Voice search is becoming increasingly popular, with more and more people using voice assistants to find information online. In fact, research shows that the number of people using digital voice assistants is expected to reach 8.4 billion devices by 2024. . As a result, optimizing your website for voice search is crucial to staying relevant in the competitive market. If your website doesn’t appear in voice search results, you’ll miss out on potential users. In this blog, we’ll discuss the importance of voice search optimization and provide 7 essential tips to optimize your website for voice search.
Why Optimize for Voice Search?
Voice search is changing the way users seek information online. Unlike traditional text-based searches, voice search queries are often phrased as questions or statements in a conversational tone. For example, a user might ask, “What are some good spas near me?” or “When is the food truck festival?”. Optimizing your website for voice search can help you capture these types of queries and improve your chances of appearing in voice search results. This can lead to increased traffic, engagement, and conversions.
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1. Analyze Relevant Search Behavior
Start by examining how users interact with voice devices for search in your industry. Gather insights into:
- Frequently asked questions and commands
- Peak usage times
- Average session lengths
- Actual voice search queries and terms
Tools like Google Trends, Alexa’s Popular Queries and UberSuggest’s Keyword Ideas help uncover relevant voice search patterns. Know your audience.
2. Optimize for Natural Voice Queries
Now optimize pages targeting frequently asked questions and commands identified. Match content to real spoken voice search patterns.
Some best practices include:
- Use natural conversational language and sentences
- Focus on brief paragraphs and bullet points
- Answer questions clearly and directly
- Repeat key query terms naturally throughout
- Summarize key points at the end
Think discussion vs. traditional written content.
3. Improve Site Search for Voice
Ensure your website search capability provides quick voice-friendly results. Optimize by:
- Expanding synonyms linked to common queries
- Enhancing contextual search intelligence
- Adding FAQ schema markup to pages
- Improving site speed and architecture
This helps surface content faster when queries are spoken versus typed.
4. Feature FAQs and How-To Content
As users increasingly turn to voice for quick questions and tasks, FAQ and How-To content is prime for search visibility.
Create pages and materials that allow voice searches to:
- Hear instructions for using your product
- Check business hours, locations, and contact info
- Listen to responses to common questions
- Learn how to accomplish something step-by-step
This serves the demand for voice assistance.
5. Adapt Call-to-Actions for Voice
With voice, users take a more passive discovery approach vs. clicking and typing. Adapt CTAs accordingly:
Focus on actions someone can initiate by speaking
- For example, “Add to your calendar” or “Text me the address.”
- Avoid void CTAs like “Click here” that don’t apply
- Enable the next steps via voice.
6. Feature Dialogue and Interactions
Speech results love conversational content. Rather than writing instructions:
- Frame as a dialogue someone could read aloud
- For example, write a back-and-forth Q&A interaction
This helps search better interpret pages as natural discussions
7. Enhance Brand Visibility in Voice Apps
Finally, ensure your brand surfaces in voice app results. Proactively claim and optimize business listings on Google, Alexa and other platforms feeding voice search.
Monitor voice search performance results over time as you optimize. Voice is the future of SEO – start aligning efforts today.
Want More Digital Marketing and SEO Insights?
Check out the Pingtalks blog for the latest voice search news and tactics. We cover cutting-edge developments across SEO, content marketing, social media, and more.
