Voice search has become more integral in our lives than ever. With 32% of users preferring voice search to typing and 72% of us owning virtual assistant speakers at homes, a lot of our actions and commands on online searches are based on dictation. It's convenient for consumers and an amazing business opportunity for business owners. With voice search, local businesses and brands can nail their online presence, make way for more leads and even convert them seamlessly.
This is exactly why this post becomes inevitable as we carefully break down the benefits of implementing voice search technology for your business and shed light on voice search optimization strategies.
If you are a business owner of a website development company, a solopreneur, or a tech enthusiast, looking to incorporate this tech for business growth, this article is just ideal for you.
Let's get started.
How Useful Is Voice Search to Users?
Convenience
Voice search is extremely convenient. For instance, if a user is on the move or driving, they need not get distracted from the road and still manage to get specific information through dictation.
For General Queries
A statistical report revealed that close to 48% of users would be using voice search for general queries. This could include voice search queries on popular places of interest, restaurants, grocery stores, or local businesses nearby, to look up a brand or business for reputation and more. This gives them credible information on what they seek without even having to look at a screen or execute physical actions like gestures and swiping.
Multilingual Capabilities
Voice search is extremely inclusive in the fact that it is multilingual. This means, language is never a concern, and people from across the globe can talk in their preferred language and get the required information in their preferred language.
Understand Human Behaviour
This technology is also being implemented and studied for therapy and counseling purposes, where deep learning algorithms are giving company to people and learning about their state of mind at the same time.
Will Voice Search Dominate SEO?
As our interactions with our machines become more screen-less, the only factor that will continue to rise and dominate the search engine spectrum is voice search. Similar to text-based content, businesses will capitalize on search queries consumers use to reach them or look for probable solutions to their concerns and drive their online presence.
Voice search optimization is gradually becoming inevitable as several businesses across the globe are already working on optimizing their businesses for voice-based keywords such as question keywords, long-tail keywords, filler words, and more apart from direct keywords such as brand name mentioning.
To do this, brands are deploying tools such as the following:
- keyword research tools that will help them get an idea of popular search terms that are driving traffic
- keyword magic tools
- trends tools
- NLP phrases tools like StoryBase and more
Sure-Fire Tips to Optimize App Content For Voice Search
Optimize for Colloquial Conversations
Unlike search engines, voice search is devoid of autosuggestions. This means that businesses and brands cannot expect users to use phrases and sentences that follow grammatical syntaxes and requirements. A major chunk of search queries will be colloquial and casual like users are talking to their friends. As someone looking to optimize app content for search, it is essential to consider this factor and be ready for more humane conversations and phrase terms than rigid ones.
Some additional factors you can consider include:
- their accent
- phrases specific to a particular geographical location
- frequently asked questions and more
Optimize Website Load Time
It is a known fact that websites that are slow have some of the highest abandonment rates. As far as voice search is concerned, this becomes all the more inevitable. The primary reason is that users are not looking at their screens.
So, when they use dictation and search for something online, they don't know if the system has listened to their voice, has understood or if it's actually processing the query. The more your website takes time to load, the longer your users are in the dark. Naturally, they will execute another voice search, completely abandoning your website.
So, optimize your page load time for swift results and higher retention.
FAQs Are the Best
Most of the voice-based search terms are questions rather than blunt phrases. Users are most likely to go, “Where is the nearest gas station?” then,”gas stations nearby.” That's why it is important to have a repository of such questions and optimize your app or website content for results.
For this, you could compile all the popular questions and create a specific FAQ page for the questions or dedicate separate blog posts for each question. You could also optimize your Google business listings for results and have the most precise information in your contact section to enable people to reach you.
Use Longer Keywords
Typing longer phrases or sentences specifically when one is looking for instant results is an inconvenience. Dictating them, on the other hand, is simple and time-saving. That's why users have elaborate phrases in their queries and this is also why businesses need to optimize their content for long-tail keywords. To throw in some numbers, long-tail keywords constitute up to 70% of search terms. Besides, long-tail keywords are also comparatively cheaper and have better conversion rates.
Work on Content-Length
Conversational and humane questions need equally humane and colloquial answers. That's why it is recommended to restructure your content to offer succinct information to users. Again, if users are on the move, they can't pay too much attention listening to information or listening to lengthy blog posts. Adequately structured content that is concise and crips are ideal for voice search results. A study by Backlinko also revealed that Google loves results that are around 29 words in total. If you recollect, this is why FAQs work best as well.
Go Mobile Friendly
Going mobile is the only future-proof strategy. A majority of voice searches are done on mobiles and websites would find it extremely beneficial if their content and website are optimized for mobile. Enough statistics on mobile usage have already been shared online. The only point we would like to drive home here is that your website needs to be mobile-ready if you intend to attract the voice search crowd. Consider the following implementations to achieve this:
- have a responsive website
- ensure your website content is crawlable and has the adequate exposure
- use online tools to evaluate how mobile-friendly your content and website are
Wrapping Up!
Voice search is transforming SEO in ways we cannot decipher immediately. Currently, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in consumer behavior and it is exciting to understand new trends and adapt to emerging conditions and scenarios.
As voice search continues to become a norm, we recommend paying attention to your voice search data and implementing some of the insights we shared. When you have the right voice search optimization strategies, we are sure 2021 will offer you more profits for your business.
