Gone are the days of people using voice assistants for simple tasks such as setting an alarm or a reminder. Today, over 1 billion voice searches are made every single month, so it’s fair to say that voice search has become an important consideration in the world of digital marketing. But in terms of voice search and SEO, it’s important to optimise content for users who are searching by voice. Here are 4 ways we can optimise content for voice search.
1. Long Tail Keywords
Arguably the biggest difference between voice queries and text queries is the length of the search. The average voice search query is 29 words, while a text search consists of three to four words on average. Voice searches are more likely to use complete sentences and proper language, while text searches often skip words.
Consider a user searching for a digital marketing agency in Manchester by text and by voice. A text search is likely to look something like this: “digital marketing agency manchester”. A voice search may be more in-depth, such as “what is the best digital marketing agency in Manchester”.
To optimise content for voice searches, make sure you are considering long-tail keywords and using more conversational language in your content to make it more aligned with voice searches.
2. Answer Questions
Users are more likely to turn to voice searches when they have a question. This follows on from the previous point, questions tend to be longer, and it’s far quicker for users to search by voice as opposed to text.
This can impact your content in a number of ways. First, try to answer common questions throughout your content to ensure your website is aligned with user intent. This also helps your content to appear in AI summaries and featured snippets, which we’ll come to next.
Secondly, consider implementing FAQ sections. This is a great way to include not only the answer to a user’s query, but the query itself. It also demonstrates clearly to Google that your content is providing an answer to a specific question.
3. Featured Snippets
Featured snippets have long been considered a valuable piece of real estate on SERPs, and they’ve recently been joined by AI summaries. Both provide information to the user at the top of the page without them having to make an extra click, in what has become known as position zero.
Featured snippets are perfect for informational content that has been written to answer a question, and as we know now, voice searches are often seeking an answer to a question. So it’s no surprise to see that over 40% of voice search answers are pulled from featured snippets, making it vital to optimise informational content for featured snippets and AI summaries.
While answering questions is a great start when it comes to appearing in featured snippets, you also need to consider how your information is displayed. Google loves to display snippets as tables and lists, and you can help by including these in your content.
4.Accessibility
While voice search offers a more efficient way to find information for everyone, it’s particularly useful for visually impaired users, disabled users or anyone who has difficulty typing. If you are trying to target users searching by voice, you’ll need to consider that many of these users may be doing so due to a physical disability, so make sure you take the necessary steps to optimise your landing page for these users too.
Making a web page more accessible can be achieved through adding ALT text to images, enabling keyboard navigation and offering adjustable text sizes and colour contrasts.
Final Thoughts
Voice commands have come a long way and have shifted from novelty to an important part of digital marketing.