How The Rise of Voice Search Is Reshaping the Landscape of Search Engine Optimization
If you consider yourself to be computer knowledgeable, then you have at least conducted a web search using the internet browser on your mobile device. Either you put the keywords into Google’s search bar or you utilized voice search to find what you were looking for. The first method is the tried-and-true, standard approach to doing things, while the second is quickly gaining ground and will likely overtake it sooner or later.
For example, a piece published on Oberlo predicts that by the end of 2021, around 122.7 million people who use the internet in the United States will be utilising voice search. Can you believe it?
If you operate a business or are involved in digital marketing, you will need to be aware of the ways in which voice search can effect the development of online marketing strategies as well as the implications this has for search engine optimization. According to the analysis that was produced by Google and Temasek for the 2020 e-Conomy conference, the use of voice search increased by an astounding 120 percent in South East Asia during the 2020 quarantines. Voice search optimization is already a game-changer for SEO, so if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you should start investing in it as soon as possible.
What, Where, When, Why, and How of Voice Search
Before you can optimise a business or website for voice search, you’ll need to make sure that there already exists some foundation of an online presence. Working at a digital marketing firm or SEO agency requires an awareness of market trends, and before you can optimise a business or website for voice search, you’ll need to be aware of market trends.
Before delving into the ways in which it affects SEO Company delhi, let’s first analyse the fundamentals of voice search by investigating the following questions: What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How.
What exactly is the voice search? Voice search’s most fundamental feature is that it lets users speak their search queries. The production of voice technology devices began in the 2000s with the introduction of IBM’s Watson speech recognition software. Google and Apple followed suit by introducing Voice Search and Siri, respectively, in following years.
Why is it vital to search using voice? Voice search is distinct from searches conducted through browsers, and its popularity is growing in tandem with the rise in the number of people who use mobile phones. Moz writes about how it has been used for general web enquiries by over half of its customers and mentions this fact in their article.
Who is utilising the voice search feature? Voice search is primarily utilised by people who are mobile-based. In point of fact, the use of voice-enabled search technology accounts for twenty percent of all smartphone searches.
How significant is the use of voice search? Voice searchability presents a significant opportunity for digital marketers and business owners to capitalise on this trend simply because it is simpler and more convenient than typing queries into a search bar to find information that meets specific requirements. Voice search may help you in a variety of situations, including finding directions, finding a solution to a problem quickly, and satisfying times of simple curiosity.
How does the use of voice search affect SEO?
It is unavoidable that voice-enabled technology would have an effect on SEO, given the expanding tendencies as well as the rising adoption rate in the utilisation of mobile searches. Due to the fact that this signifies that organisations that rely on digital marketing solutions are going to either encounter prosperity or problem, it is crucial to gain an understanding of the influence of voice search. Voice search is a tool that can assist SEO experts, digital marketers, and business owners in surviving the competition, accomplishing their marketing objectives, and increasing their revenue.
The following is a list of the various ways that voice search is altering the game:
It imposes its own language on users and establishes the context of searches.
Long-tail keywords, which are used to locate a particular answer, are given more force by this.
It does this by giving websites higher results in the search engine results page (SERP).
It s beneficial to local companies because it makes them easier to access.
In the same way that local companies might benefit from its prevalence, it contributes to the growth of online commerce.
Language and its social setting
It is necessary for there to be a capability for language comprehension inside speech technology in order for it to be functionally useful. Because of the importance of comprehension, users are encouraged to articulate their questions in a manner that can be understood by the voice-enabled technology device or platform they are using. In contrast to a search conducted through a browser, in which the user writes a fragment consisting of two to three terms, a voice search requires the user to conform to particular requirements about syntax and grammar. Because of this, voice searches are typically conducted using phrases or sentences that contain at least one fully formed notion.
In his article, Jeff Bullas discusses how seventy percent of voice searches have a tone that is similar to that of a conversation. For instance, a standard browser search for informational content on digital marketing is likely to provide results along the lines of “digital marketing meaning.” On the other hand, a voice search enables a user to more easily inquire, “What is digital marketing?” The context of user intent and keywords is yet another significant facet of its effect on search engine optimization (SEO).
Question words that are based around fundamental keywords, such as the 5Ws and 1H, are an effective tool for defining user intent. A website’s chances of receiving a featured snippet from Google can be improved by giving replies that are both succinct and correct to such search inquiries. It is for this reason that marketers need to grasp the context of a user’s intent behind a voice search. Only then will they be able to differentiate between the need for information that is more substantial and the need for responses that are simple.
The RankBrain and Hummingbird features of Google are designed to grasp semantics and natural language in order to offer users with search results that are relevant to their queries. This can only serve to underscore how SEO may be influenced by voice search through the context of content relevancy. Google will rank pages higher when a website can continuously deliver value to the user depending on the user’s search intent.
Keyword Lengths
Speech search enables a user to mix more terms in order to get what they are looking for; hence, search queries conducted using voice are significantly longer than those conducted using a standard web browser. According to Backlinko, the typical voice search has 29 words, which means that targeting long-tail keywords should take priority. Users are typically brought closer to the stage of conversion on the buyer’s journey when they employ search terms like these.
Search Rankings
As was mentioned earlier, Google gives higher rankings to pieces of content that are helpful to users by moving them up the search engine results page (SERP). Additionally, 75 percent of results for voice searches appear in the top three spots, which means they are effectively included in featured snippets and rich answer boxes.
Lookup in the Area
It is impossible to deny the influence that technology that is voice-enabled has had on local search. When consumers conduct searches using speech recognition, they are really three times more likely to be looking for anything that is nearby. Voice searches are used by approximately sixty percent of these users to locate local businesses. This goes to illustrate that optimising a website for location-based inquiries such as “Where can I locate a pad thai restaurant in Oregon?” can really assist a company in reaching the customers they are trying to attract
E-Commerce
E-commerce companies can leverage on the increasing popularity of voice search in the same way that brick-and-mortar businesses can reap the benefits of user intent for voice search. According to information provided by Search Engine Journal, a virtual assistant was used by 72 percent of users for voice searches, while a smart speaker was utilised by 35 percent of users for the same purpose. As a portent of better things to come, online retailers should see this as a signal to make investments in digital assistants so that they can better serve an increasing number of clients as their online presence grows their reach.
What You Need to Do to Get Your Website Ready to Be Optimized for Voice Search
Now that you are familiar with voice search and how it might impact your SEO campaign, we will provide you with seven suggestions to think about in the event that it is relevant to your strategy for digital marketing.
Research on voice search keywords can be done by starting with your primary keyword and entering it into the appropriate field on your keyword research tool. Build your long-tail keyword list around expressions that are more similar to natural language, as these are more likely to be used in voice searches.
Your website’s content should be optimised for voice search by offering succinct replies to the search queries entered by users in headers and frequently asked questions sections. One approach to accomplish this is to format your material in the style of a frequently asked questions website. Use the relevant search terms from the question as headings, and then offer the responses in the main body of the text immediately below. Because it is brief and straightforward, Google will recognise the information as having value.
More than forty percent of voice search results can also be discovered in Google’s highlighted snippets, so make sure that your schema is optimised for featured snippets as well. This can be accomplished with the help of your content if you format it as structured data. This can be accomplished by showcasing the value of your material through the utilisation of bulleted and numbered lists, tables, and schema markup.
Material: Create high-quality video content for specific elements of the company’s operations, such as instructive demos or product reviews, and publish it online. In addition to that, be careful to optimise the meta tags. This contributes to adding value to a search query, particularly for demands that are more practical in nature, such as how- to’s.
Google MyBusiness recommends that you optimise your business for local voice search prospects by making it simpler for your ideal customers to locate you. You can accomplish this by ensuring that your Google My Business page is always up to date. This will ensure that your company is easily discoverable and available to prospective customers who use voice search to look for “digital marketing agency near me.
Authorship and EAT: Become a subject matter expert in your niche and enhance your domain authority because Google analyses the quality of its results and wants to deliver material from authority sites. Improve your domain authority by being a member of the Eben Alexander Team. You may accomplish this by having content that is engaging and adds value, having backlinks of a high quality, having social sharing that has grown organically, and having a frictionless user experience. This helps enhance the likelihood that your material will be returned as a result of a voice search.
Calibrate the page experience and work on improving the speed since user experience, such as the speed at which your website loads, is also a ranking consideration for Core Web Vitals. Calibrate the page experience and work on improving the speed. It shouldn’t take a page that long to entirely load given that the average speed at which a voice search result is returned is 4.6 seconds.
Create an SEO plan for your campaign using these seven principles, and aim to integrate voice search as part of the approach. Create new ideas, make prototypes, and put them into action. And when ninety to one hundred and eighty days have passed, examine the results and readjust as required. Because data is essential in this regard, it is imperative that you make the most of all the resources at your disposal.