Voice Search Optimization
Voice Search is something I never could have imagined using in my daily life, until recently that is. Now that I have a voice assistant at home, I could never even imagine going back! I’m not alone in that statement either; 60% of individuals couldn’t see themselves without a voice assistant.





How Does Voice Search Work?

SEO as it Pertains to Voice Search
Is SEO as important for voice searches as it is for regular searches? Absolutely! If anything SEO is more important for voice than regular searches. This is because regular searches allow the user to select which site they chose, where in the case of voice search, the best match is read to them. With voice search, the user does not choose which site they receive information from. Instead it is left up to the search engine algorithms.
Secondly, the kinds of things people search for using voice control is largely different from what one searches on their own. Voice control searches consist of a lot of “what is the closest ______ to me?”, along with other navigation searches.
Thirdly, the length and context of searches is different. Rather than being a few words llong, searches are longer and have a more conversational tone and flow. What I mean by that is that people are treating these vocal recognition searching services as more human than a regular search. Instead of typing “restaurants near me”, a relatively short search direct search they are opting for a longer version such as “what are some restaurants close to me?”. This happens also because speaking is much faster than typing. How much faster? You can speak over three times as fast as you can type. The average person can type at a rate of around 38-40 words per minute, compared to 110-150 words a minute with speech. People can speak and specify their search results.


Voice Keywords

This handy wheel can be transformed to find questions with regards to any topic. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, have a look at Answer The Public, type in your word and see all the possibilities.
Keywords that sound more conversational will rank higher in voice search results than short abrupt words. However, this generally occurs quite naturally as Google is interested in sharing valuable and complete information as opposed to keyword heavy content. Here at 23e2, our carefully curated content development is meant to target your audience rather than only to please search engines. Ultimately, why Google favors certain sites more than others is because those sites actually provide useful information to people. Search engines are more likely to rank sites that give great user experience higher.
Voice search uses keywords in a way that regular google searches don’t. Optimize for voice search In all your articles to attract more consumers and customers.
How to Optimize your Site for Voice Search
The first step to optimizing your site for voice search is to understand how exactly voice search works. Since we already went over that in the previous sections, let’s take a look at the other ways that you can implement voice search optimization. Optimizing your site isn’t only about enhancing the website, to rank in voice searches, you need to adjust your website in many ways. The ways you can optimize your site for voice search are by activating a Google My Business account, by paying attention to your mobile site set up, by incorporating longer keywords and phrases, aim for snippets on Google, and finally by tweaking and testing your site.
The first step that you can take to optimize your site is to activate your “My Business” account on Google. This first step will allow your establishment to show up in different geographical searches. For example, say you own an Italian restaurant, and someone voice searches for Italian restaurants near me, your restaurant has a better chance of showing up if you have a Google my business account set up.

Secondly, pay more attention to your mobile site set up. Because so many of the voice search queries are coming from mobile devices, it is dull to omit or discredit the importance of offering a quality mobile site. Assuming that you are putting effort into your webpages (desktop/mobile) based on the volume of customers, it wouldn’t even be that crazy to spend more time on the mobile setup than the desktop format.
Next don’t shy away from incorporating longer keywords or key phrases. While in some cases it may not be ideal to optimize for such long keywords, when it comes to voice search longer words are more effective.

As already mentioned, The conversational tone and spin that voice search facilitates these longer searches, and in turn, is absolutely something you need to pay attention to. People aren’t searching things like “Water leak” with their voice, rather, “What do I do if my water is leaking”. If you need help optimizing your articles with longer keyphrases, don’t hesitate to reach out to 23e2 Digital Marketing!
Snippet optimization is something that often does not get the attention it needs from business owners and people who run a website. These snippets are essential when we look at optimizing for voice search. A featured snippet on google is a section of text, video, photo, or graph from a third party website that aims to answer the searchers question. These featured snippets are the content read out by not only google assistant, but by other smart home assistants as well. The cool thing about snippet optimization is, even if you don’t rank number one on Google, you can still become the featured snippet with your quality content.

- Information from the website relating to the query
- The title of the article/page referenced
- A link to the page with URL
Google’s featured snippets are chosen from all the web search listings. The actual listing and snippet is chosen based on automated criteria. This criteria has the ability to determine if the snippet is readable, condensed enough, and has enough information to be featured. Read more about snippet optimization.
Finally, rather than looking at redoing your entire site that you have already optimized for single keywords without voice search, just fine tune your existing site. Just because you didn’t count on voice search when you made your site doesn’t mean you can’t alter little things now! All of the mentioned optimization tools are relatively simple to implement and can take your site to the next level. Don’t think you can just alter it and go though, you have to tweak your site once in a while to ensure it is up to date.
Voice Search Optimization Strategies
1) Don’t focus on the keywords as much as the information
2) Include questions in your articles

3) Add faq pages

4) Use filler words
5) Simple language

6) Improve site speed

7) Domain authority
Having domain authority is big when it comes to voice search. A voice assistant would much rather give users information form a credible and reputable site, than from a site that is more focused on aesthetics. Adding to that, the authority of the page also matters less than the domain authority. While this sounds complex, what it comes down to is how reputable your domain is as an entity. If you want to check your domain authority, you can check it for free here.

8) Rank for near me
Optimizing your business for local traffic is critical in the voice search era. More and more people are using the “____ Near me” function on their phones to find places to eat, things to do, stores to shop in, and service providers locally. Optimizing for this really comes down to being able to be found on the map. Putting yourself out there, gaining credibility as a company, business or organization will help you with rank in the voice search “_____ near me” results.

9) Add a short summary at the top of each page
Conclusion
To conclude, the popularity and mainstream use of voice search is continuing to grow each and every day. As a business that wants to survive, you have to keep up with the times. That means understanding, adapting, and applying new optimization features to your business model. Hopefully with this guide, you have been able to learn about what voice search is through numbers, examples, and maybe even trying out the feature on your devices. You will also have learned how voice search is impacting modern search engine optimization, by introducing new normal searches and snippets. Thirdly, you have read about how you can optimize your site for voice search, along with insider tips and tricks when it comes to the ins and outs of optimization.
If you have any further questions yourself about optimizing your site for voice search, or if you need help with implementing new strategies, Let us know. Fill out a form and we will reach out to you as soon as possible to discuss what we can do to take your business to the next level.
© 23e2 Business Services Inc. | Working With 3rd Parties
© 23e2 Business Services Inc. | Working With 3rd Parties