimization can be advantageous to your business. In what ways? Let’s enumerate a few benefits.

Increased Mobile Traffic

Since voice search optimization is what’s preferred in mobile platforms, using it as your strategy can help increase mobile traffic to your website.

Improved Local SEO

As mentioned above, voice search queries go for location and locality, making this an instrumental factor that can improve your business’ local SEO performance.

Growing Brand Visibility

Finally, both word-of-mouth marketing and increase in organic traffic will help your brand to get a boost, thereby growing in visibility and resulting in potential new businesses.

Tips to Build an Effective Voice Search Optimization Strategy

“Alexa, how do I create a strategy for building my voice SEO?”

Experts on search engine optimization should be aware of keeping their voice SEOs up to date and competitive against other websites aiming for that sweet top spot in search engines.

When you choose an outsourcing partner, go for those with a roster of skillful SEO experts who specialize in boosting websites based on the digital marketing strategy of their clients. Most importantly, they need to be adept at managing businesses’ digital presence to generate traffic, whether through text- or voiced-based searches.

1. Use a conversational tone in your queries.

Among the top ways for your content to be top of the game in any voice-based search queries, experts recommend including a conversational tone as if you are talking to your reader. This is because voice assistants were intended to have a “conversation” with their users, deviating from the usual keywords from text-based searches.

For example, when looking for an easy recipe for baking a cookie, we usually use phrases like “easiest recipe cookies for beginners,” something not done normally in real life. However, through a voice command, users usually ask “What is the easiest cookie recipe?” which includes a set of long-tail keywords that make questions specific and fuller, providing more straightforward results.

Another version of a question with long-tail keywords that would yield targeted content would be, “What is the easiest three-ingredient recipe according to Tasty?”

2. Go for a looser, conversational tone for your contents.

On the other hand, take note that through voice search optimization, users do not usually read the results of their searches and are instead explained verbally by voice assistants. Hence, it is best to construct your content in a conversational manner that can easily be grasped by the listener.

In connection with building conversational information for voice search optimization, snippets of data also play a vital role in quick searches. This allows voice searches to provide short but meaningful sentences featured from your content and offer a brief window to the entirety of your website.

These snippets of data are also vital in linking localized content, particularly nearby businesses, that can boost web and organic traffic. It will provide a win-win situation in creating familiar content for your patrons by highlighting businesses in your area, especially in a bustling region where social media and technology are a topic 24/7.

3. Consider using a schema markup.

Meanwhile, in a more technical aspect, SEO managers can further propel the traffic of their portal through schema markup. Schema markups are HTML codes, usually invincible and harmless, found in your website that could help bots to accurately choose indexed and structured data related to the information of your content. They are composed of vital information, including reviews and contact details of your visitors, to provide them with accurate search results.

Master Search Engine Optimization with the help of Outsource Philippines Today

So, there you have it! Voice-based search queries are among the latest innovations in the information-driven global community that benefit both users and site owners, especially with the continuous prevalence of smartphones and smart-search devices where anybody can access the internet simply through voice commands.

Outsource Philippines has been among the frontrunners in providing SEO services to optimize websites and generate organic web traffic to businesses’ pages. Aside from optimizing voiced-based searches, some of the services we offer include link building, competitor analysis, basic HTML tags, XML sitemap, and keyword research. Get in touch with us today to know more!