What is easier? Typing or speaking?
Well, I guess speaking.
In today’s era, everything is developing very fast and for researching also, all we do for researching is typing the query. But now typing is not necessary, who types when you have the option to speak right!
Now you can research anything with the Voice!
You speak to your device- smartphones, smart speakers, assistants, etc, and they either speak back to you or if they have the medium, provide you with the related search results, entertaining right?
Moving further I’ll walk you through how voice search works and how you can take charge of optimizing it.
Voice: The New Interface For Searching
Before we jump onto the optimizing tricks we must give a shot at actually understanding what veritably goes behind the whole process of devices talking back to you. Interestingly enough, voice input is recognized with multiple components – language, voice, texture, interest, and behavior. These components are combined to generate the leads for the user.
With the forever transformation in technology, we now have facilities like Automatic Speech Recognition and text-to-speech. These allow the user to perform tasks even without using assistant applications. As soon as there is a voice input they are good to go.
Voice technology is another step in the direction of improving the user experience with semantics. It relies on Natural Language Processing to recognize the voice and its components.
What’s With All The Hype?
Voice technology is no doubt attractive to all age groups, but why is it growing so widely?
You see multiple surveys are stating that the use of voice search has increased tremendously in the past 3-4 years.
Let’s take a look at the reasons for growing users:
- Quicker
The voice searches receive quick responses. It relieves you from the hassle of typing and looking through the results. Thus the time-saving capabilities add to the growing interest in voice searching.
- Works with insufficient attention
Voice searches according to surveys are mostly used for some sort of multitasking. Be it for looking up a recipe in the middle of cooking or directions to your destination while driving. Voice search has got you all covered with your expectations.
- Easier
Speaking is no exceptional skill that might require guidance and training to work around with. And that is what is the major plus for the rapid growth of voice search users. People from all walks of life can speak up for their queries and get the desired result. Furthermore, voice searches offer such a wide range of languages that no language barrier occurs.
It is easier for older generations as well. A survey depicts that more than 48% of senior citizens enjoy surfing the internet using voice searches.
- Fun
Getting work done by mumbling a few words is a joy second to none. Humans enjoy dominance, be it over any non-living object too. The process of asking to do things and seeing them being performed without any issue is a fun activity.
From toddlers listening to animal voices to olders’ hymns, everyone has found their respective bands of joy with voice searches.
- Accuracy
Despite being prompt with the responses the accuracy is not compromised. More than half of the things we search for are just to grasp the outline of it. That is generally sufficient to go on with our work. The rich answer provided by voice searches does that job efficiently.
- Avoid typing
Multiple factors support this particular point. Let’s validate it with an example: in a hypothetical scenario you’re working in the kitchen trying out something new, and in the middle of the process, you forget the recipe. In that scenario, you won’t use your messy hands to type in to search for a recipe. That’s when voice search will recite the recipe to you.
Likewise, various such scenarios give voice search a plus too.
Keyword Research For Voice Search
You’re aware, voice search imitates how we interact with others in everyday life, which may be the driving force underlying SEO’s new evolution; an evolution that is forcing much-needed improvements to traditional search methods that target users who use a keyboard. The best part is that these improvements are relatively straightforward and do not necessitate full overhauls of current strategies.
Step1: Revisit The Past Keywords
The first step in building a list of voice search keywords is to look back in time. More precisely, you’ll use a voice search analytics lens to analyze your current and previous strategies to see if you still have any voice queries to work with.
Similarly, look for questions that start with “Hey Siri,” “Hey Alexa,” or “Hey Google,” which you can be sure came from voice search. You’ll have the base for your voice search marketing campaign once you’ve done this.
Step2: Generate A New List
After you’ve developed the basis of your plan, the next move is to extend and fill out your keyword list. You can start by looking at your competitors’ keywords with tools like Wordtracker’s Scout app and filtering down until you find keywords that look close to the ones from phase one, just like you would with standard keyword study.
Aside from your rivals, you can use Google and Bing autocomplete functionality to learn more about what people are looking for. Using query modifiers that indicate voice search for the best performance, such as the following:
You can narrow down on questions that are most likely from voice search by using modifiers like how, what, when, where, ok Google, etc.
Step3: Build A List With Negative Keywords
Step three, like daily keyword analysis, means trimming your current list by producing a list of negative keywords for which you do not want your website or advertisements to appear. To that end, go over your list and mark any questions that have nothing to do with what your company does.
If you sell high-end apparel, for example, you would want to add the terms “cheap,” “affordable,” and “bargain” to your negative keyword list.
Step4: Review
Move four, which is to take a step back, wait, revisit, and repeat, brings the study plan to a close. First, take a step back and gather enough data to reliably gauge the efficiency of your new list of voice search optimized keywords.
Second, using that knowledge, assess the output of all of your keywords to see if they are assisting you in capturing voice search traffic. If they are, that’s great—keep them and brainstorm similar keywords and variants. If they aren’t, cross them off your list and go through the process again before you have a list of keywords that are getting you the traffic you want.
Traditional Search and Voice Search Contrasts
One of the major reasons the voice search has a plus is convenience; there is no substitute for that. People don’t enjoy the effort required to scroll through multiple options for queries and then fetch the desired result.
Traditional search demands you to type in the keywords and look for the desired answer.
The voice searches use long-tail keywords which are much precise and dig out apt results as per the requirements.
Voice queries are common at listing locals. The “near me” phrase does the job. People are frequent with searches like: “bank near me” or “hospital near me” if nothing then “restaurants near me”. Therefore voice searches are efficient in targeting businesses in the locality.
The contact facilities provided by “Google My Business Listing” prove to be the cherry on the cake for your business.
Strategies For Voice Search Optimization
- Upgrade for rich answer
Most of the responses for voice search involve either the snippet of SERP or a response from top responses. To gain visibility you need to surpass this criterion of such responses.
Moreover, the devices with voice searches more or less respond with similar answers to any query.
Let’s understand what a rich answer.
The screenshot above has a rich answer highlighted within a block. In layman language, a rich answer is a piece of concise information you see regarding your searched keyword before all the search results.
Now you must be thinking about what this piece of writing has that it made to the feature column. To your answer it’s no rocket science, merely four SEO-related terms will get you your rich answer.
- Knowledge Graph
It is merely a knowledge base that is used by the search engine to enhance its search results by merging information from varied sources
- Knowledge Panel
There are the boxes that appear on the google response page with brief information that is present in the knowledge graph
- Knowledge Box
Likewise, the knowledge panel. It is the information that is shown as a regular search result after being derived from the knowledge graph
- Featured Snippets
Coming from third-party sources, Google displays this information on top of organic results above the ads with attribution to the first source; this is often done to supply users with quick and concise answers.
- Revamp your content
The voice search reaches out for the succinct contents. Since the search query has a conversational tone, so should be your content. Moreover, adding information into short snippets is easier to analyze.
Backlinko’s study finds that the average length of the answer to any voice search is 29 words. You should gravitate towards the trend of summarising topics around the length of 25-30 words. Now you must be thinking writing a 30-word blog is utterly useless. Well, I am not suggesting that either. With these synaptic responses, you can incorporate some FAQs within your website to serve that purpose.
- Avoid robotic language for content
The voice searches are different from traditional searches as besides keywords they too have a conversational tone.
If your content doesn’t have a conversational tone despite having the relevant keywords your content will lack the essence of similarity with the search query.
A primary feature of a voice search query is that it is conversational, and we must take advantage of this. The more artificial speech we use in our material, the less likely we are to show up in voice search results.
- Target long-tail keywords
Since there is no typing involved the user tends to search using the entire sentence rather than just keywords.
By now we know that individuals tend to use more of a “natural” speech while using voice search, so focussing on long-tail keywords is a must. You can achieve it by thinking about “ how individuals speak.”
How would you interrogate? Or what kind of questions might bring others to your site? This might be more diverse than the long-tail you’re familiar with. It’s more about human speech and less about keyword variations. You might need to target vast variations with their possibility.
There are ample tools to do your research regarding the same. Tools such as “Answer the Public”, “Google Search Console” offer greater and deeper insight for every query that might have generated an opportunity for your site to pop up with answers. It adds searched queries with conjunctions like “for” or “with” to dig deeper into the intent.
- Enhance the loading time of your website
You are very well aware of the growing technology and fast surfing has daunted our patience. If nothing, the loading time for your website is one of the primary impressions of the user experience you provide. And for voice search as well, this one can’t pass by unnoticed.
Websites that take longer to load are deserted exceptionally in comparison to those with minor loading time.
Website loading speed is directly proportional to the bounce rate and thus, ought to be optimized nevertheless.
Voice searches require a prompt response, with a slower website that takes forever to load, your content will not be utilized to reply to any query. To emphasize speed optimization for websites Google has its Speed Upgrade.
- Grasp Google My Business Listings
A Google My Business listing could be a way to let Google know where your business is put up. If somebody inquires Google to list similar businesses within the same region, you might rank in that list.
- Create FAQ pages
FAQs are the easiest and most appropriate pick for voice searches. You can include keywords in your questions. FAQs have to-the-point responses. Thus an FAQ page has both the imperative factors that can be used.
- Pump up microdata
Make sure your website is easily crawlable. This increases the chances for your website content to pop up as a result of any search query.
Utilize microdata to assist Google to understand what your content implies. Make markups for varied use cases. You can even validate your microdata structure at “Google Structured Data Markup Helper” and learn about different kinds of content that can be markups. Furthermore, it will guide you through the methods and assist you with making correct HTML
- Create Compelling Persona-Based Content
Create rich, compelling content that answers your users’ most common questions and solves their pain points.
Briefness, context, and pertinence are the basics when optimizing for voice search. What may well be distinctive from your usual SEO procedures is that presently you too get to pay uncommon consideration to:
- Creating nitty-gritty answers to common questions.
- Answering basic questions clearly and concisely.
Conclusion
Voice search no doubt has its perks, for it’s growing exponentially over conventional search.
It devoids you from the hassles of installing applications or looking at multiple websites to get the crisp outline for you, there’s no alternative for that convenience yet.
Whatever the explanation, the aftermath is the same: people are increasingly preferring to speak to typing.
Business owners are not left with many choices that either give up on voice search or do their homework, hire professionals and run with the fast-paced growth the digital market has to offer.
Well clearly opting for the first option is a coward’s play if you wish to stick into the market world, it might be a little challenging but aren’t the hardest things to do worth the effort?
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