Voice Search Optimization: How to Do SEO for Voice Search

In 2024, 8.4 billion people are using voice search to research anything or make a conversation on Google. Since voice search has been so popular, you might want to implement it with SEO. But do you know how voice search works and how to do SEO for voice search? If not, get all the ideas from our blog.

We have noticed there are many theories and concepts of voice searching on Google. In the past, people used keyword-based SEO for small businesses to optimize landing pages for text and voice searches. But, when Synup’s SEO statistics claimed that 80% of the voice searches are conversational, it became a concern among business companies. 

We will highlight the facts of whether voice search is the same process or not in this guide. But first, let’s get familiar with voice search and its process.

Voice search optimization is an SEO technique that can make your content appear on top results after searching by voice assistants. For example, If you ask, “what are chinese restaurant near me?” you are most likely to get a spoken answer from a voice assistant telling the local packs from the results. Usually, the voice assistant wants to relate answers to your queries using question-type keywords.

What is Voice Search Assistant?

Voice search assistants are applications that can respond to your question verbally. You can have the apps in two ways. Either, you have to install them on your phone. Or else, you have to buy a device. According to researcher Sadia Urooj, some of the best voice assistant systems are Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft Cortana, and Samsung Bixby. 

There are 4.2 billion voice assistants in active use right now all over the world. 27% of them are using mobile apps. It is clear that voice searching is getting hype by the day. In every 100 cases, 60% home alone people use voice searches. In office, the number is near 50%. The young generation prefers to use voice search as everyone knows the information at the same time.

How Voice Search Works?

The voice search process begins when users activate their device with a key phrase like "Ok Google" or "Alexa." They then ask a question, and the device searches for and reads the answer aloud. Some devices may also send a link to the source of the information. For instance, Google Home will sometimes send a link via Google Assistant, while Siri may simply provide a summary of the search results.

Relation between Voice Search and SEO

When you speak into your voice assistant, it does a few things—and one of the things is converting your voice into text and searches on Google to identify the keywords you spoke. That means voice search also relies on general SEO.

• The voice assistant converts your spoken words into text.
• It analyzes the text to understand your intent and the keywords you used.
• It searches its saved database or the internet for relevant information.
• It presents the results in a spoken format according to a serial.

But, if you ask for details, the voice assistant can explain when the search results have definitive answers about the topic. That’s where voice search optimization comes into play! Business websites need to invest heavily in SEO so that their content seems relevant to voice assistants as a spoken answer.

You need voice search optimization because voice search is changing SEO. Ignoring voice-searching trends could miss some opportunities for leads and sales. With over 1 billion voice searches conducted monthly and more than 55% of people using voice search to find local businesses. It is a proof that voice search is very few distances away from joining the list of SEO benchmarks in 2024. 

The importance of voice search optimization is as below—

• Voice search is driving sales online. Studies show that the number of smartphone users of voice search is 56%. So, newly established brands are adopting voice search strategies, and until now, they have seen a 30% increase in digital commerce revenue.
• Google is constantly updating the algorithm to present the most authentic and practical experience by users on SERP. As a result, voice search optimization results in more user satisfaction with readable and audible context.
• Voice search often relies on more conversational queries. Therefore, you have the option to include long-tail keywords and related frequently asked questions to be featured on the snippet. Voice assistant mostly reads information from the snippets and meta descriptions.

The impact is clear. Voice search queries differ significantly from traditional text-based searches. You might have seen that people naturally speak in a conversational tone. They use phrases and questions that are unlike the concise keywords typically used in typing. Therefore, you have to anticipate the conversational nature of voice queries, and your businesses can craft content accordingly. 

For example, instead of focusing solely on the keyword ‘car battery,’ optimize for phrases like ‘where to buy a car battery’ or ‘car battery replacement.’ If you have a lot of existing content, you can use AI for natural content writing in a conversational way.

Well, where is the catch? Actually, this approach aligns with user intent and increases the chances of appearing in featured snippets. We explained earlier that the voice assistant will read you the snippet information aloud. So, when it gets something answerable, it will pick that part quickly. Additionally, given the local nature of many voice search queries, you can deploy a voice search local SEO for better presence.

As a business enthusiast, you should never stop your SEO for voice search. Just improve yourself one step ahead by shifting from keyword-centric search to conversational searches. Here are 7 tips that might help you build a better search environment for Google crawlers and voice assistant apps.

1. Optimize Page Semantic Search 

We don't know your thoughts on semantics searches, but we can guarantee that semantics reflect the user intent. For instance, a movie theater targeting Philadelphia audiences should optimize for both "movies in Philadelphia" and "movies Philadelphia" to capture diverse search queries. If you do so, your content will be featured as different voice search answers.

1. Include the Brand Name in the Place

Let’s guess the content writer team knows how to rank content and feature the snippet on SERP. Then, you have to make sure they include your brand name inside the description. Do not forget that Google needs to understand your brand name. You can conduct a radio test to know how your brand name is perceived. Then, use the right spellings so that it is not wrongly pronounced. 

1. Organize the Answer

Pick the long-tail keywords as concise answers to potential questions. Aim for answers that are around 30 words or less. SEO specialist Brian Dean has a short guide for voice search in SEO where he discusses how Google prefers the average word count for voice search to be 29. If your answer is too small, add the phrase of the question. For example: 

• What types of phones are better for getting help from voice assistants?
• Android phones are better to get help from voice assistants.

While sometimes shorter, responses are often more likely to be featured in voice search results. You can always experiment with different question lengths in Google to find the best fit for your target keywords.

1. Use Rich Texts and Local Pack Details

A study from 2019 revealed that 70% of voice search results occupy SERP features. Users get quick and relevant information from these, such as featured snippets, ‘people also ask’ boxes, local packs, and rich text snippets. Google crawlers and voice assistants get information from these, like ratings, locations, and related topics. Users can navigate more topics when assistants ask them.

1. Make Website Responsive

If you have followed enough, voice assistants rely on 3 step process: convert your queries into text, find search results from ranked results, and convert the text into speech.

Here, your website needs to be faster than everyone else so that you do not have system loss in the process. The assistant will try to grab results as fast as possible, so it will prioritize the most responsive websites as Google shows results according to searcher’s behavior these days.

1. Finish the Schema Markup

Schema markup is an effective medium to provide Google and other search engines a detailed result. Hence, the searcher can get your business's hours, address, contact details, pricing, reviews, and more. Guess what? The details are equally helpful for on-page SEO and voice SEO and you can lead to higher visibility in search results and increased clicks. 

1. Make Mobile Friendly Site

As voice assistant are mobile apps, it is believed that their engines search from the mobile version of the search engine. So, your priority will be making the page layout and content mobile-friendly. It is effective for better scrolling and detecting the page features.

Voice search made searching easier than ever. In the early days, Google Maps users used to navigate the roads with the help of voice assistants. Now you can research and audit anything in the same way for the improvement of voice search optimization. Even when you are on tour, you can do multitasking. The voice search saved your time and effort. 

Plus, people use homepods like Siri or Alexa to speak and listen to multiple things together with their family. They can buy anything online with information from voice search. That’s why SEO specialists are focusing on voice search optimization as the new day SEO criteria.

We recommend you get a 360-degree digital marketing agency that can optimize a website and search console for the best SEO outcome. At VISER X, we also have a dedicated web developer and SEO expert team for the overall optimization process. We have access to all the premium voice search optimization tools. Even when you are in need of any custom CMS or system for optimizing content, we can deliver that to you from the help of our software developer team.

With that said above, we all can understand how voice search affects SEO. All you need is to detect how it works by converting text to speech to text and how you can optimize the site with organized answers, brand names, rich texts, etc. People feel voice search more convenient choice to search for anything. So, do not forget to look up this during your SEO campaigns. Contact us and have a discussion on SEO for voice search.

What are the key factors in voice search optimization?

Voice search optimization needs a website that resembles how people naturally speak. You can use conversational language and focus on long-tail keywords for the organic flow. Besides, prioritize local information so that your content is easily found through voice search, especially for local businesses.

What are the percentages of daily voice searches?

In the USA, 50% of the Google searches use voice searches. Their search contains 11% of news, 17% of weather, and 13% of fact checks. Moreover, local searches are 16% and online purchases 12%. A majority of the drivers use voice assistants for driving and navigation.

How does the FAQ section help in voice search?

A detailed FAQ section that addresses common questions about your industry, products, or services. Basically, the answers have a conversational tone to mimic how people naturally speak when using voice search. Also, these are readymade answers, so the voice assistant can pick them up in the first place for quick response.

Why is voice searching a trend?

People love to do interesting things with comfort. Therefore, voice searching allows people not to type words and search effortlessly. 72% of the people have a speaker device with a microphone built-in. They prefer to use it as their daily routine. PWC’s study predicted that 25% of people will shop online using voice search in the near future.