When you are in the business of online marketing or advertising (or if you have a website where you make money), you have probably heard of SEO, an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. As you can understand, it is about getting your ads or websites seen when people search for related things. It allows the viewers and search engines to find it easily. Nowadays, searching online is not only done by typing, but voice search also arrived a while ago, and it is used more and more each day. Here comes the VSO, voice search SEO.
Definition and Importance of Voice Search
If you are making money online and using SEO techniques, you should not skip the searches done with the voice search feature. The voice search feature allows you to search a query with voice commands. The online assistants and the dialogue system have improved vastly. As a result, young people, children, adults, and seniors also benefit from easy-to-use technology. Therefore, we will understand and figure out how to get our results with voice search.
Voice search is also used on mobile devices, making it easier to search and get things done on the go. It also gives more precise answers to questions like “What is the best sneaker?” or “Where is the closest coffee shop near me?”. Long story short, making optimize for voice search is important since it differs from searches done by typing.
How to do Voice Search Optimization?
Mobile assistants and voice search optimization have become much easier to use since the launch of Siri. One thing to know before beginning is people who use voice search do it differently than typing. It is not based on short keywords and is more likely to be fully constructed questions with longtail keywords. And because of these differences, you need to do the VSO with slightly changed basics than SEO.
Whether you are selling something online or have a website that needs more views or a small business, making your website friendlier for voice search will be advantageous. This will not be hard to do if you are already familiar with SEO-compatible content. Here are a few points that you need to keep in mind.
User Intent
Since voice searches are very specific, you need to keep in mind the user intent. The voice search results are usually very precise as the information of a restaurant’s opening hours or a product’s price. To optimize while considering user intent, you should answer these kinds of specific questions about your store or products. Do not hide any information so search engines and customers can easily access your website.
You will have no problem getting a higher rank in voice search results if you think about user search intent and optimize according to it.
Longtail Keywords
The voice search marketing queries show that voice search contains longtail keywords. Make sure to include longtail keywords related to your business or what you are selling in your content. Why use longtail keywords? They are less competitive, and they answer the questions specifically. Moreover, they are the best way to catch high-intent users.
FAQ Section
Short and understandable answers to FAQs are also good because the searches are done with questions. Try to think of possible questions about your content, and make sure to include them on your page. Your answers shouldn’t be long since home assistants such as Google Home answer questions in approximately 30 words.
Getting Your Business Listed to be Found by Voice Search
Before coming to all the tips and strategies, if you have a business that you want to be resulted by voice searches, there is something you should know: Business listings.
Websites like Yelp, Facebook, and Google My Business help you with this. Your presence on these websites determines when you come upon search results. Make sure to be present and give all the needed information about your business, such as the opening hours, telephone number, website, address, and maybe even price list. Also, adding pictures and descriptions will portray a more trustable page.
The more reviews you get, the more likely your business page will appear; do not forget to ask for reviews.
Make Your Website or Business Page Compatible with Mobile Devices
As we have already mentioned, voice search is especially used with mobile devices on the go. So, if you want your page to appear on mobile search results, make sure to make your page’s design compatible with mobile screening.
Tips and SEO Strategies on Voice Search Optimization
We have cleared out the basics, but there are many more things to do to optimize in the best way. Here are a few more tips to go by.
Optimizing Featured Snippets
Let’s start by saying what a featured snippet is. A featured snippet, also known as position zero or answer box, is a summary of the searched question’s answer from a website. It appears right under the ads and before the regular results. It is a piece of the website that includes your question’s answer.
And that piece -the snippet- shows just the answer part of the page. To optimize your content for a featured snippet, include 30-word summaries of questions on your website or blog.
Improve the Loading Speed
Just like normal search results, Google prioritizes websites that load faster in voice search results. Make sure your page doesn’t have a loading problem, and use a plug-in if you need to improve it. Website speed is one of the most important features for having a user-friendly website because if there is a problem with page load speed, the bounce rate increases. Because of this reason, your website rankings can not be high. Briefly, if the loading speed is not good, this situation will create a snowball effect.
Natural Language and Conversational Language
Home assistants like Google Home, Alexa, Siri, and much more use a conversational language system when asked a question. This means if you include natural and conversational language in what you publish on your website or page, it is more likely to come up after a voice search. Again, knowing user intent will help you determine exact questions and answers.
Optimizing Structured Data
Unlike normal searching, voice search answers with only one option from the web. To take place as one of the voice search results, the main aim is to make Google bots comprehend your content. Also, making your content relevant is important. To help with this situation, use structured data – schema- markup. You can use a schema markup generator tool.
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This means identifying your website and what’s in it for the search engine’s picky bots. This will not immediately put you in the first rankings but will surely boost you. It is telling your content with small words for Google to identify. This is a bit tricky to leverage, but if you know your SEO ways, it would not be a problem.
Optimizing “Near Me” Voice Searches and Local SEO
We talked about business listings a little bit, but if you own a local business that needs to be heard, you need the attention online. Most of the voice searches are the “Near Me” questions such as, “Where is the closest hairdresser near me?”. For example, in this case, if you own a hairdresser, you want your business to show up due to this question. Being present and active on TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook, Google, and any other platform you can think of for your business to be on is very important. You must put your number, address, and a website link. The reviews and comments will help you appear on a higher rank. If you are using Google Ads, you can get help from its Location Extensions. Google Maps Local Search Ads will also be very efficient.
Getting a Google Business Listing is very important for the Near Me results. Once you get it done, try to aim for local keywords in your content to know about your business when they are near.
And to say one last time, to optimize your Google Business Listing, make sure you add all the information needed and throw in enough pictures to give the potential customers an idea of your business place.
Conclusion
We have covered voice search optimization. To sum it all up, you should keep an eye on user intent, longtail keywording, and local natural language use. The other details are also going to affect your rankings when done correctly. We tried to help you to optimize voice search in this article. Hopefully, you will manage to get to appear in the results faster.
2 Comments
Voice Search Optimization is revolutionizing how we interact with search engines. This article lays out clear strategies to adapt, making it invaluable for anyone wanting to stay ahead in SEO.
Fascinating read on Voice Search Optimization! It breaks down complex strategies into understandable tactics, showing just how crucial voice search is becoming for online visibility.