With the ever-increasing use of smartphones and the inevitable arrival of technology such as voice search ‘assistants’ like Siri for example, it really was only a matter of time before you had to start focusing on the way that voice search is impacting your SEO.
It was suggested in a recent study carried out by Google that more than half of teenagers use voice search daily, while 41% of adults are thought to ‘talk’ to their phones every day. It’s clear to see then, that you should be taking advantage of these growing trends and consider switching up your SEO strategy to reflect these changes.
Context is an incredibly important factor when it comes to voice search queries as the results that show up in the SERPs are designed to help the user with direct answers as opposed to just providing a long list of websites.
In order to adapt your SEO content so that it can be better received, you must ensure that you’re creating content that answers the questions your customers are asking. The best way to prepare your SEO for voice search is by making sure your content answers the questions that your customers are asking in a natural, conversational tone.
It’s also important to understand user intent when implementing your SEO strategy as voice search queries tend to be much more natural and conversational as opposed to a straight-talking, direct command. When people use voice search it tends to be almost personal, for example “Where is the nearest dental practice to me?” instead of just simply; “dental practice near me”. A lot of the time, when people use voice search, they use it almost as if they were talking to another human being, therefore you must remember to contain keywords such as “who”, “what”, “where” etc.
Voice search is also a pretty big deal for local, smaller businesses as people tend to use their mobile phones to find businesses such as the nearest dental practice to them, for example. In order to ensure that you get the most out of your SEO content through voice search, it’s important to include a range of relevant keywords that people are likely to use when using the voice search query.