Voice search technology has revolutionised the way we use digital tech. Virtual assistants have been around for over a decade, with Apple’s Siri launched in 2010 and Google voice search soon afterwards, quickly followed by smart speakers such as Amazon’s Alexa which landed in 2014.
Every day, more than half of the world’s adults use voice search at least once to make a purchase or find specific information. According to a recent Forbes Technology Council blog by Akram Atallah, “The impact of voice search on SEO is far-reaching, with voice search assistants boasting an impressive accuracy rate, answering 93.7% of search queries correctly.”
Achieving this level of accuracy is no mean feat. When people speak into their smartphone or smart speaker they tend to use word strings that are more conversational than the short, specific word strings they would type into a search engine. Together with effective voice recognition software and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, voice search engine optimisation (VSEO) is an area that is evolving at pace.
Consumer behaviours are changing rapidly too as more web users move away from their keypads and closer to the mics on their voice-activated virtual assistants. With the rise of voice search, marketers are rushing to keep up and adapting to the changing marketing landscape to ensure their products and messaging continue to reach their audiences. Here’s how.
Voice search optimisation (VSO)– from head to tail
For anyone promoting products or services via the internet, social media or an app, the goal is to ensure your brand specific content appears high up in search results, whether it’s a text-based search or voice search. Voice-activated devices use a type of machine learning called natural language processing (NLP) to interpret and act on the instructions given by a person speaking into the device. Keywords used in voice commands are a must in your content to boost the chances of your messaging appearing in voice search results.
To maintain the competitive edge, marketers are increasingly developing digital marketing strategies that require keyword research and focus on voice search optimisation. This includes:
- Using a conversational tone in spoken and written content. Conversational language and spoken keywords tend to include longer word strings
- Targeting your content for local search will help local SEO as people using voice-activated searches are often on the move and using mobile devices and want to pinpoint local businesses in real time.
- Creating mobile-friendly websites to improve customer experience and functionality
- Using long-tail keyword phrases that include question words. These words and phrases may not be the most commonly used keywords, but are found in the ‘long-tail’ of search terms recorded by a search engine.
How to stay ahead with voice search optimisation
The future of voice search is certain and marketers are making advancements to ensure their brand’s content appears near the top of the search engine result pages (SERP). Tips on how to do this include:
Use schema markup
This is a type of structured data that you can add to your website’s HTML to help search engines understand your content. Schema markup can include information like your business’s hours, address, contact info, and pricing. You can use free tools like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to apply schema markup to your site.
Optimise for featured snippets
Voice assistants often read out featured snippets when people ask questions. and they also appear on SERPs. Developing short, 2-3 sentence, stand-alone summaries that answer FAQs can be useful as part of a search marketing strategy that will increase the chance of your content appearing as a featured snippet in a Google search.
Use conversational content and questions
Voice search users tend to ask questions when making voice commands, and often have local intent, using mobile devices to find a business or food outlet close by. Keeping content conversational and including location information will help answer these common questions and keep your content aligned with the way people search for information using voice search.
Keep monitoring your content and SEO results
Staying competitive in SERPs following voice search queries is important for any business. Regularly auditing and optimising your website and SEO strategy will help you adapt to changing search trends in line with user experiences,
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