Website Owners, Keywords, Serp’s and Voice Search?
Your content needs to be optimized for voice search. For years, website owners have rushed to stay on the topic of the changes evolving in SEO (search engine optimization).
They devour every update that Google puts out – trying to get or keep their sites ranked high in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
But many fail in one area, soaring as a current trend and turning into the new standard – voice search.
You, as a niche marketer, need to embrace voice search. Your content will be buried against the site owners paying attention to the needs of those using this method to find information.
Below, you’ll get an education in what voice search is and how you can strategically set your site and content up for success so that whenever someone uses this method, the result told to them is one from your domain.
▶What Is Voice Search and Who Is Using It?
▶Things to Have in Place Before You Become a Voice Result
▶Voice Search Results Are Delivered Based on How People Talk
▶ Create FAQ and Q&A Posts to Help Voice Searchers
▶Be Careful with the Length of Your Content. Optimize for Voice Search
▶Work on Achieving Featured Snippet Positions
▶Use Video to Deliver to Voice Search Users
What Is Voice Search and Who Is Using It?
For years, marketers have banked on users logging onto their computers, visiting Google and typing in broad or long-tail keyword phrases to find the information they were looking for.
They were so confident this would be the only method of search that they built entire websites around this SEO strategy. But then intelligent technology took root, giving consumers a new media format to search with – their voice.
This audible instruction is often tailored in a very different way than typical typing. When someone types something into a search engine, they often use one or a few words, such as keto diet.
How to optimize for voice search?
But using their voice, the search is usually posed as a question. They’re asking a smart personality like Siri or Alexa a question they want the answer to. These technologies then use databases to find the information and deliver it.
So a consumer might say, “Hey Siri, what is the keto diet?” Siri technology would search for the answer, so if your page content is structured with that whole question keyword sentence and optimized for it, it can be the answer (or in the list of results) that Siri delivers.
Where to use voice search?
People use voice search on a variety of gadgets. These include their smartphones, smart speakers, and even the speakers in their cars if they have a more modern vehicle.
Different technologies reside on various gadgets. For example, Siri can be found on iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and Apple TVs. It also offers a hands-free way of searching, so if someone is multitasking or driving, they can easily search.
Not everyone is into voice search worry about their privacy.
Only some people use the same one, too. Some prefer Siri, while others use Google Assistant, Nest and Nest Mini, Echo and Alexa. Microsoft also used to offer Cortana, but they eventually discontinued its support.
A few people refuse to have a smart speaker in their homes, such as Alexa or Echo from Amazon or Google Nest, but they have a smartphone that can achieve the same goal. So you want to be able to cater to everyone using different brands with this capability.
Get your Alexa or Google Nest here.
The beauty of these virtual voice search tools is that they use natural language processing to grasp what you want to know and provide the answers in a casual, conversational manner.
It is a convenient way to search for information if they’re busy doing something else. Still, it’s beneficial for people who have a disability or who may have mobility issues where they aren’t right beside their gadget within reach.
Not only are individual consumers using voice search, but companies and corporations have integrated it into their business world. It shows up in retail, hospitality, and even medical industries (to name a few).
Things to Have in Place Before You Become a Voice Result
Before you think you can bypass all traditional SEO in favour of a sole VSO (voice search optimization), you must understand that essential SEO still applies.
You still have to ensure that your site loads quickly, for example. This is very important for both SEO and VSO. Google is very blunt about the fact that this is a factor their algorithm uses for determining rankings.
Loading under two seconds is ideal. The faster, the better. Every second counts, and people will bounce from your site if load time takes 3-4 or more seconds. Make sure you optimize and compress any images on your site so that the file size is smaller.
Avoid using redirects that lengthen the time between the consumer searching and your content ultimately showing up on their page. You can also use a cache plugin to speed up load time.
Test your site and check if you are also mobile friendly, and optimize for voice search
The second thing you want to do is make sure your site is mobile-friendly. If you’re using a WordPress theme, check how it looks on various browsers and gadgets, not just your personal preference.
You should check the font size you’re using and see how easy it is to click on any buttons on your site. You can use a mobile-friendly test tool from Google to see if your site is in working order for mobile devices:
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
It may tell you your Viewport is not set. It means the page isn’t adaptive to different screen dimensions, where it automatically scales up or down depending on the gadget the person is using.
Other SEO factors that will ultimately help you get chosen for voice search results are using schema markup to help bots understand the content on your site, using strategic keywords and helpful content, and more.
Voice Search Results Are Delivered Based on How People Talk
The great thing about priming your content for voice search results is that you can easily understand how people look for information because it’s the same way you talk. It’s conversational and casual, using long-tail questions.
This natural language query is longer than a 2-3 word phrase. You can tailor your content for these and increase your chances of being one of if not the only result Siri, Alexa or other voice search tools deliver.
Do your research on how people ask questions, then optimize for voice search.
You want to immerse yourself in researching how people ask questions about your niche topic. You might start by brainstorming a list of questions using the starter words: who, what, when, where, why and how.
For the keto diet query, it might look like this:
➽ Who is the keto diet best for?
➽ What can I eat on the keto diet?
➽ When should I stop using the keto diet?
➽ Where can I buy keto-friendly fast food?
➽ Why do some people get keto flu?
➽ How can I create a keto meal plan?
You can also add other words like can and does – anything that typically starts off a question. You can go to Google, begin typing it in, and see the answers. If you type in…can keto, it will show you people who want to know:
➽ Can keto cause diabetes
➽ Can keto cause kidney stones
➽ Can keto lower cholesterol?
Notice that people will refer to voice search with “I” Instead of “You”
It is not a surprise that many people don’t use the word “you” with voice search; they use “I “instead.
If you need more help finding questions, some tools can deliver them. People “Also Ask” is one, and it’s built right into the Google SERPs.
For example, if you type in the phrase: survival food, it will tell you that people also ask:
➽ What are the top 10 survival foods?
➽ What foods should I stockpile for survival?
➽ What foods will be in short supply in 2023?
You can keep clicking on some of the answers to have more questions pop up. Use these to create clusters of information in your content that voice search tools will see as authoritative, comprehensive content.
You can also use a free tool called Answer the Public. (Neil Patel )
Enter 1-2 words for your search query, and it will deliver the questions people are asking. If you type in dog grooming, for example, 75 questions appear, such as:
➽Can dog grooming cause ear infections?
➽ Which dog grooming clippers are the best?
➽Why is dog grooming important?
Suppose you want to be comprehensive with your question research. In that case, you can also use forums, Reddit, and Quora (to name a few) to do some lurking and see what (and how) people are asking questions about your niche topic.
Create FAQ and Q&A Posts to Help Voice Searchers
There are two types of identical pages you might want to include in your online content – or these can be sections within content pages. Frequently asked questions or questions and answers.
They do the same thing – pose a question and deliver an answer. You want to cluster these together so that the bots can recognize the nature of this content and provide it to their users.
With a FAQ or Q&A section or page, you’re often addressing the often-asked questions, and this can be broad (such as, “What is the keto diet?”) to narrow (such as, “can a keto diet help lower my blood pressure?”).
Keep your Content up to date. That is a great start for Voice Search.
Gather the questions and ensure you’re keeping everything on the list. It would be best to organise them from the most commonly asked questions to the lesser-commonly asked ones or from broad to narrow subject matter.
Your answers should be up-to-date. If you risk something not being evergreen, you should periodically check and freshen up the page. For example, avoid having Squidoo listed as a social networking platform when it’s already defunct.
Enjoy this training Website Design Theory: Background Colors, Text Colors, and Images
Optimize your voice search with H1, H2 , H3 , H4 Tags
Make sure that for both SEO purposes and the benefit of your human visitors, you’re using H1 tags and H2 tags ( HTLM code). This helps people skim down to the question they want. You may even want to use a table of contents that is hyperlinked for quicker navigation.
Ensure to add to the page or section whenever there’s a new, relevant question to add that requires an answer from you. Updating your content is beneficial in securing better rankings.
Be Careful with the Length of Your Content
Suppose you’ve ever asked a voice search engine a question. In that case, you will have noticed that the replies are not 1,500-word responses, but quick, punchy and brief sentences – usually no more than a couple of sentences or about 45 words max.
It also depends on what the consumer is searching for. For example, if they ask for a recipe, the result may list the ingredients and the cooking instructions.
You also want to ensure your content is comprehensive, such as creating a pillar blog post – typically longer pieces. For sure, you don’t want to fill your site with short content.
So the area where you shorten it is in each paragraph, not the content as a whole. For example, if you’re creating a numbered list, a frequently asked questions or questions and answers listing, you would present the questions or numbered steps, followed by a short paragraph for each – as opposed to 400 words each.
Work on Achieving Featured Snippet Positions
By being concise and using your H1 and H2 tags, you increase your chances of securing a voice search result listing and improve the odds of being chosen for a Featured Snippet.
It is an area known as position zero. These are sections below the paid ads and above the organic search results on Google, where it’s usually some numbered list followed by a brief partial answer or explanation.
The listing will then showcase the title, URL and meta description of the listing so that people who want to know more can follow the link and gather more information about their search query.
Many experts believe the Featured Snippets are often chosen for voice search results, so if you can achieve this ranking, you’ll be killing two birds with one stone in terms of SEO benefits.
Use Video to Deliver to Voice Search Users
Text results aren’t the only media format people are looking for – or being discovered by voice search engines. Video can be used, too. You can tap into this strategy by starting with the inclusion of closed captions within your videos.
Voice Search is helping both deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors and search bots know what your content is about. Also, include transcripts of your video. You can do this yourself or use automated tools to write it.
YouTube caters to people who want to search for videos using voice search. So make sure you’re optimizing your video listing to make it easy for people to find you on YouTube, the second largest search engine next to Google.
There is no 100 % that voice search is used. Still, it’s rising in use and becoming more common for people to voice their requests rather than be tied to a gadget, typing and watching for an answer to their question.