How Voice Search Will Impact Your SEO

By March 2020, 80% of the teens and 50% of the adults will already be using the voice search. Voice search has evolved into something that once seemed like a distant dream. Now, people can talk to Google and get their answers delivered on their mobile and computer screens within seconds. With frequent updates from Google and other search engines, the accuracy has increased, and so has the search engine’s ability to catch the voiced query and enhance the search result. The recent update on Google and other popular search engine platforms has not only improved the search results but also adapted to latest technological advances like voice search.

What is Voice Search SEO?

Voice search is an accessibility option available for users where they can speak their queries into a device instead of typing the keywords for generating the results. This feature uses audio technology and speech recognition technology to grasp what a user is saying. Once the integrated tools detect the voice with extreme precision, the search engine delivers the results to the users. Though this might sound like a brand-new concept, the voice search feature has been around for a long while.

But over the last few years, the voice search has become more of a trend and more and more people are expressive. There are programs like voice dialing and speech-to-text which have added great identity to voice search facilities. Not only are specific devices getting optimised for voice search, but many websites today are considering it for enhancing the traffic and achieving better Google rankings.

Voice Search SEO: Why is it Trending?

As the recent study of Google trends reported, the voice search ability has taken a significant percentage of all the searches made across the world on Google. This mainly happened due to the integration of artificial assistants like Apple, Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and Bixby. All of these voice assistants help the users with various queries that are made through speech, and not after typing the question down for search results. These AI assistants are getting significantly used by people all over the world because speaking is more convenient and less time consuming for the majority of people. Hence, in the future, it the voice search that is going to take over the current standard form of web browsing.

Today, voice search has become a common thing, and its user base is only growing. Since Google has already announced that voice search is the fastest growing trend in the year 2018 and 2019, and they are going to invest heavily to enhance the overall response rate, and increase the accuracy of both voice detection and search results displayed on the web. As more and more gadgets are adopting voice search and relying on the voice of the speakers, the website owners and online businesses are also waking up to the importance of voice search SEO. One of the Google studies reported that by March 2020, 80% of the teens and 50% of the adults would already be using the voice search.

Tech Giants are investing heavily in these types of technologies that have immense potential for growth in the future. The digital assistants have become a trend, and they sure seem to have better opportunities in the future. With evolving technologies, the companies are adopting means to reduce the error rate with voice search results and working towards enhancing the user experience with voice search SEO.

As a digital marketer, online businesses and companies relying on visibility over the internet should start appreciating the importance of new SEO trends. This will help them avoid falling by the wayside in the future if your business needs to implement an SEO strategy for better target reach, its high time to incorporate the voice search features. This will not only capitalize on the total number of people using voice technology but also assure more growth and visibility to your business.

Voice Search SEO Technology: How Does it Work?

Doing a voice search on Google and another search engine platform is more accessible than typing the query or topic keyword on the search box and hitting the search button. With voice search, all you have to do is click the small microphone icon located at the right corner of the search bar, and you’re all set.

Once a user has clicked the search icon, they are given a few seconds to speak their inquiry. All Google needs from the user is clear voice expressed through the microphone. Clear the sound; better would be the accuracy of search results. Upon hearing the user’s query, Google gets what they’ve been looking for and displays the answer over their phone screen. It should be noted that the voice search SEO works that best when the query is made in the form of a question.

How Voice Search Impact Google Rankings?

Voice search has a significant effect on the overall ranking because it drastically improves the user experience. As analysed by Google algorithms, 50% of the search made on Google will be made with voice search. Given the increasing use of voice search among youth and teenagers, Google and other search engines are considering and emphasising more on voice search optimisation. Since the primary purpose of SEO is to rank the websites as per the ease of use and the availability of informative content, Google considers voice search as a primary action towards providing the better user experience. Last year, the average voice search made on Google reached one billion per month. But it’s important to know that both voice search SEO and traditional text search SEO have advantages of their own. Hence, businesses should look forward to including both in their content.

Why Do Online Businesses Need to Adopt Voice Search SEO?

With voice search, the online businesses and websites become capable of providing the answers which today’s users require. Once they offer the users what they are looking for, the traffic to their site and landing page increases. The users today are hungry for faster response to their search queries. They need faster answers, more relevant solutions, and better accuracy. The voice search SEO technology serves the need of such users as it is becoming an attractive alternative to typed queries made over the web.

If you have experimented enough with search engine optimisation with specific keywords, and you want to add more traffic to your online business, it’s high time you leverage the voice search. Apart from helping your website to rank higher on the search result pages, the voice search SEO will also improve the user experience, which will help you retain the visitors and make them visit your website more often. One of the critical signals which Google is using for website ranking is the user experience. And if adding voice search SEO can help your website achieve the ranking your desire, then why shouldn’t you incorporate it? Given how Google is taking every measure to make the web more compliant with the voice search, it is not tough to foresee that websites with voice search integration will better more preference than those which lack it.

Voice search users look for results which are faster. Voice search optimisation is reducing the signals and issues like high bounce rates. While the companies offering artificial intelligence assistance solutions are making considerable developments on the existing digital assistant technologies, one cannot deny the truth that all these tools are becoming more defined agents of voice search results. This is one area of AI which is going to have great developments until it takes over the traditional method of browsing over the web. These advances mean that the website users will find speaking more convenient than typing. Hence, as a website owner or online business company, you sure need to accept the need to capitalise on the immense benefit this technology is going to present for your business.

In short, it’s smart to leverage the voice search SEO services because it offers excellent potential and immense scope for online businesses. It’s time to optimise the web content for voice-based searches. If you want to leverage the maximum benefit of voice search technology, our first advice would be to start early. Don’t sit back and postpone it as one of the many things you wish to do in the future. High chance that your competitors are already using and capitalising on this technology. With so many people using Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, there’s no denying that the conversational search is going to become the future of the internet search.

What are Strategies One Must Adapt to Capitalise from Voice Search SEO?

With voice search becoming common among the web users, optimising the website and your web content will help you gain immense traffic and also get a higher position on the Google ranking charts. So, here we have presented you the best of the strategies which you must adapt to capitalise from voice search SEO.

1.    Long-Tail Keywords

With the changes in Google algorithm and frequent updates by the search engine, the short-tail keywords seem to have diminished importance. People searching the web have specific questions and them often for longer sentences when speaking over the microphones. With voice search options, users don’t use the same phrase as they did when typing on the search bar. They ask direct, specific, and longer questions to get more relevant answers.

Hence, it’s where the long-tail keywords found their importance. The conversational search is likely to decrease the prominence of short-tail keywords and increase the prominence of long-tail keywords. So, businesses should focus on such keywords to increase the visibility and the chance for the landing page to get a higher rank on the result pages.

2.    Create Content With an Intent to Answer the FAQs

With conversational search engine optimisation, the frequently asked questions should be given more importance. The content must prioritise answering the sentences that start with who, what, how, where, when, whom, and what. The FAQs must be conversational since that way the results which will appear on the results pages will answer the questions directly.

3.    Focus on the Questions Which Users are More Likely to Ask

Now that most of the people look up to Google for every piece of information, it’s essential to align the content accordingly. Once you have an understanding of the queries which your target audience is likely to have, makes sure you curate your content by the questions they are most likely to ask. The focus must of offering a concise and clear answer, as this will help your website to rank better. The centre should not only on the long tail keywords, but the attempt should be offering the user exactly what they have been looking for. So, the third basic strategy for better ranking is curating the content around the common queries of the web users.

4.    Content Should Have an Informal Tone

Indeed, the online business writes blogs and article to generate traffic to their website, but it’s equally important to offer good content to the readers. Since the voice search is not direct unlike the text search, you must consider how people speak when they want to know something. Content should be developed around that only, it should match the tone of the people, but most important things is to have an informal tone. This will get you a lot more traffic and help achieve better Google rankings too.

5.    Try Out Voice Search SEO

The best way to learn how the search engine optimisation works with voice search is to try out the feature yourself. You must play around the results after voice search and find out how the results are displayed and what is making your competitor rank higher on the results page. You’ll also get an opportunity to have a better understanding of the keywords, phrases people are using to search, and the informal tone of the content. There are so many options to make the best of voice search SEO, and trying it out is one of the most straightforward steps to begin from.

More Tips for Voice Search Optimization

When a user searches with their voice, they are hoping to complete an action. For example, purchase a product, play a song, book a room, and reserve a seat, or find information on a specific subject. Below are some more tips that will help you get better search engine ranking and make your website more accessible for voice-search.

1.    Make Sure the Website Loads Quickly

Same as it is with the text-search engine optimisation, the Google voice favours the website which loads more rapidly on the web pages. Hence, the first most important should be to make sure that there is nothing that makes the site less-responsive and hinders quick loading. Ensure that the website works equally well on mobile devices. For a better response rate, don’t forget to optimise the images, compress the files, and add other tasks which speed up the website. You should also utilise the website caching feature which improves the page speed and reduces the server’s response timing.

2.    Write How You Speak

When a user makes Google search on their phone and desktop, they write in short and informal tone and usually put the bullet-pointed phrases. For instance, if a user wants to find great application developers, he will type ‘top application developers.’ But with voice search, he is likely to speak ‘who is the top application developer around me?’ Hence, to make sure that the content is optimised as per the voice search SEO, make sure you add the long-tail keywords also. These keywords sound snappier, shorter, and they are more common than others.

Don’t include fancy words because voice searches are typically done in the language of a person at grade nine reading level. So, although your website offers specialised services and high-level information, make sure the content has keywords with easy to understand language and commonly used phrases for anyone to comprehend. Although short phrases are still in the tread, the long-form keywords have a better chance to get higher ranking on both the traditional SEO and voice search SEO.

3.    Include Featured Content Blocks

As per the Google records, the average voice search is about the length of twenty-nine words. Though we know shorter answers are likely to perform better, there is something you can do to make sure google identifies your responses to users. We are talking about the featured blocks of content. A featured block also called as the quick answers, answer box or position zero is mainly the summary answer from the web. In desktop search listings, this kind of snippet appears after the paid ads and before the regular listings.

Hence, to optimise your content for a featured snippet, make sure to include a short and concise summary of the main content. This content should not be longer than thirty words and should fold within twenty-nine words.

4.    Focus on the Local Search

As per the Google search engine records, more than 25% of the voice search queries are about location-based content no matter you manage a restaurant, a hospital, or it is a reservation for a family outing, route to a particular destination, travel bookings, etc. This is the reason why ‘near me’ phrase has become the most asked and typed phrase in the last two years. Therefore, the brands will have a greater chance of visibility if they produce the voice search content that is centred towards providing answers to location-based queries.

Can You View Your Voice Search Ranking?

Voice search serves the purpose of increasing conversions and brand awareness. The Algorithm of Google doesn’t allow the website owners to see their ranking until now, but as this feature continues to have an expansion, the day isn’t far when you’ll have a separate metric to measure the voice search histories and view the voice search ranking. As of now, the answer is no. Until then, our best advice would be to optimise the SEO and voice search SEO using the practices mentioned above. Eventually, you’ll be able to witness more traffic on your website and view detailed reports that will show the sweet fruits of your labour.

Final Verdict on Voice Search SEO

Tech Giants are investing heavily in these types of technologies that have immense potential for growth in the future. The digital assistants have become a trend, and they sure seem to have better opportunities in the future. With evolving technologies, the companies are adopting means to reduce the error rate with voice search results and working towards enhancing the user experience with voice search SEO.

Given the increasing use of voice search among youth and teenagers, Google and other search engines are considering and emphasising more on voice search optimisation. Apart from helping your website to rank higher on the search result pages, the voice search SEO will also improve the user experience, which will help you retain the visitors and make them visit your website more often. One of the significant signals which Google is using for website ranking is the user experience. And if adding voice search SEO can help your website achieve the ranking your desire, then why shouldn’t you incorporate it?

In conclusion, it’s smart to leverage the voice search SEO services because it offers excellent potential and immense scope for online businesses. It’s time to optimise the web content for voice-based searches. If you want to leverage the maximum benefit of voice search technology, our first advice would be to start early. Don’t sit back and postpone it as one of the many things you wish to do in the future. High chance that your competitors are already using and capitalising on this technology. With so many people using Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, there’s no denying that the conversational search is going to become the future of the internet search.

Aviv Digital is one of the best and leading institute providing digital marketing courses in Calicut. We offer a wide range of globally recognized certification programs which includes SEO Training, SEM, SMM, Email Marketing and Inbound marketing course. For more details, Contact us at +91 8156998844.