Five Ways to Optimise Your Website for Voice Search In 2022

When optimising for voice search it’s important to know:

• What makes voice search different?
• Your keyword strategy
• The best way to talk
• Focus on the users
• How can this add to your current strategy
• How we can support you

Alexa, Siri, Bixby, Cortana.

Though it might sound like the line-up of the next group to win the X-Factor, most people will recognise at least one of these names as virtual assistants. Common among modern UK households, virtual assistants have several purposes.

From setting timers and reminders to controlling the lights in your house and playing your favourite album on demand, virtual assistants are convenient and functional. One of the main features of virtual assistants is being able to ask quick questions, which are then answered following a quick scan of the internet.  

You could be missing out on a key portion of your audience by not tailoring your SEO approach to accommodate voice searches, but don’t worry; read on to find out exactly how you can appeal to your target audience through voice search optimisation.

What are the differences between voice searches and regular searches?

The way we choose to communicate and interact with those around us differs from person to person. For example, in most cases, you wouldn’t talk to your friend in the same way you talk to your boss. The same can be said for technology: do you type in the same way you speak?

There are several differences in the norms of text and voice conversations, and it’s the same for text and voice searches. If you wanted to know about the best marketing options in your local area, you might type something simple, like:

‘Marketing agency Birmingham‘

If you were to do the same by voice, you might ask something like:

“What’s the highest-rated digital marketing agency in Birmingham?“

This difference in search terms and specificity could mean that a usually effective SEO strategy doesn’t work its magic on the more than one billion voice searches made every week. In fact, with some sources claiming that voice searches are now more common day-to-day than text-based searches, it might be more important than ever to target this audience.

Here are five steps you can take to do so.

Review your keywords

Due to the short, succinct nature of text searches, a traditional SEO strategy is likely to target single words or short phrases specific to your industry to drive search traffic to your website.

With voice searches changing the way people phrase their queries, the keywords and phrases you need to target are likely to be different.

Since voice searches are more conversational and grammatically correct than the text-based equivalent, it makes sense to target these with your content. Instead of appealing to “voice search SEO”, for example, you may want to target “how to improve voice search ranking” or “what’s the best way to improve voice search SEO.”

This change of approach might seem strange, but if someone were to ask the same question using exactly the same wording as you have on your website, then you will rank higher on the results.

Produce conversational content

If voice searches are being utilised in a conversational tone, then you need to produce conversational content. The content you produce should match what people are searching.

There are several ways to approach this, so you need to pick the one that best suits your existing tone and content. Perhaps you could produce question and answer content to appeal to the longer keywords while also reducing the formality of your communication.

Maybe some of your webpages could work better as lists or graphs rather than long, drawn out explanations, or perhaps you need to rework your titles to be more appealing to a wider audience.

Maintain a focus on the user experience

Targeting users when they may not physically enter your website might seem strange, but it has its SEO benefits. For one, the load speed of your website is considered when the search engine decides where to rank you in the search results. The higher up you rank, the more likely you are to be picked by the voice search.

Additionally, your website needs to be easy to use and navigate for users so that the search engine can access the necessary information easily. If the website is logical and laid our intuitively, then the search engine will be able to find the search query as easily as a user.

Don’t disregard your regular SEO strategy

Appealing to voice search doesn’t mean you should suddenly ditch your attempts to target text search traffic, too. To attract the highest possible amount of web traffic, it will pay to target both voice search and regular search audiences.

This means that you might need to operate two separate SEO strategies or combine them into one unified method. Juggling two different methods of search engine usage is complex, especially when you’re trying to appeal to two different sets of similar keywords.

Contact an SEO and marketing specialist

What’s the best way to guarantee SEO results? Reach out to the experts. We can handle all the complex SEO research and produce an effective strategy from the findings. We can then also produce the content you need to seamlessly incorporate this strategy into your website.

We believe in transparency, so our team will walk you through the steps we take to help drive traffic to your website and send you the quantitative results of our efforts. You will be able to see exactly how our services have helped you and what might need tweaking.

For more information on how our SEO team could help you generate leads and increase revenue, email info@edge-creative.com or call the office on 0121 355 8092.