Last Updated on July 25, 2017
We all often do voice search on our mobiles to navigate to some place, to find some restaurants nearby or to get answers to specific question like:
What’s the name of Donald Trump’s height & Google shows us the answers of our queries. 
With the growth in technology of Smartphones & other devices that have the voice search feature, it will keep growing with time, but the question is:
Should I Be Really Worried?
Facts always speak louder than words and here are some facts shared by Benu Aggarwal from Milestone Internet Marketing in one of the most interesting sessions on Optimizing Content for Voice Search during SMX West 2017.
It clearly says that more than 50% people search are Non PC searches, 82% people search for local business on mobiles, interestingly 50% searchers visit stores within a day of searching & 18% people do end up making a purchase within 24 hours.
People are moving from traditional searches to the exact queries & more often than not, they do voice search for getting the exact answers for their questions.
As people are getting smarter, devices are getting smarter too; all companies are working on improving their voice search results. Be is Google Assistance, Apple Siri, Amazon Eco or Microsoft Cortana, they all are working to improve their voice search results & with time they are improving as well.
Google and Amazon actually launched devices for personal assistance like Google Home & Amazon Echo which can help you in great ways like from telling the temperature to finding a Thai Restaurant near you.
Some amazing facts about growth of voice search market
- As all are working for voice search improvement, the total number of voice searches is increasing in exponential rate. Google Voice Search is increased by 35X in 2016 over 2008 as per Search Engine Watch
- 40% Adults use voice search at least once per day according to Location World.
- It’s predicted that 50% of all searches will be voice search by 2020 as per comscore.
- As per voice labs report, 24.5 million voice first devices will be shipped in 2017, which is approx 4X more than last year’s 6.5 million devices.
I hope this gives you enough data about the potential of voice searches & why you must not ignore it.
How to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search?
First & most important thing, voice searches are mostly local & often done by devices with location detection, so its critical for the businesses which are local in nature like restaurants, shops, hotels etc. to optimize for voice search before you are left behind.
Setup Your Local Business Page
Local business page is very important, voice searches often take inputs from structure data & local business listing provides exact answers about your location, contact, address, business hours etc. So it’s very much possible that someone in your vicinity will find your business while searching if you have proper listing. Also local searches are the most potential & converting in nature, if you have not claimed your local business listing, claim it as soon as possible, if you have any trouble doing is, do consult us for your Local Business SEO.
Keywords to Optimize for Voice Search
Unlike the traditional search, long tail keywords are more popular in voice search, the average length of keywords are 6-10 words for voice search & more often people ask direct questions rather than small keywords.
Shared by Purna Virgi , Sr Training Manager at BingAds
Think as a customer of your business & list down the most common queries for voice search. Knowing the nature of voice search is also very important, voice searches are often questions seeking for exact answers. So try to provide exact answers for possible questions related to your business.
There is a great free website to find all popular questions related to your business, just go to AnswerthePublic.com and check most common questions related to your business.
Achieve Featured Snippet or Position Zero
To provide the best answers, Google tries to pick exact answer & give it Position 0 which gets most CTR. Basically, this position 0 is based on how close you are to provide answer for the asked query. Based on voice search queries, try providing answers for your business related question & if you are ranking on page 1, you can get the featured snippet. I will write a detailed tutorial on how to achieve featured snippet in my next blog entry.
If you see the actual rankings, the website themegrill.com is actually ranking on #3 position but they got the most converting featured snippet. Sometimes its noticed that even websites from page #2 of google search got the featured snippet but that’s a rare case. Normally websites from first page gets position Zero in google search.
Have a detailed FAQs Section or Page
If you know the exact questions related to your business, have a frequently asked questions section on your website or a dedicated page for that, it helps you provide direct answers. FAQ pages are great resource to target long tail keywords & common queries.
For Examples, with voice search people are more likely to search for “Places to buy Souvenirs Near me” instead of “Souvenirs Shops”. With a FAQ section, you can easily target such queries and gain better rankings as well as chances to get featured snippet.
Structure Data Markup Integration
Structure data plays a crucial role in search results based on voice search, so correct structure data markup gives you edge on voice search. Voice search devices will get your correct information easily with the help of structure data & it will help you in getting more traffic from voice search.
In Conclusion
Voice search is a growing thing & it’s not going anywhere soon, so it’s better to start optimizing for it. All businesses should consider optimizing for voice search however it is more important for local businesses as per the search trends. To optimize for voice search, start targeting long tail keywords & answer your business-specific questions. Have a FAQs page for your business to give exact answers. Claim your local business listing as it is crucial for voice search, correct structure data markup is important for voice search as it tells the relevant information to users.
Take a head start & optimize your business for voice search as it’s still a growing thing.
