Is your Businesses voice search SEO ready?
Candice du Toit
July 12, 2019
Search Engine Optimization
This is exactly the scenario that voice search resolves for you, not to mention the fact that it's yet another way to make life easier and I’m sure we all welcome that :Think about it, need to know the opening hours for our nearest dentists, simply ask Google. Want the menu to your favourite restaurant, simply ask Google. According to a PWC report, 71% of respondents would rather use their voice assistant to search for something than physically typing their queries.
Surprisingly however many businesses have not considered voice search and the impact it could have on them. Here are the 4 most common errors found on business websites:
The key when it comes to voice search is to think about what information people need from you and make sure that your website has this information optimised for voice search.
Want your website to rank as high for voice queries as for the typed ones? well then you need to make sure you do the following:
Optimise with featured snippets in mind
Make sure you provide quality data on your website in the hope it gets chosen as a featured snippet. If a voice search is conducted in relation to your services you can be sure the featured snippet will be what gets presented to the user.
Consider User Intent in your optimisations
User intent is, in short, the reason why the user is searching rather than what the user is searching for. Identifying a users intent can help you identify at what stage they are in your buying cycle, for example, ‘to buy something’, ‘to do something’, ‘to find something’, ‘to learn something’, ‘to go somewhere’ and so on. Make sure to target these transactional terms in your SEO strategy.
Use Conversational Language rather than Keywords
Target what's known as long tail keywords rather than just your main keywords, think about the difference in search terms if someone is saying what they want rather than typing it.
Answer your most asked questions on your website
FAQ’s are essential for voice search! Think about it, what do your clients ask for when they call? Could this be added to your FAQ on your website? Don't forget to get your staff involved on this one as the more information you can provide the better it will be for your optimisation for voice searches.
Speed
Your website needs to be fast, especially on mobile devices. Google will not even feature your website if it crawls your site and finds it is very slow…. No one likes to wait for a page to load :)
Structured Data
This code helps “ structure” our websites information so that Google can better understand it... What's more, if your information is structured correctly and highly relevant, Google might even feature it as a featured snippet. Almost guaranteeing your number one spot on a voice search.
Optimise for Local Search
Use your Google My Business listing to make sure you are optimised for local search, if a user searches for your services for example “Pizza deli near me” then your listing will pop up as a relevant result. Also, be sure to mention your location in your onsite SEO strategy.
The number of people using voice search is on the rise. Don’t give your competition the edge, make sure to optimise your website for voice search as soon as possible.
