Over 40% of adult mobile phone users search online using voice search. If you don’t know how to optimize a website for voice search terms, you’re missing out on thousands of potential visitors. These visitors are usually very targeted visitors that are looking for exactly what you have to offer.
Targeted visitors mean better conversions, so focusing on voice search SEO is a good place to spend your time and money. Continue reading this article to learn how to optimize your website to get more views from people using voice search.
What Is Voice Search?
Voice search is when a user searches for something online using their voice. They might ask, “How hot is it outside today?” or “Where do I find the best plumber near me?” and similar queries.
The result that shows up for the person that did the search is from the featured snippet of the search results. If you go to Google and do a search right now, you’ll be able to see featured snippets for almost any search you do. It is the section of the search engines that is above the number one search result.
The featured snippet gives you a little taste of what you’ll find if you visit the search page. Depending on the query searchers make, the information Google gives them may be enough to give the answer they need.
So, with voice search, you only have one opportunity to get in front of your audience — not ten. You have to show up in the featured snippet for the term you’re targeting.
Why People Love Voice Search
If you don’t use voice search personally, you might not understand why voice search is so popular.
Hands-Free
Imagine you’re trying to cook a meal, but you forget one of the ingredients. Your fingers are dirty because you’ve been kneading dough, but you still need the information. Instead of having to wash your hands, dry them, and start searching, you can simply make a voice query.
Many people use Siri. “Siri! What is the ingredient list for Grandma’s Old Fashioned Bread?” Once you make the query, it shows up, and you’re able to view it without stopping what you’re doing.
Quick and Simple
Instead of having to type in a search, review results, potentially rephrase the question, and look again — voice search makes it fast and easy. When you use voice search, only one result comes up, and it is usually exactly what you’re looking for. Using voice search saves time and brainpower.
As more people learn about voice search, more people will adopt it as a normal practice vs. taking the time to type out their results.
Perfect for Mobile
Smartphones introduced people to digital assistants, but now there are also smart speakers that help people do their day-to-day tasks. Being able to search on the go without unlocking your device can make it possible to get answers to your burning questions safely without taking your eyes off of what you’re doing since these devices read the answer to you.
Now let’s get into what you can do to start making voice search work for you.
Analyze Your Current Content
Before creating new content, you should look at what you already have available to you. You can always create new content, but you might only need to do a few simple changes to make the content you already have rank in voice search. Having an idea of what you already have will give you some ideas as you’re reading through the rest of this information.
Use Multiple Long-Tail Keywords in Your Content
Whether you’re creating content or you’re updating content, long-tail keywords are the perfect place to target voice search. These terms are easier to rank for, and they are more likely to show up when someone searches using voice search. You can work long-tail keywords throughout the body of the text, including headers.
Even if you don’t rank at the top of the search engines for the query the searcher used, you may show up for the voice searcher. Google understands long-tail keywords and is trying to return the best answer for the search vs. a bunch of different results.
To get ideas for long-tail keywords, you can look on sites like Quora, AnswerThePublic, forums, and any other place where people are asking questions and have discussions.
Use Natural Conversation Terms
While all marketers love their keyword research for their blog and Google My Business listing, sometimes it’s better to look at natural conversation. Instead of thinking in terms of keywords, think about how you would ask a question, or what you would say if you were speaking to someone in person. Speech searches are almost always longer than text searches.
Have a conversation with someone about what you want to write about and jot down some of the phrases you’re using. Use these to come up with even more things you can put into your content. You should always make sure you’re not stuffing your content with keywords, but some strategic placement never hurt anyone.
Design Your Website for Mobile
Since people doing voice searches are using mobile devices, your website needs to be designed for mobile. If you aren’t sure if your website is designed for mobile, you can use Google’s own mobile-friendly test tool to see if you’re doing things right.
Designing your website for mobile means your website should be responsive. There are so many different sizes of mobile devices from iPads, iPhones, Androids, and more that responsive design is the only way to get it right every time.
When designing your website, you need to make sure the fonts and the buttons are big enough that people can read them and use them. If your font is too small, people won’t be able to see what you’ve written and will click away. If your buttons don’t work when people try to click them, they will get frustrated and steer clear of your website in the future.
Once you have your website as mobile-friendly as possible, you should always keep a check on it. Technology is constantly advancing, and if you miss an update, your website might go down or show up oddly on user’s devices.
Make It Easy to Switch to Desktop View
Some people might want to see the desktop version of your website if you’ve opted to go with a mobile website vs. a responsive design. Make sure it is easy for people to click a link and go right to the desktop version. People don’t want to have to switch devices to see what they want to find.
Localize Your Website
If you’re a local business, you need to let the search engines know you’re local. There are things you can do beyond putting your city and state in your metadata to show them you’re local.
One of the things you should focus on right away is getting your Google My Business profile up and presentable. When you verify your address and let Google know where you are, this will make it more likely that you’ll show up in voice search when people are searching for a local business.
Another thing you can do to show where your business is located is giving photos of your business localize alt text. You might put the alt text of the image as “plumbing business in xyz, TN,” and this will give the search engines another clue where you’re located.
If you have more than one location, you should create pages for each of the locations. You also need to fix Google My Business listings for each of your locations. Putting maps on each of the pages you create for the locations is another glaring signal to search engines as to your location.
How to Optimize a Website for Voice Search – Now You Know
Now you know how to optimize a website for voice search. Having the ability to get in front of mobile users that are looking for your products and services at that very moment can allow you to increase traffic to your business greatly.
Do you need help with your marketing efforts and getting rankings in the search engines? We can help you optimize for voice search and much more. Contact us today, and we will be glad to put a strategy together for you that will allow you to experience the marketing wins you’ve been looking for.
