The rise of voice assistant technology has changed the way people conduct searches. In the coming years, this will continue to increase and it will push companies to take voice assistant technology seriously in their digital marketing strategies. Consider the following stats on voice search:
1 billion voice searches take place every month
40% of adults use voice search daily
58% of consumers used voice search to find local business information
40% of all internet searches in the U.S. are voice-based
Voice search engine optimization or VSEO is becoming important with the rise in people using their voice to comfortably search online.
Smart speakers and other voice-enabled devices have made more and more searches happen on the go, and the user often does not look at a screen. This means it is vital to have a mobile-friendly website and to make sure that your content is accessible and readable on small screens.
Marketers must recognize how this technology is affecting SEO and search.
The shift away from keyword-based search towards conversational language is one of the biggest effects of voice search. Instead of typing out a query using keywords, voice search users are more likely to ask a question or make a statement using their own words. This means that marketers must optimize their content for long-tail, conversational keywords instead of just focusing on short, high-volume keywords.
Here are a few tips for optimizing your blog post content for voice search:
1. Optimize your content for long-tail, conversational keywords to ensure that it is keyword-optimized for voice search users who often ask questions and make statements using their own words.
2. Mobile-friendliness is key for the increase of voice-enabled devices like smart speakers in online searches. Make sure that your site is mobile-friendly and that your content is easily accessible and readable on small screens.
3. Be sure to supply a direct answer to a user's question when providing search results via voice search.
4. Use structured data, such as schema markup, can help to improve the way your content is displayed in the search results and make it more likely to be chosen as a result for voice search queries.
5. Include your location and other relevant information in your content and use local SEO best practices to improve your visibility in voice searches that relate to local businesses or services.
6. Search results must be understandable to users. Make sure your text is clear and concise.
7. Optimize my content for featured snippets—everyone wants to be featured in snippets, known as "position zero." These boxes appear at the top of search results and provide a summary of an answer to a user's question. Because these snippets receive more clicks than the first result on the page, it's no surprise that they are coveted by everyone.
There's no doubt that voice search is here to stay and that marketers must understand how it changes how we search and how we can optimize our content. Hopefully the tips above will help you get started on the new year.
