So you’ve finally decided to optimize your content for voice search. And why not?
- 50% of all searches across the internet in 2020 will be voice-based
- 40% of adults use mobile voice search at least once daily
- 55% of youngsters are utilizing voice search consistently
- By 2022, voice-based shopping will leap to $40 billion.
Source: Quoracreative
These statistics are proof enough for you to incorporate voice-enabled experience to your application and website. But the question remains, are you reaching your audience via voice search?
Businesses have been slow to pick up on the voice trend that got an overnight push from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Like you, thousands of businesses have optimized their content for voice search and incorporated voice-enabled search.
Voice search has fewer results thus ranking on the top pages through traditional optimization strategy might not prove that beneficial. Instead, you can try these few things to reach your audience through voice search.
Here’s how to optimize your content for voice search:
1. Long-Tail Keywords and Spoken Content
The way we have a conversation differs from the way we write it. Here we are talking about how we search using a voice command so think of keywords that people would generally use when talking about your brand. Also, how would the search differ for the local and global market and in generic terms. For example, if you want to book a flight from Dubai, what keywords would you use?
- Flights from Dubai
- International flights from Dubai
- Show me best flight deals from Dubai
2. Snippets on Google’s Answer Box
If you are looking for the best answers to popular questions, you’ll find them in Google’s Answer Box. It is these answers only that are picked by Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri to answer voice queries. Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana pick their answer snippets from Bing. One way to land in these prime search positions can be by posting questions and answers in your content. Start building content around long-tail question keywords and focus on making it as relevant and specific as possible.
3. Put up your Brand Profile on Local Listings
Create a detailed profile of your brand and post it across all relevant local listing sites. This will give you a better chance of showing up for voice search for local queries. Make sure to update your listing on sites where AI voice assistants pick their data from.
4. Keep Natural Language Pattern in Mind when Writing Content
Natural Language Processing is fast catching up and even search engines are accelerating their understanding of it. The content you write should not only target strategic keywords but also be written in a way we speak. It will help the content to rank in voice search.
5. Site Speed is vital for Voice Search
Site speed is another vital factor for ranking high on voice search. Improve your site load time. The easiest way to do this is by compressing image files to a smaller size and cleaning up JavaScript codes.
6. Hearing Content
When Google finds a solution that matches the question asked, it often uses its Text-to-Speech technology to read a featured snippet or the introduction of a piece of writing to the user.
Most voice associates have modern TTS instruments, but a few words and expressions can sound odd.
So, when testing multiple voice searches, concentrate on how they read what your team wrote. This simple action can assist you in tweaking and improving the content.
7. Use Schema
Using schema (structured data markup) helps search engines find out what’s on a given page, and allows machine learning algorithms to access your data easily.
That implies increasing Google’s Knowledge Graph and figuring out how to upgrade utilizing the forthcoming Speak able markup from Schema.org, which shows areas of a page that are especially suitable for text-to-discourse transformation.
Conclusion
Today’s customers place convenience over everything else and voice is at the top of the list.
Also, the uncertain times of this pandemic have made contactless the new normal and as voice technology again is at the top of contactless, you’d do well to optimize your content for a higher reach and effective engagement via voice search.
