Additionally, Google is working to upgrade its search capabilities using AI technology like MUM, which promises to make search more flexible.
These valuable insights will drive you towards the best way to optimize your site.
Let’s make sure your SEO strategy matches your clients’ flexibility and Google’s ever-changing algorithm.
How to optimize your site for voice search
Now that we know how people commonly use voice search, let’s get to work.
Making your site voice search friendly can help people find you and more importantly choose you.
How can your business take advantage of voice technology?
1. Find and use conversational keywords
As you know, short and vague keywords are the enemy of SEO.
In most cases, mid-tail and long-tail keywords are much better: the more specific they are, the more likely you are to land a customer.
Voice search goes one step further: Even long tail keywords are not enough.
Instead, you have to do it use complete sentences and questions which are normally used in conversations between real humans.
Such as, “What is the airspeed of an unloaded swallow?”
Fortunately, keyword research tools can pick up these phrases and questions very well.
Look no further Keyword suggestions from WebCEO.
Screenshot from WebCEO, April 2022
Once you’re inside the question finder, select all the conversational phrases.
Hint: They often start with the words who, what, why, where, when and how.
Good alternatives for voice search keyword research are the autocomplete and People Also Ask features.
To take your research to the finish line, be sure to also look at forums and websites frequented by your target audience.
A good example is Reddit. Find a subreddit related to your niche and check the thread titles – these are the questions your potential customers are asking.
All that’s left is to use them on your site.
2. Create a FAQ section
You often hear that having an FAQ page on your site is great for your SEO, and it’s absolutely true.
Users come with questions and you should have the answers ready.
SEO experts advise creating content that meets user needs, and it’s hard to think of a better example than an FAQ.
But the important words here are “questions” and “answers” – that’s the essence of voice search!
These questions and answers are the engines of conversational language, which we have just discussed.
Using the research from Step 1, list the questions on one of your site’s pages, then follow up with the answers.
Make them detailed, but not too long; users prefer quick answers and voice search answers tend to be shorter as well.
Screenshot from the Siri User Guide, April 2022
3. Go multilingual
You likely have a diverse group of visitors who speak more than one language.
If this is the case, you need to prepare content that they can find and use.
With voice search involved, the translation quality of your content needs to be very accurate.
You want to make sure that when Siri reads your content, you sound like a trusted and authoritative source.
We recommend having a native speaker translate and proofread your copy and content.
Also, be sure to check out Google Guidelines for Managing Multilingual Websites.
4. Claim your Google Business Profile
About half of voice search users search for local information every day.
Because voice search is so local, it’s key to make sure your voice results are at the top.
What is the best way to increase your chances in this game?
This would be the top local SEO player: Google Business Profile.
Google Business Profile Manager screenshot, April 2022
This step is essential for all brick-and-mortar businesses, voice search or not.
It’s easy and completely free.
Create your listing, fill it out with all the information you can provide, and wait for approval.
Congratulations! You have gained a powerful SEO asset.
And you can make it work even more for you by tracking in WebCEO.
Its Google Business Profile reports track customer activity and show you how visitors interacted with your site, based on the SERP.
Screenshot from WebCEO, April 2022
5. Go fast, mobile friendly
20% of all mobile inquiries are made via voice search.
If your site is not well optimized for mobile, the user journey will move away from your site and continue elsewhere. Don’t let this happen.
So what are the essentials of mobile SEO?
Responsive design. No intrusive interstitials. Short loading time. Easy readability.
Test your site’s mobile compatibility WebCEO Speed Optimization Tool.
This tool will give you a score and give you tips to optimize your site for mobile and make it load faster.
Screenshot from WebCEO, April 2022
6. Improve your domain authority
Now comes the part you’ll probably enjoy the least.
As a general rule, voice search chooses the top search result for the spoken query.
Sometimes the wizard says “Here are some options” and lets you explore the SERP.
In other words, if you want to be heard in voice search, you have to put your website on the first page of Google. The closer to the #1 position, the better.
Your best bet is to redouble your SEO efforts on all fronts, including backlinks, user experience, local search, technical issues;
Be sure to track your progress by watching your rankings grow in the WebCEO Rankings Report.
Screenshot from WebCEO, April 2022
With this tool, you can track how you rank for your voice search keywords.
Don’t miss the day when an intelligent assistant picks up a page from your site – it will certainly be an occasion worth celebrating.
7. Get featured snippets for your site
As we said earlier that voice search chooses the top search result, which includes position 0.
Being number one in organic search is no longer enough. You’ll need to aim even higher.
40.7% of voice search results come from featured snippets.
If you have an FAQ page, you’ve already done most of the work. Both featured snippets and voice search prefer short, but concise answers to user questions.
Plain language works best here: Backlinko found that the average Google voice search result is written at a 9th grade level, so steer clear of academic language.
8. Use outline markup
According to Backlinko’s own study, Schema doesn’t seem to affect voice search SEO much.
However, other sources recommend using Schema anyway.
This is because structured data helps search engines understand the purpose of each element on a page and select what is relevant to the user’s query.
Also, Google is busy developing one Property of the “enunciable” schema.. Used to mark the text on your site that you want the smart assistant to read.
We predict that Google wants Schema to play a bigger role in voice search.
The “enunciable” property is still in beta, so be sure to keep an eye out for updates and get ready to roll them out.
9. Interact with users on social networks
Oh yes, social networks support voice search too!
Voice search results usually get tons of likes and shares from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
Make sure you have active pages there and give them lots of love and care.
The more you interact with users, the more you will find yourself through a virtual assistant later on.
10. Rank your videos in search results
An informative video can provide a much better answer to a user’s query than plain text.
If you have videos to help your users, they are also viable for voice search.
Google can already isolate parts of your video that are relevant to user requests, but you’ll need to make sure your video ranks high first.
In order for your videos to rank high on Google and appear in voice search, you need to:
Long-tail conversational phrases in titles. They don’t have to be identical to actual user queries, so you can be flexible. Tutorials whose titles start with “How to” are a good example. Keywords in video description and transcript. A clickable thumbnail.
Track your videos’ Google rankings with the WebCEO Tools My Rankings report, which also captures video search results.
wrapping
Voice search is no longer the “near future” of SEO. It’s here, and it’s a competition between vendors to see who can master it best.
As you can see, it boils down to three key principles:
Researching your target audience. Observing the evolution of voice search. Continue SEO work on your site.
Feel free to use whatever is at your disposal. The support of your team, your intelligence, your intuition and your tools to carry out your plans. Go find them!
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