Voice Search Optimization

“Siri, who let the dogs out?”

“OK Google, how do I get home?”

“Alexa, what is the meaning of life?”

There’s no doubt that search engines set the rules when it comes to your website and your content marketing. As a business, you constantly have to keep up with search engine trends as it impacts your ability to be found online.

The biggest movement from the last few years that should be affecting your search engine optimization (SEO) tactics TODAY is the increase in voice searches over traditional typed searches.

Today, one in five consumers are using voice searches. Of course the percentage is higher amongst younger demographics, but as Baby Boomers age, the percentages will continue to increase. This is one technological wave that you definitely need to stay ahead of.

Voice searches tend to be on mobile devices, which is no surprise, but you need to take into account that users are less patient on mobile devices. Answers to frequently asked questions need to be more prominent now than ever before. This goes for not only your website, but your blogs and social media, too.

Here’s three important ways that your SEO needs to adapt because of voice searches:

1. Shift away from keywords into long-tail search terms. This may be a huge sigh of relief to most of you. Inserting keywords into content can be awkward. Luckily, we don’t execute voice searches like we do normal typed searches. Internet users have long been trained to input keywords to get what they want online. “Leesburg Pizza Takeout,” would be a completely normal search term for Google if you are sitting at home want some pizza. If you are in your car, driving home from Vienna and you want to pick up pizza on the way, you’ll most likely say something like, “OK Google, where can I pick up pizza in Leesburg?” It’s all about becoming conversational again. Use your natural voice. Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How phrases are becoming increasingly important, and the answers to these questions need to be easily accessible.
2. Location matters more now than ever. Unlike more random searches that you may enter from your desk at work, voice searches tend to be more location based. Location data needs to be a key tactic for your website SEO.
3. Get into schemas. Schemas are simply shared vocabularies – think microdata coding – that provide Google, Bing, and Yahoo search engines’ crawlers with additional information to help your site appear more prominently in SERPs.

Conveyance Marketing Group has been on top of the voice search movement for a while now. If you don’t have your own methodology in place for riding this SEO wave, then it’s time to start planning. Contact us today if you need someone to help navigate these new waters.