Businesses are busy optimizing for search engines as they are aware that their success depends on their visibility to the prospective customers. But, have businesses realized that searches have also evolved from text to voice. So, isn’t it the right time to think about voice search optimization?

Times have proved that convenience is the root cause of acceptance. Ultimately, the popularity of any new technology among humans largely depends on how it makes our life easier!

Many times when we text a friend, they prefer to call back instead of texting. Why? Because, it is far easier and less tiring to talk than type a message.

With smart phones reaching people even in remote areas, this becomes further simpler. Even primary school kids or old people who are not very comfortable with messaging, still manage talking on phone well.

Why is Voice Search Getting Popular?

There are many more positives of voice search technology over text search. It is quicker; and you can do this along with other tasks.

For example, you are working in the kitchen and you can voice search for a recipe without interrupting your work. Your hands are free to continue other work.

Voice search feels very comfortable, just like having a casual conversation with a friend and asking him about something.

You don’t need to be tech savvy for voice search. It is very easy for people of all age groups. It is hassle-free as you don’t even need to read the results, these can come in voice form.

The present generation is busy, multi-tasking all the time. So, it’s important to adopt technology which saves time and energy, which you can use for completing your other tasks.

These aspects led to the invention of voice search technology. This makes it easy for even small businesses to have an online presence without knowing much about technology use. Needless to say that businesses will now have to plan for voice search optimization if they want to grow.

As rightly said by Peter Drucker,

“The best way to predict your future is to create it”.

So, let’s see how to optimize your business website for voice search!

Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Customers would prefer voice search on mobiles, compared to text-based search.

It is important to understand that voice searches are generally done on mobile phones, much more than PC or laptops and majority of customers will have access to mobiles.

So, the first rule for search optimization of your website or blog is to make it mobile-friendly. For this, you may choose mobile-friendly templates for the web-page or blog. At present, you get a higher variety of mobile-friendly templates compared to bigger screen templates.

The root of marketing today, is content marketing. So, create mobile-friendly content on your website. Use more white-spaces in the text. Also prefer using very short sentences and very small paragraphs, with not more than 3 to 4 sentences in one paragraph.

You can check and improve the mobile friendliness or “readability” of your content through various readability checking tools available online.

Improve Website Loading Speed for Voice Search Optimization

As voice searches are quicker to perform and the users are generally looking for a quicker solution, your business website should load with speed.

You can test the loading speed of your website through multiple online tools available. After this, if you have identified any load speed issues with your website, it’s time to correct these.

The simplest techniques for improving the website load speed are using an efficient web hosting, image or video size optimization, use of lighter platforms and languages for building the website, etc.

Well, we must admit that we can’t do everything ourselves, so why not hire consultants for improving your website speed!

Use Simpler Language

As discussed earlier, the ease of use of voice search technology has made it possible for businesses to target searchers from wider age ranges and also with much less education or technical knowledge.

Taking advantage of this, businesses need to keep the language on their website or blogs, as simple as possible. It should be searchable for a 10-year-old.

Do not use complex words or technical jargon in your website content. The best way is to use a natural flow and conversational language.

Understand Voice Search Queries

The best way to find out how to design voice-search friendly content, is to use a language identical to how people normally speak.

Try some voice searches yourself and you will realize that unlike the text searches where people prefer using keywords, in voice searches we mostly use full sentences and questions.

Yes, this is a major point of difference, which must not be ignored. For this reason, prefer using long-tail keywords.

Focus on question forms, exactly the way we ask our friends about something we are trying to learn from them.

Commonly Asked Questions

You may keep a significant part of your content in “Frequently Asked Questions” format or build headings for major information as questions.

Compile a list of questions which were asked by your customers or prospective customers. This can work as the best database of questions, for your content. You may also take hints from the FAQs section of your competitors.

Make sure that you answer every query asked for your business, whether on your website, or on social media platforms. Create detailed posts for the questions which are repetitive in nature or common.

List out the keywords and “search” for major question queries possible for these. Use autocomplete and auto-suggest feature of google search to find common searches with your keywords and draft these into question form.

If you need help in making relevant questions, Google comes to your rescue again. Use the “People also ask” feature in Google search, and see what type of questions it is suggesting.

Alternatively, try online tools, for converting keywords to questions, like kwfinder & answerthepublic.

Create Voice Search Optimized Content for Featured Snippet

Create a perfect question-answer beginning of your content. If your website appears in featured snippet on google search, this question and answer introduction would appear in the snippet and this will benefit the most for generating traffic.

For this, create about 30 to 50 words’ content. Obviously, the better your knowledge on building short-form content, higher will be your voice search optimization with the featured snippet.

Leverage “Near Me” for Voice Search

Yes, the most common voice search for a nearby restaurant, clinic, ATM, or any local businesses like plumber or electrical technician, is “near me” phrase.

So, for your business to appear in these common voice searches, target this phrase in your content.

Importantly, do add your accurate address on the page for this. You must use this phrase in title tags or meta description also.

For better use of “near me”, you should also focus on making precise business listings with contact information and even location for local business.

Your business listing should be updated regularly as per the needs, on your page.

Try “Google My Business” listing and optimize the profile. With google maps facility, this listing will help the search engines identify your location to list you in “near me” voice searches.

Wrapping Up!

While the businesses and content marketers are busy focusing on SEO of your content, the search trend is rapidly shifting from text to voice search technology.

If you lag behind in understanding this, soon you will find all your marketing efforts going waste and your competitors winning the race.

Still waiting to make your website voice search optimized? Better late than never, initiate the efforts today!

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