What is Voice Search? How Can You Optimize Your Website for Voice Search?

What is Voice Search? 

As technology grows and develops, becoming more advanced and capable of new things, different elements and features on websites, different technologies and apps have begun to grow at a rapid pace. With the addition of new and interesting features, it is becoming important to learn how to use these new features to the best of their ability and understand how they work. One of the most notable developments in technology as of late has been the addition of different voice search features that have been added to search engines, smartphones, laptops and other forms of technology! Voice search refers to the ability to search on search engines through voice commands, with responses not just through text but also in the form of a voice. Voice search is a great development as speech recognition software can help users easily search for certain things through voice commands! As this new kind of feature grows and becomes more prominent across the internet, it is important to include voice search optimizations within your SEO plan! 

Search engines are always looking to rank web pages that have taken the time and effort to include new and helpful features, as this shows that users will be able to easily make their way through a certain website or page. Through voice search optimization, you are letting search engines know that you are keeping up to date with all the most important developments, ensuring the best user experience for those who visit your webpage. 

Why Is Voice Search Important?

As technology becomes more advanced and search engines become smarter at recognising whether updates and additions have been made to your website, it is now more important than ever to make sure that you are giving your website the best possible chance at ranking above your competition. When it comes to recent developments in technology, voice search optimization is becoming a more popular aspect to include on your webpage. Voice search is important because it can improve the experiences of the users who are looking for information about a certain topic, ensuring that they are able to easily find information and use it to help improve their lives. Whether you have a blog or an e-commerce business, voice search can help to improve how a user interacts with your website. 

Another great thing about voice search optimization is that it can help to be inclusive of more members of society. Voice search helps those with visual impairments to be able to read and interact with the content on your webpage, understanding far more about the blog you are posting or the product you are trying to sell than they would without voice search marketing. In short, voice search is a feature that can help users better relate to your webpage and also help you to rank higher on search engines! 

What Does Voice Search Look Like?

Voice search is taken from the featured snippet that appears at the very top of search engine results pages. The information that is on the featured snippet is often related to the specific search query that is typed into the search bar. Featured snippets are extremely important and ranking for one can improve the quality and the number of users who visit your webpage. One thing about featured snippets is that they take the information and the webpage that best reflects the search query, so whether you rank first or even tenth, if you have this important and direct information on your website, you are likely to feature in a snippet. This positioning is often referred to as position zero, as it appears first on search engine results pages. If you type a question into a search engine like Google, the first box, or sometimes boxes, that appear on the search engine results page are the featured snippets. It is this information that is then read when optimised for voice search! 

What Does The Voice Search Do?

Voice search reads the featured snippet that is presented when a certain search or query is typed into the search engine. If you ask your voice assistant a question, it will then read the results from this featured snippet to you. Voice search optimization helps you to structure your content and website so that it has a high chance of ranking for voice searches and appearing on the featured snippets that appear when making this kind of search! There are many different ways that your content can be appropriately optimised for this. There are different voice assistants for different platforms, though they all generally do the same thing and function in a similar way. One of the most common voice assistants to help explain this is Siri, which is the voice assistant that is used for Apple products. The following is an explanation on how to switch Google voice on and off when using Google chrome. 

How to Turn On The Voice Search?

Once you have clicked on the google chrome tab and have opened up the search engine, you will find a small microphone icon on the left-hand side of your search bar. To enable voice search, you simply click on this icon, which will take you to a page with a large microphone. You can immediately ask the question you are wanting to be answered and the words to what you are writing will appear on the page. Some search engines will ask you to check whether or not a search query is correct, but Google Chrome just searches as soon as you are done speaking! Be sure to speak in a loud and clear manner to ensure that the search engine is picking up on the correct words and phrases that you are using. 

How to Turn Off The Voice Search?

Voice search on Google chrome is only activated on the searches that you click on the microphone button and it is therefore not necessary to turn off the voice search command. 

What Are The Differences Between Voice Search and Web Search?

Voice searches and web searches are very similar and at the end of the day, you will have exactly the same information whether you are searching with voice activation or are just typing a query into a search engine. The differences between web searches and voice searches entirely depend on how you get there. Web searches are simply typed into search engines, with results coming up based on what you have typed into the query bar. Voice searches gain information from listening to the user’s voice and relaying what was said into the search query. The following are just a few of the main benefits one receives when using voice search compared to web searches. 

What are The Benefits of Voice Search?

• Makes it easier to search while completing other tasks: In today’s age, it is not uncommon to be doing 10 things at once, you may be cooking dinner, finishing work and even looking after your children all at the same time. Including voice search on your website makes it easier for users to multitask, and complete several things at once while still being able to search for things on the internet, even though you may not be sitting in front of your computer or on your smartphone. Voice search is a great way to combine the ability to be working or research something while also completing another task! 

• Voice search is quick: For those days where time seems to be getting the better of you, voice search ensures that users are able to quickly research and find information on certain topics, without having to take the time to write out a query. This is particularly useful for searches and queries that are long and may take some time to word and then write out.

• Voice search provides a way for visually impaired people to easily communicate: For those who are visually impaired and do not have access to a braille keyboard, voice search provides an easy way to relay search queries to search engines. By simply clicking on the microphone icon and relaying your message, you can have an answer to your search query! 

What is Voice Search Optimization?

As voice search becomes a more popular way to submit queries on search engines, it is becoming important that websites get with the time and optimise to match these various changes. Voice search optimization involves optimising certain features on your webpage so that your information has a higher chance of appearing on search engines results pages where voice search has been activated. When thinking about the best ways to complete your voice search optimization, it is important to consider what voice search is and how it works. Voice search optimization will not only help you to attract users who are using voice search but it can also help you to secure a spot on a featured snippet. gaining a place on one of these coveted spots, which are also known as position zero, will ensure that your page is more visible on search engine results pages and attracts more users to your web pages! Voice search optimization can be done through a few different tactics and across different platforms. 

How Can You Structure Your Website for Voice Search Optimization?

Whether you are looking at ways to improve e-commerce voice search optimization or are looking to help your blog attract more viewers, there are many ways that users can use voice search optimization techniques to improve their rankings. The following are just a few ways of how to optimise content for voice search.

Do Keyword Research for Voice Search Optimization

As you well know by now, keyword research is an important part of SEO and they help web pages to rank higher on search engine results pages. These keywords and phrases are optimised to draw the attention of search engine crawlers and place your web page on search results that match the content and data you have on your website. When it comes to voice search optimization, keyword research is done a bit differently and certain aspects of keyword research are a bit more important than others. Many voice search queries are questions, and optimising your content to specifically answer certain questions and queries will ensure that you are optimised for voice search requests. it is important to remember that search engines are looking for content that is the most relevant for their users and questions are asked often on voice search. 

Another factor to consider is the differences that come from speaking as opposed to writing. In order to save time, we often use short-tail keywords more frequently when typing queries into a search engine. This means that when optimising for standard web searches, using these kinds of keywords would help you to rank for these queries. When it comes to voice searches, more often than not, we use language that is centred around long-tail keywords, and so when doing voice search optimization, the inclusion of these kinds of keywords is very important.  

Improve Site Structure and Content

As with any other SEO element, content is key when it comes to optimising your data so that it ranks highly on search engine results pages. Ensuring that your content is both written and structured well will impact how many queries a web page ranks for. Having relevant content that is structured well will make it easier for search engine crawlers to associate your page with specific queries! Having content that has been structured well and written with purpose and user intent in mind will ensure that your data is optimised for voice searches! 

Do Structured Data Optimization

When it comes to understanding the user and their search intent, there is no better way to ensure that search engines have a good idea of what your content is and the best kinds of queries to rank it for than using structured data! Structured data provides search engines with valuable information about why a user would be searching for the content on your webpage and helps them to better comprehend which searches your content would help users most. When doing voice search optimization, ensuring that the relevance of your content is relayed correctly to search engines is important and it can help you to reach the coveted position zero on search engine results pages. 

Be Mobile-Friendly

Being mobile-friendly can greatly improve your chances of ranking highly on search engine results pages and it’s also extremely important when it comes to voice search optimization. Many users who are using this voice search feature are doing so on their mobile devices, and having a mobile-friendly website will show search engines that your content can be easily reached if a user is on their mobile device. There is a lot of controversy around how having a mobile-friendly website impacts SEO, but since Google came out with a statement acknowledging the importance of this feature, it is a no brainer that you include mobile voice search optimization. 

Optimise For Conversational Queries

The types of queries that are typed out often differ quite a bit compared to queries that are typed out. When typing certain queries, things are often typed very differently from how we speak and are less conversational compared to when we say things. It is important that content creators keep in mind that search engines base the relevance of a search query on the content that is on your page. Things like the type of language used impact whether or not your webpage would rank for a certain query as certain keywords and phrases may be constructed differently from what is being searched for. When compiling a voice search optimization strategy, be sure to keep the tone conversational to ensure that you rank for these queries! 

Optimise Your Local Presence

When it comes to voice search optimization, having your content include information about the location of a brand or business is important and this is referred to as local SEO. This form of optimisation helps search engines to draw attention to web pages that have locations near to users. Many searches include ‘Near Me’ on a search query as users often find brands and businesses that are in close proximity to where they live. having this optimised will ensure that searches relating to location specific queries on voice search will provide users with your information. Including and optimising your content for local SEO is an extremely important tactic for all SEO and will improve your rankings on standard web searches as well as voice searches. 

Focus on Giving Answers Directly

Answers that are direct and to the point are always preferred by search engines, especially when it comes to answering a specific question asked through a search query. By focusing on giving the most direct and straightforward responses to certain questions, you can better optimise your content for voice search! Voice search optimization should focus on giving users the most direct and simple answers to common questions, as this will be easy for search engines to rank your page highly when it comes to voice search. 

What Is The Relationship Between Voice Search Optimization and SEO?

Voice search optimization is changing the way that SEO has worked, and certain elements will be different if you are specifically looking at a voice search optimization strategy. When it comes to looking at how voice search optimization impacts your SEO, anything that helps you to rank for more searches and improves your standing is considered to be a good SEO tactic. Though there are numerous things that stay the same, things like the type of content you create, the style of writing and the keywords that you use are often quite different when it comes to SEO compared to voice search optimization. The reason for this comes down to looking at the way people speak compared to how they write. Written queries are often short, to the point and usually work on the basis of including shorter keywords and phrases. When it comes to SEO optimization for voice search, ensuring that you are using language that sounds out like it is spoken and presented in a way that people talk, you are sure to attract more attention from users who are using voice search! 

What are The Effects of Voice Search Optimization on SEO?

Voice search for SEO is important because the web pages that have taken the time to optimise their content specifically for voice search will get more traffic streamlined to their webpage from people who are using voice search tools to complete web searches. Any element that helps you to stream more traffic in the direction of your webpage and increase your rankings is considered good for SEO. Though the elements that need to be optimised do differ a bit when it comes to normal search and voice searches, completing this kind of optimization and being aware of the elements and features that need to appear on your website in order to rank for this is important. Voice search optimization has a big impact on SEO and it is important to consider this facet of web searches when structuring and planning your SEO elements. 

What are Voice Search Devices?

Google Home

Many of you would have used or just come across one of Google’s latest inventions and may be asking yourself “what is google voice search?”. Google voice search optimization has come a long way over the past few years and has kept up with the likes of Apple and Android when it comes to ensuring that their devices and platforms have great voice search features. Google home is one of the most advanced home technologies in the world, giving its users the ability to control things in their homes, like speakers, cameras, lights and much more, with voice commands! 

Amazon Alexa/Echo

When it comes to voice search optimization and devices, Amazon has always been a brand that has aimed to stay on top of the market! Many are not aware of the differences between Amazon Echo and Amazon Alexa. These two advanced types of technologies each represent different parts of the Amazon voice search device. Alexa refers to the voice that you talk to, often referred to as your built-in virtual assistant while Amazon Echo refers to the products that you purchase that house the technology that allows for Alexa to work. Amazon has a great product with the Alexa and Echo products and has always been forward-thinking in the new updates of both the Alexa and Echo systems. 

Siri for iPhone

One of the best voice search devices is the Siri technology that can be seen on iPhone and Ipad products. Produced by one of the leading technology brands in the world, Apple, Siri is known as one of the most commonly used voice search devices in the world! Siri is extremely easy to set up and she can help you quickly and easily complete searches as well as complete tasks on your iPhone! 

Microsoft Cortana

Microsoft Cortana is a voice search device that was developed by Microsoft specifically for searchers to use on the Bing search engine platform. If you are a person who uses Bing a lot, you more than likely would have come across this voice search device! Not only can it help you to complete searches quickly and easily on the Bing search platform, but it is also designed as a sort of virtual assistant, and is also able to do things like set reminders! 

How Can Our Expert Team Help With Voice Search Optimization?

As your leading team of SEO copywriting experts, Markethinkers is able to help you with any and all queries relating to your SEO! When it comes to voice search optimization, having a team on hand to help you write, structure and organise the content that you place on your webpage will ensure that you rank highly for all potential search queries that your content relates to. Having an expert team of copywriters who are capable of developing unique strategies that can help you to optimise your voice search content will ensure that you attract traffic through appearing on featured snippets. If you have any questions relating to voice search optimization and are looking for ways that you can better equip your content to appear on featured snippets, do not hesitate to contact our professional SEO consulting team, as we can help you to reach your SEO goals when it comes to Voice search optimization!