Traditionally, typed search has been here since we started using search engines to find stuff. Voice search, on the other hand, has recently become mainstream.
So much so, that instead of typing out their queries, people often use voice assistants like Apple’s Siri to find what they’re looking for.
To put it simply, voice search is convenient. Rather than typing every word, you can just *say* what you want to get the answers you need.
This convenience is one of the major reasons for its surge in popularity. As a matter of fact, voice search is likely to generate $40 billion in sales for businesses.
So, if you are optimizing your website for Google ranking, you should also consider voice search optimization. This will put your business in front of more people and generate qualified traffic for your website.
Before we discuss how to optimize for voice search, we need to know…
What is Voice Search Optimization?
Voice search optimization is basically optimizing your website’s content, be that on web pages or blogs, to appear higher in voice searches.
It means you understand how people use voice search, and you’ve written the content to reflect that. People ask questions when using voice search, so your content should answer those questions as directly as possible to rank higher in voice searches.
So, if someone asks Siri or Google Assistant, “how to make fried chicken?”, you should have content that tells them how to make fried chicken to rank for this search.
But you should know that ranking on voice search takes more than answering questions. We’ll tackle that below.
Importance of Voice Search Optimization
They say: “Be where your audience is.” Now that the audience is on voice search, you have to rank there in order to reach them.
Otherwise, you’ll miss out on potential clients and revenue. To put this in perspective, let’s look at some of the biggest reasons to try voice search optimization.
You Reach More People
Almost 1 billion voice searches happen every month. This is a staggering number, considering how many businesses skip optimizing their websites for voice when talking about SEO.
You have to be proactive here and make sure your business is at the top for every possible question your target audience has.
Because when you answer their queries, you build trust, and that trust translates to eventual revenue.
The Demand Will Only Go Up
If you’re skeptical that voice search is another one of those marketing trends that will fade over time, don’t. Voice search will gain momentum as voice recognition technology matures and more people start using devices like Amazon’s Alexa.
If you start now, you could be one of the first movers in your industry and ride the momentum. This will bring more eyeballs (or ears) and generate more leads in the long run.
Customers Appreciate It
No one would like to read blocks of content just to know “who will headline the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.” When you optimize your content for voice search, you skip the fluff and get straight to the answer.
People appreciate this because you’re not wasting their time. But that doesn’t mean your content is all questions and answers. You can go into detail about a specific topic but structure your content in a way that is easier for the search engine to find when people ask a question related to it.
It Helps with Traditional SEO
Calling SEO traditional is a bit of a stretch, but bear with us. When we talk about SEO, we think of blogs, on-page optimization, backlinks, and so on. Amongst all of these, we sometimes forget to mention featured snippets.
Featured snippets are often called Position Zero because they appear above all the search results. Winning this coveted Position Zero is never easy unless you answer specific questions. Now, the question is: how do you optimize for voice?
How to Optimize for Voice Search
We promised you some tips for ranking on voice search. Here they are:
Go for Conversational Content
Have you ever noticed that how you write is different from how you speak? It’s perfectly natural.
But when you’re going for voice search optimization, you have to tap into your speaking brain and use that to write content.
Let us give you an example. When you search in Google, you might type “how to boil an egg.” Nothing wrong with that.
But when you use voice search, you’re more likely to say, “How do I boil an egg.” This is subtle, but you have to take note here. You’ve used the first-person pronoun to ask the question, similar to how you’d ask your friend.
So, brainstorm before you start writing content for voice search. And if you are stuck, refer to the People Also Ask section on Google. You’ll find relevant questions there.
Optimize for Local Search
Local SEO is crucial for businesses with a physical presence. That said, voice search has permeated into the local SEO scene.
Consider this: you’re visiting your friends and want to grab a cup of coffee before you meet them. You’ll ask Google Assistant (or Siri if you’re using an iPhone) for the “best coffee in Houston, TX” since you’re walking and it’s hard to type.
This isn’t just you. People often do this when looking for businesses in their locality.
If you focus on local search by optimizing your Google Business Profile and using location-specific keywords, you will appear on these voice searches and drive people to your business.
Win Featured Snippets
We mentioned that optimizing for search helps win snippets. That wasn’t all.
Actually, you’re more likely to appear on voice search if you already have a Featured Snippet.
This is because Google usually ranks you in the Zero Position if you’ve answered a question directly. This is probably the same (or close to) question people ask on voice search. If you’re already Featured, Google won’t have to look far. It can pick your answer and provide it to the audience – along with a link to your website.
Optimize for SEO
You cannot skip on your search engine optimization because Google rankings are ingrained into voice searches. We’ve mentioned how voice search picks answers from Featured Snippets but this isn’t the only place where they get their data from.
They also crawl top-ranking websites for answers to their user’s queries. So, if you’re not optimizing your website, you’re least likely to appear on voice search results.
To optimize for SEO, your content has to have long-tail keywords that can drive qualified traffic to your content. You have to add valuable content, which means covering a topic completely rather than sticking just to FAQs.
Another thing is keeping your website technically sound. It should load fast, be mobile-friendly, and have a good sitemap that Google can easily crawl.
There is a lot more to optimizing for SEO, but as far as initial efforts are concerned, you can’t go wrong with a website audit. We have a free website audit tool for you where you can check your website for major SEO issues and suggest an action plan based on the findings.
Voice Search Optimization is Not a One-Day Job.
You have these practical tips to guide your efforts. But remember, optimizing your website for voice takes a lot of effort and patience. You’ll have to do a lot of tinkering and adjusting before you appear on your first query.
But all of this effort is worth it. People are using voice search more than ever, and if your business starts appearing on these, you will generate more revenue.
If you want to appear on voice search results relatively quickly, we suggest talking to our SEO experts. We’ve optimized our clients’ businesses for voice as well as AI to make their inbound marketing efforts future-proof.
