Online search is gradually upgrading and evolving every single year that passes by, and now we are entering an era where voice search is starting to be in control. We have Siri, Cortana, Bixby, and Google Voice Search. Today, it is widely utilized by many online users worldwide. Smartphones and other mobile devices have also integrated this technology into their software, which helped their companies boost their user experiences by giving an easy way to search online.
Advantages of Voice Search
Voice search is the technology where a device’s software uses voice recognition from its user speaking to it. It will produce different actions depending on the input by the user. Various devices are using this technology, from smartphones to digital in our homes. One proof that voice search is a growing innovation and trend to incorporate into your strategies online is the statistics from Google wherein voice search inputs have grown exponentially every year that passes by.
Here are some facts about the growth of voice search SEO:
- There are 33 million devices that are voice-first are owned by different users today.
- About 20% of all queries in Google came from voice searches.
- All age groups are using mobile voice assistants
- “Near me” voice searches have grown on a rate of 130% per year.
- According to NPR and Edison Research, 16% of Americans have a smart speaker in their homes. About 3 out of 4 of them uses it for local business search at least once a week, and half of them perform searches daily.
Voice search is a rising need in the industry of small businesses. With all of these facts about voice search, it is impossible that you would not want to capitalize this opportunity for your business.
What to do?
Create Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are a set of a particular phrase that contains a head term that is general with the different words in the keywords in the phrase. It should be short and simple because it is recommended for SEO strategies since people who use Google use a broad terminology in their search behaviours.
Long-tail keywords give us better website traffic and conversion rates because anyone who landed on your page has entered more specific keywords, which makes them more specific to be converted. There will be also less competition because the more specific your phrase is, the less the competition.
You can make long-tail keywords by:
- Producing specific articles. Start by researching topics that your target audience is very fond of. From there, you can think of various phrase variations that reflect your audiences search behaviours.
- Write in a natural voice. You should prioritize writing in a more conversational tone. Always write as how you speak. By doing this, you will optimize your audiences speaking patterns whenever they start doing voice search.
- Consider FAQs or knowledge base content. Never close the door on creating a FAQs section on your site or producing a knowledgebase because both of this can help address many questions and problems that your users may encounter.
Let Google Know You Exist
You should start considering to be your website registered under Google Business Listings for you to be featured on Google locally. Whenever any people within your vicinity searched for “Shoe shops near me,” you will be highlighted because Google knows now the nature of your business and Google knows you exist near the user. This is also beneficial to your business since many people who do voice searches on local places tend to need quick and fast information. It means that there are chances that you can have a customer in an instant, thanks to being known by Google.
Mobile Optimization is still a Must
Even if you are using voice search now, never forget that it should still prioritize catering the mobile users. Here are some tips for starting mobile optimization:
- Test in Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. It can help you in checking whether your site is mobile-friendly because this test looks at all the different factors to being a mobile-friendly site. It can give you different points to improve on your site so you would know what to look at when optimizing.
- Avoid Flash and Pop-ups. Stop using these because not all mobile users have a flash plugin installed in their phones. Less is more, so you should focus on easier access to your site.
- Optimize Images. To have a quicker loading speed, optimize your images into smaller file sizes. When saving your photo, find the option “save for web,” or you can look at different image compression tools online to help in boosting your page speed.
Voice Search Is An Important Channel
After all these tips and techniques, you should start trying to know how it will impact your site. Try different mechanisms and look into your competition on how they are doing in the rankings. Whatever you try on your site, never forget to incorporate different SEO strategies for voice search, so you would not only boost because of the voice search but also because of different optimization techniques for SERPs.
Author Bio
John Vuong of Local SEO Search Inc. You can hear About Local SEO Search Inc mission here. John’s mission is to help local business owners improve their online influence so they can dominate their industry.
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