2019 Voice Search Odyssey

We live in a competitive world. The internet has made it easy for anyone and everyone to open a business, a blog, or grow a social media following, and made it vital for existing players on the market to compete on various platforms, using various tools and methodologies.

To achieve success in the 21st century, marketers need to keep track of all of the upcoming trends in marketing. During the past couple of years SEO has become the center of attention of every company trying to raise brand awareness and gain a competitive edge.

However, it seems that SEO the way we know it is no longer enough. With various functionalities appearing, users are changing the way they search for and access information.

So it is up to businesses to respond to the changing needs of their customers and optimize their websites and marketing methods to fit the new trends.

One such functionality is voice search.

The idea is not new (Star Trek fans will know!) but it has gained traction only the last couple of years, mainly due to the improvements of voice recognition.

In today’s post, we will be talking about optimizing your webpage for voice search. Even if you have a strong SEO strategy in place, it is no longer certain that you will appear on the top of the SERP if you have not optimized for voice queries. The reason is simple: voice search is different than typed queries, so the results on the SERP may (and will most probably) be different than what one would get if he or she typed their question or keyword.

So, to determine the best tactics to optimize for voice search, we first need to identify the characteristics that make voice search different from traditional search queries.

Without further ado…

Most Voice Queries Are Done Using Mobile Devices

More often than not, people use voice search on the go – which means that voice search queries are more likely to be done using a mobile device.

Voice Search Queries are Conversational

Unlike typed queries, which are characterized by the use of keywords and short, grammatically incomplete phrases to search for information, voice queries are usually longer and have a conversational tone.

So, if you’d like to find coffee shops around your location, you would type “Coffee near me.” But, if you decided to use voice search instead, you would most probably ask a question like “Which coffee shops in Dongdaemun are open now?”.

This distinction in the way queries are structured is only natural, as voice search does not require as much physical effort as typing, so even if people search for something using full sentences, it will only take a second. Moreover, it is not natural to use shortened phrases and keywords in speech.

Users Use Voice Search When in Need of Immediate Assistance

Most voice search queries are done when users need immediate, personal assistance – like inquiring about a direction or making a call.

When users search for a particular company or companies within an industry, they do so because they have a clear user intent and a need for such services.

In other words, most of the time, users will search for information, but never visit the pages of the businesses that show up in the query results. Instead, they will base their decision on whether to visit a store or not (and which one to visit) based on the list of results Google provides after a voice search has been performed. This list of results includes the business’ address, working hours, reviews and the distance from the user’s location – just enough information for the user to make a decision to visit a store or make a call, without having to visit individual web pages.

How To Optimize For Voice Search

Now that you understand the main characteristics of voice let’s go over a couple of tactics businesses can use to optimize their content for voice queries.

Use Long Tail Keywords

We already discussed the way voice queries are structured and explained what makes them different than typed queries.

Knowing that when using voice search people are most likely going to use question phrases, you need to optimize your website using long tail keywords. One of the best tools to use for finding your audience’s points of interest, expressed in simple, searchable questions is Answer the Public.

It is a free tool that generates most frequently asked questions based on a keyword you type into the tool’s search box.

Below is a picture of the results we got when we searched for “voice search.”

As you can see, these questions are conversational and are likely to be used by users utilizing the voice search option on their devices. We also use Answer the Public for coming up with relevant blog post ideas that we think our audience might be interested in.

Another similar tool you can use for finding natural sounding search queries is Question Samurai.

Don’t just limit yourself to adding these long tail keywords in a FAQ page. Blog posts are a great way to connect with your audience, create trust and strengthen the customer relationship. Also, they are a goldmine for short and long – tail keywords.

Optimize for Local Content

Can you think of all the times you found yourself in an unknown district and searched for a particular shop nearby or restaurants around you?
We are sure that you are no stranger to such a scenario.

One in four voice search queries is related to local information. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as people use mobile devices to search the internet on the go – and voice search is much easier and faster than typing.

Much more important than the number of voice searches connected to local content is the user intent when they look for this information. When users search for something that’s near a particular location, they intend not only to find out about it – but also visit it. In fact, approximately half of the “near me” searches a user does in a day, end up in location visits.

That’s a huge opportunity for your business!

So, how can you use this knowledge to drive better business results?

There are a couple of things you should consider adding in your SEO strategy.

First, think about the most famous points of interest and institutions near your business location that users would most likely search for.
Second, analyze the usual reasons people search for the neighborhood where your store/s is/ are located and try to think of the most common phrases that they would use in their searches.

Third, optimize for local searches by adding your location everywhere you can: your anchor text, meta description, internal links, and title tags.

Finally, create a profile on Google My Business. Creating a Google My Business listing will help you connect to local customers by optimizing your business for “near me” searches – it is Google My Business that Google uses when people search for things using the “near me” keyword. When claiming your listing make sure that you enter the correct information, including your name, address and phone number (area code included) and that you pick the right category. Lastly, you don’t want your business JUST to appear on search; ultimately you want customers to show interest and visit your store. Put some effort into crafting a compelling business introduction (think of it as your pitch), and upload a couple of inviting, high – quality photos that will increase the chances of customers choosing you over the other businesses that appear as a result of their query.

Use Schema Markup to Gain a Competitive Edge

Remember that we mentioned users wanting immediate results as one of the characteristics of voice search?

The best way to leverage that is to use structured data. Structured data, microdata or schema mark-up (you’ll find all of those names out there) is basically metadata: data about the data present on your site.

Structured data is not your users see or something that will give a direct boost to your rankings, but it will play an important role in optimizing your content for search engines.

How is that possible?

Well, structured data requires a lot more work than other SEO strategies – so chances are, most of your competitors are not using it to their advantage. In other words, you can use schema markup to make sure that the search engines structure and classify the information you provide and show the most important information (such as business hours, address, directions, reviews and so on) at the top of the SERP. This will give you a huge advantage over your competitors who are underutilizing microdata in their strategy.

Make Sure Your Page is Mobile Friendly

The immediacy of the voice queries and the fact that most of them are done on the go, makes it absolutely essential for your page to be mobile – friendly.

To find out where you fall on the scale from “Mobile – friendly? What is that?” to “Mobile – friendly is my second name,” check if your site complies with the guidelines set by Google, using its mobile friendly test tool.

If your page complies with the set guidelines, you should get a message like this:

If that’s not the case, Google will give you a specific list of steps that you will need to follow in order to improve your score and your page.

Work on the Loading Speed

Closely related to satisfying the need for immediacy and getting mobile friendly is the site’s loading speed.

You can use GTmetrix to find out how well and fast your page loads and what chances and improvements you can make to optimize your performance.

Don’t Forget About Optimizing Your Content

When reading information on a desktop, people’s eyes follow an F – shaped pattern.

When using mobile, on the other hand, people don’t actually read the text – they just scan it looking for the exact piece of information that they need at the moment.

To make it easier for users that visit your page, you have to make your copy simpler, use shorter sentences, add more white spaces by shortening your paragraphs (“Enter” is your new best friend!) and use headings to organize the text better and guide the visitors through the copy.

Final Notes

The truth is, no one knows what’s going to happen with voice search and how soon voice search SEO will become just as big of a deal as the SEO we are used to.

However, it is more than noticeable that voice search has gained quite the attention in the last couple of years and will most probably gain even more traction as time goes by.

That’s why optimizing your content for voice queries can give you a huge advantage over your competition. Remember, the first ones to adopt a change become leaders when the transformation overtakes the industry.

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