“Hey Google, how can I optimize my website for Voice Search?”
These 4 tips are a great way for digital marketers to help their websites show up as a top result for searches done on a virtual assistant or smart speaker.
Before we dive into these tips, let’s look at why optimizing your website for voice search is so important. The use of these devices, such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and the Google Home is extremely popular. 1 in 6 Americans own a smart speaker – that is around 39 million people. One main function that people use these devices for is searching the internet for businesses. 1 in 5 of the queries on Google are voice searches, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichani, and this is projected to spike to 50% by 2020.
This leads us to believe that voice searching is not just a trend. If you want your business to stay relevant and rank high, you need to start optimizing your website for voice search.
Here are 4 tips for digital marketers to implement in order to stay ahead of the competition:
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Searches
If you read our blog post about Google’s Mobile-First Indexing, you know the importance of ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly. Google launched this algorithmic update because people are viewing businesses’ websites on their smartphones more than desktops. In turn, Google is now ranking your site based on its mobile version, not desktop.
This is important in voice searching because the majority of voice searches are done on mobile devices. Factors that boost your mobile search rankings also boost voice search rankings. This brings us to tip number 2.
Optimize Your GMB Listing
Many voice searches, especially on mobile phones, are for local business information. In fact, 58% of consumers have used voice search to find local businesses in the last 12 months. This is why it is crucial that your Google My Business information is correct and complete. Google returns businesses that are not only nearest to the user’s location, but have opening and closing times, images and customer reviews.
Create Blog Posts for Your Customers’ Questions
Writing blogs that answer questions that someone in your business’ target market would ask is extremely helpful. When someone does a computer or mobile based search via typing, they usually use short phrases or keywords. However, studies show that when consumers use voice search, they use more natural language and ask questions in full sentences. Creating blogs with these long-tail questions as the title will help Google rank your site higher, and in turn, drive relevant consumer traffic.
Your website needs to load fast
Along with the consumer expectation that finding answers or search results should be easy, consumers also expect these answers to be provided very quickly. Because of this, Google recently released a Speed Update, which is now a big part of the algorithm used to rank websites.
The average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds. This is over 50% faster than the average page.
The world of search technology is ever-changing, which means the world of SEO has to be too. Digital Marketers and business owners must optimize their websites to be voice-search friendly. This is more than a trend and is only becoming more popular. Reach out to a professional now for help with these (and other) SEO tactics to make sure your website continues to rank high!
