With the conversation with voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant to use questions in search of information, optimizing voice search queries in search engine results must be emphasized. Today, our Search Engine Optimization Services in Ashburn USA, is here to inform you about what voice search is concerned with, what voice search is different from, why it is important to optimize for voice search, and how you can prepare your content for voice search.
Specifically, voice search has been in the process of gaining demand in the last few years. According to Comscore, half of all internet searches were made through voice by the close of the year 2020. Voice Assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home have also been gaining popularity.
Voice search queries have distinctly different characteristics than typed search queries:
Longer: Currently, the average voice search query is over three times as long as text searches. Whereas typed queries are typically between 2 and 3 words, voice search queries are full sentences and natural language questions of between 5 and 20 words.
Uses more natural language: Voice enables people to converse in full sentences and even ask questions. This makes voice queries more natural and descriptive than concise keyword-based typed search queries.
Can include pronouns: Such lexical items as 'they,' 'it,' and 'him' are typical for voice queries as they imitate natural human speech. Pronouns are also easier for search engines to understand with context and additional information.
May encompass multiple intents: A single voice search query may include one or more intents, topics, or even entities. For example, someone can ask: "How many years is the old man who directed Pulp Fiction?".
Require definitive answers: When people use voice search, they expect to receive brief, clear, and singular responses to their queries. Thus, content needs to be specific and organized in a way that will help answer questions asked directly.
Because the voice search share increases yearly, any company that still needs to alter its voice can now be more cutting-edge. Here's why optimizing for voice search is key:
- Most people use voice search during the micro-moments that require an immediate answer or information — so if your content gets ranked for voice, you get that highly targeted, intent-based traffic.
- Consequently, voice searches depict high buying intent — more than 40% in some polls. Therefore optimising for voice can lead to some better quality leads and sales.
- Voice searches prefer the featured snippets and precise answers rather than pinning ordinary website listings — therefore, brands that aim at voice have better chances of ranking.
- These people will become important to target as voice assistant usage expands in households at an astonishing rate.
Since voice queries differ slightly from text ones, more effort is needed to appear and rank in voice searches. Here are prominent tips:
Include relevant long-tail keywords: As queries in voice are often longer, you should add related phrases to the keyword list. The long-tail keywords can be identified using UberSuggest, SEMrush, and Answer The Public tools.
Write in a Conversational Tone: Voice query optimization should be made in the same natural language people use while conversing with voice assistant gadgets.
Structure Content in a Q&A Format: Always structure content in the form of questions and answers if possible. Make questions as headers connected with voice queries and give brief answers in the content area. The Q&A format also helps in the easy interpretation of the pages by search engines to match the pages with the related voice queries.
Include Related Entities and Facts: Entity-oriented searches are often done by voice. Possible entities include individuals, locations, institutions, occurrences, numbers, or facts. Ensure that your content contains facts/statistics and other entities associated with the typical voice queries in your niche.
Answer with Definitive Responses: Voice searchers want exact responses to questions — not URLs of websites. Thus, content has to be arranged to deliver unique, definitive answers whenever possible and as briefly as possible. Once more, using a Q&A format allows getting clear answers.
Optimize for Featured Snippets: In SERPs, featured snippets highlight the main elements from the pages that provide the most relevant information in response to the user query and include the page description, title, and URL. Today, nearly 30% of the time, featured snippets appear above organic results on the SERP. As voice searchers prefer to get direct concise answers, targeting featured snippets can be highly effective for voice search ranking.
Use Multimedia: Incidentally, integrate features such as images, charts, videos, and infographics, where appropriate. While voice assistants do not present multimedia to the user, search engines consider them when determining the context of the web page. Media elements can assist the search bots to understand pages better in a way that the pages appear for more voice searches.
Improve Site Architecture: Support site structure with descriptive subcategories, filters, site links, and menus based on natural language phrases and long-tail keywords. This, in turn aids the search bots in crawling and indexing site content to suit voice queries better.
Many agencies, like our best SEO Company in Ashburn, VA, and web owners saw a huge boost in organic traffic after optimizing for voice search and featured snippets. It involved using long-tail keywords in titles, creating posts in the Q&A format, and optimizing the meta descriptions for answers. This led to over 100 of their posts being featured in snippet rank. Therefore, the total organic traffic increased by more than 400 percent, which is a testament to the effectiveness of voice search optimization.
In the future, Contently aims to increase long-tail keywords to at least 30 for each blog post and use more multimedia elements to support textual content. The key takeaways and the proposed next steps section is the last part of the report containing the study's most important findings.
- As voice usage rises consistently, voice search optimization must be a significant focus for brands today. Voice assistants make the search more conversational, shift users' expectations, and alter traditional SEO strategies.
- Therefore, using long-tail keywords, writing like a human, organizing Q&A content, and focusing on featured snippets make content voice-friendly. This will help identify high-intent voice search audiences, get visibility in voice searches, and increase organic traffic.
- Next, analyze your existing content to determine areas for improvement compared to typical voice search queries within your industry. Understand the needs, questions, and behavior of target voice searchers. After that, create and use the voice search content strategy.
Now is the time to start preparing for voice search. Here is a brief guide that you can use to begin your initiatives and stay caught up by this emerging and developing trend. If there's anything else you want to know or want to avail of services of our SEO Services in Ashburn USA, visit Webtrills.com!
