In spite of its current state, voice activation is the future. We already encounter it a lot in the day to day and its use is more profoundly felt in more obscure areas like a security measure. But there’s no denying that its adoption has been clunky. It’s just not quite there to the point where it can be relied on as the primary tool for all sorts of technological functions we may want to carry out. That being said, it is also clear that it is coming, and a day will arrive where more people are searching on Google simply by asking their smart home or smartphone a question than there will be typing the question out. There are a lot of unexpected externalities when it comes to voice activation and voice search more specifically. Some of these have been established and are beginning to be explored, others are yet to arrive. One which is going to affect all sorts of different companies and individuals is the effects of voice search on search engine optimization or SEO. SEO is already a vital part of a myriad of industries but adapting it to meet the evolved standards of voice search is something which will really put your company ahead of the curve and could be really beneficial in the long run. So, let’s take a look at 8 ways to adjust your understanding of SEO.
- Getting To Grips With The Basics
It’s not necessarily entirely logical that there would be that much of a marked change between keyboard and voice search. But there is. Searching through text is a much slower process than with our voice. To make up for that comparative loss in time, people frequently search in keywords: they’re more likely to google ‘Ice cream NYC’ than ‘Where can I get ice cream in New York City?’. Plus words even get abbreviated and converted to ‘txt spk’ much more often to save time.
- Questions And Answers
To that point about the phrasing of questions, this is a big element to getting your SEO for voice search on the road. Understanding and analyzing the way in which questions are asked in naturalistic ways will heavily inform the way that you create your content. “A content creator for a company website needs to ask questions about the content that he wants to be discovered and then include phraseology that people use when asking a natural question”, explains Paul Baldwin, project manager at State Of Writing and Big Assignments. The question words, what, who, how, where, when, are your friends in this regard.
- Location, Location, Location
Localized SEO is already a fairly strong phenomenon, with proven benefits for certain types of stores. In voice search, it is already vital. Even with voice search in its current state people are more likely to search for something localized, like ‘Where is an electronics store in Burbank?’. The result of this is that localized SEO, content that emphasizes your location to the searcher is really effective when it comes to voice search.
- Featured Snippets
Featured snippets, also known as position zero results, are coveted by companies through search engines. This is where text from your website is featured without requiring an extra click to your website to see it. It appears at the top of the list. “People using voice search often do so because they are in a hurry. That means that being at the top of the results in the featured snippet sections is far more likely to garner responses since it emphasizes convenience”, explains Jordan Huntington, marketer at Assignment Service and BoomEssays. Shooting for this in terms of your essay could prove very rewarding.
- Writing Well
Encapsulating all of the advice about the ins and outs of naturalistic speech patterns, of mirroring questioning language to secure the featured snippet position and all of the rest of the intricate voice search SEO challenge is a hard job. This is important to consider as you go forward with your exploration of the field since it would potentially be unwise to turn to a standard SEO copywriter if you are trying to involve elements of voice search optimization. Looking for a specialist in this area is more likely to give you the website content that you need.
- Cater To The Questions
It’s actually useful to have questions listed on your site, something which I will mention in a moment. But, other than that, you need to do careful work on establishing an answering tone that includes keywords, and for you to answer a range of questions that it isn’t even important for you to answer. This is so that a customer can Google a question, like ‘How to fix a chipped windscreen’ and on your site you have a direct response such as ‘If you want to fix a chipped windscreen, you should…’. This ought to get you good results and boosts your chances of making the position zero.
- Have An FAQ Section
As is pretty evident from the points that have come before, questions and answers are the names of the game. This makes the old-fashioned FAQ section a really valuable resource for you as you optimize your site. If you don’t have one, then get one and if you do have one already then revamp it a bit.
- Be Specific
Typed questions often hit on those big keywords, as we mentioned earlier. Spoken searches are far more likely to be longer and much more specific. This means that, when you go about completing your optimization, it’s important that you maintain a strong level of detail, to catch even the most precise of searchers.
Conclusion
Overall, it’s pretty clear that the nature of human speech, in particular human questions, is of vital importance to you as you begin to adapt your website for the future of voice search. Optimization is always going to be key for ranking and click rates so it’s well worth devoting the time and effort to.
Aimee Laurence, a lifestyle blogger at Write My Essays and writer for UKWritings.com, is involved in many business projects. She enjoys identifying project problems and solving them, with her goal being to improve the effectiveness of our communication. She also writes for the Essay Writer blog.
