Technology has changed our lives in many ways in only a short amount of time. While there can be ups and downs to the role technology plays in all of our lives, there’s no denying the convenience it provides. At any moment during the day, you can get whatever information you need right on your phone. However, now, you don’t even have to put in the effort of typing your search, thanks to voice search. As the way we use search engines changes, so do SEO best practices. SEO for voice searches can look a little different from regular SEO, so it’s important that you know what to do to appeal to users making voice searches on their mobile devices and smart speakers.
Why Should You Care About Voice Searches?
Optimizing for voice search might seem like just another task on top of all the other work you already have to do for your business, and you might think you can get away with not doing it. However, voice searches are much more popular than you might realize. Studies show that there are nearly 100 million smart speakers in 2022 and around 70% of users prefer using voice searches instead of typing. It’s easy to see why voice search is so popular. While pulling up your favorite search engine on your phone and typing in your search is hardly a lot of work, verbally telling your phone or a smart speaker what you’re looking for is even easier. This is especially helpful when you’re busy or don’t have your hands free.
It’s important to keep in mind that people don’t use search engines the same way when they make voice searches compared to a typed search. Even though you aren’t speaking to a real person, most people speak to their devices like they are. If you aren’t keeping voice searches in mind when you’re optimizing your website, you could be missing out on a huge audience that’s utilizing voice searches.
Voice Search SEO Best Practices
Optimize for Local Searches
A large percentage of voice searches look for information about local businesses. While voice search SEO is something everyone should keep in mind, this can be especially important if you have a business that only provides services to your local community. It’s clear that voice searches are extremely important for local searches, so optimizing for that is an opportunity you can’t overlook. Of course, optimizing for local searches can also help you target more users in your area, even if they’re not using local searches, so this can only help you in the long run.
Use Long-Tail Keywords
When people search for something verbally, they’re more likely to use language that they normally would anytime they’re speaking to someone. This means that rather than short keywords, users making a voice search will likely use long-tail keywords. These typically consist of three to five keywords and are more specific than a short keyword. Using long-tail keywords won’t only help you target voice search users, either. People utilize long-tail keywords even when they’re typing out a search.
While these are typically much lower in search volume, they can be much more impactful than only going after short, generic keywords with huge search volumes. These have much less competition than shorter keywords and users searching for keywords like these are typically much further along in their buyer’s journey. This means that although not as many people are searching for these terms, the ones that are can be much more beneficial for your business.
Keep Your Language Conversational
Similar to using long-tail keywords, you also want to use conversational language to appeal to users making voice searches. When you speak to a virtual assistant like Apple’s Siri, your searches won’t look the same as the ones that you type out. Because of this, you need to consider what a natural, conversational question would be when you’re creating content. Since users will likely phrase their searches as a question, the same way they would ask a person for information, include interrogative words. This includes words like why, how, which, where, and when. It takes much less time to say a long question than it would to type it, so you want your content to include keywords that match voice searches.
Utilize Structured Data
The content you include on your website isn’t always enough for search engines, but you can help them by adding structured data like schema markup. Adding structured data to your web pages can help search engines get a better understanding of what they’re about so that they can show them to the most relevant searches. This is important when it comes to any online searches, including voice searches. When search engines know more about the content of a webpage, they might be able to show it to more users than they would have without it.
Enhance Your Website’s SEO with ENX2 Marketing
Digital marketing and how to reach your audience are constantly changing, which can feel like too much to keep up with. Not only do you have users typing searches on their desktops, but you also have many others doing so on mobile devices or opting for voice searches instead. This is a lot to consider when optimizing your website, but you don’t have to do it alone. With SEO services from ENX2 Marketing, you can feel confident that your SEO is the best it can be and that your name is getting in front of your target audience.
Contact us today to learn more about what we have to offer.