Voice Search – 5 Tips to Optimize a Website

Voice search is more conversational than the typed search. Generally, we talk differently than we type. For example, if you are looking for Mexican food, you’d probably type Mexican restaurants near me’, but if we are speaking, you would most probably say where can I get Mexican food’. Now, search engines are picking up on this trend and making a conversation with you using voice search.

The onset of voice search has brought some interesting changes to search engine optimization (SEO). These changes have had online marketers talking and wondering what the future holds for SEO. A research by Wesley Young shows that in 2015, overall search volume jumped from 0% to 10%. These were searches done by voice search commands. These numbers have skyrocketed ever since. This means voice search will be the leading way for consumers with varied queries.

What It Means

One thing for sure is that SEO is here to stay with us. Voice search only emphasizes its importance and what marketers need to do is to adapt this new trend. Here are five excellent ways to optimize for SEO and Voice search.

1. Use Microdata/Schema Markup

One of the largest evolutions in SEO is Schema Markup. It is very powerful but least utilized form of SEO today. Once you understand how Schema works, you can boost your website in the search engine result pages. Schema Markup is a code or semantic vocabulary that you insert on your website to help the search engines to provide more informative results for online users. It can be compared to rich snippets. It’s simply what enables search engines, online users and web crawlers to understand the contents of your site.

2. Use Long-Tail Keywords

These are the famous three or four keyword phrases are specific to whatever you are promoting. Customers use highly specific phrases for what they are actually going to buy. Long-tail keywords are very essential for businesses that want their content to rank in organic Google searches, but they are even more valuable for marketers running paid search campaigns. When you bid on long-tailed keywords, the cost per click is lower because there is less competition.
Many typed searches are short phrased but voice search queries are usually long in form. They are very specific and account for over 70% of all search questions. This is a very powerful tool for marketers because the phrases are specific and customized.

3. Have a Google My Business listing account

This account will make it easier for search engines to locate your business and identify with it. This makes it easy to be found by Voice search and SEO. All you need to do is put all the necessary information about your business in the business listing. This would include your address, location, contacts and business name. It will help the search engines to rank your sites in the local search.

4. Optimise for Mobile

Research has shown that about 75% of people who search using their Smartphone have actually made a purchase. Most people are using mobile internet services compared to those that use other internet devices. It’s therefore important to make sure that your business in mobile-friendly.

This is a device that people are using for both online activities and voice searches. You can use Google Mobile-Friendly tools to enhance the performance of your pages.

5. Use Question Phrases In Your Page Content

Research done by Search Engine Land, shows that they have been a remarkable growth in the use of conversational question keyword phrases over the years. Question phrases like who, what and how perform extremely well. Put your audience first when creating your content. Understand the language of your visitors and include them in your conversational question phrases. This will go a long way to improve your SEO and voice search.

The Future of Voice Search

Good news. The same SEO great practices that are used for a website also apply to help your pages to be optimized for Voice search. So the same guidelines apply:
1. Create a responsive website
2. Make it load quickly
3. Use text over images because search engines don’t translate images.
4. Make text easy to read

As an online marketer, you must adapt to these new trends and customize your content to please your audiences.