Voice search has been enjoying a surge in popularity recently. This is largely thanks to the continuous advancement of voice search technologies and smart speakers, as well as the improvement of voice assistants. Let’s not forget that connected devices are also constantly adding and enhancing voice-enabled functions.
These trends are not only changing the way people live and perform their daily tasks. They’re also changing the way consumers make their online searches.
As a digital marketer, you must learn to adapt to these changes. Furthermore, you must ensure that your website can keep up with these trends. This is where the importance of optimizing your website for voice search enters the picture.
One thing you must keep in mind when it comes to voice search optimization is that it is different from your traditional SEO strategies. You will need to employ a different set of strategies and follow new practices.
To help you set up your website for voice search success, keep these strategies and SEO best practices in mind:
1. Shift to Using More Specific Keywords
People are more likely to use long-tail keywords when performing voice searches. This is because they usually word their queries as if they were talking to another person.
Considering this, it’s a smart strategy to start using longer and more specific keywords in your website content. You must also strive to write it in a more conversational tone. Doing these will allow you to slowly but surely see better rankings for these types of queries.
If you aren’t quite sure what long-tail keywords to target, you can find relevant ones by using online tools such as Ubersuggest, SEMrush, and HubSpot Content Strategy Tool.
2. Add Schema Markup to Your Website’s Code
Also known as Structured Data, this piece of code allows search engines to understand what your content is all about. This also helps web crawlers or spiderbots browse through your website and make it rank higher for relevant searches.
If you haven’t implemented schema markup yet, you’re losing a lot of potential in climbing up the search engine results pages!
3. Write Content That Answers Question Keywords
According to figures gathered by Internet Live Stats in 2018, there were around 3.5 billion searches per day. Moreover, a Jumpshot study showed that around 8% of search queries are phrased as questions. These are just some of the many studies showing that question-related searches form a significant percentage of the overall searches made on Google.
To perform well in voice SEO, it’s a smart strategy to take note of question keywords valuable to your target audience—and craft content that directly answers them. Doing so can not only help your SEO performance but also increase your chances of securing a featured snippet spot.
4. Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB) Page
It’s worth noting that smart speaker users tend to perform local searches using these devices as well.
Considering this, you can improve your performance in voice searches by optimizing your GMB page as well as enhancing your local SEO strategy. These two factors work hand-in-hand to drive your online visibility in your locality.
Conclusion
As many digital marketing experts put it, voice SEO is the future of search. Considering this, you need to ensure that your firm’s website is all geared up for what is to come. Gone are the days where simply stuffing your content with keywords will propel you up the search rankings.
In these times, you need to be more strategic about the keywords you target. Ultimately, you must adapt strategies that will keep your website relevant and successful, even in an age dominated by voice search.
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