How to Optimise Your Local Business Website for Voice Search
- Apr 21, 2022
- By Rajeev Nar
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes, 17 seconds
Nobody would have thought that there would come a day when people would have conversations with their devices. But fast forward to today, it has become our reality. Voice search plays a crucial role in our day to day life. And if you are worried about optimising local business websites for voice search, then you have landed yourself in the right place.
Why Voice Search?
Voice search has existed for more than a decade, but it recently became quite popular among users. Now every other person is using a smartphone, and all the smartphones come up with voice assistants like Google Assistant, SIRI, Alexa, etc. This provides convenience to the user; instead of typing everything, they can say it out loud, and the assistant will deliver it to them in a matter of time. Every age group relies on voice assisting software as it doesn’t take time and is easy to do.
So that’s why a business must optimise their business for voice search as it is the future of our society. But before jumping on that, let’s answer the question of an hour.
What Is Voice Search?
As the name speaks, voice search is a convenient option for users to conduct their searches over the internet using speech. We live in a digital world where everything is possible, and because of artificial intelligence, one can find answers to their query in seconds using voice search. Around 89% of users prefer to do online searches using voice assistant software.
But here comes the vital question.
What Is The Role Of SEO in Voice Search
Now, if you are thinking about how voice search can be beneficial for marketers, we are going to answer the same.
Whenever a buyer wants to order something, or he needs an answer for his query, the very thing he does is type the same in the search engine. To rank their business on the first page of a search engine, marketers use SEO techniques. SEO plays an essential role in bringing new customers, conversion, etc., to your business. Without proper SEO strategies, online business not going to thrive, which brings us to our next question, which is:
What’s the role of SEO in voice search? So if you think that voice search is the same as traditional SEO, you are wrong. When people prefer voice search, they use their native language and be more conversational than robotic. This means that if a business wants to rank for a particular keyword for voice search, they need to have SEO to respond to the conversational tone of users. However, ranking for such keywords is not easy as search engines don’t understand complicated words. Still, with Google coming up with updates like Hummingbirds, this has become a little less complicated. Not just this, the focus of search engines is to make the end-user experience more convenient rather than focusing on keywords.
Ways to Optimise Your Business For Voice Search
Voice search is not going anywhere any time soon, and if you look around, you will observe many voice-enabled devices; it has become a part of everyone’s life. So as a marketer, if you think you can still rely on the traditional approach, you are wrong. However, there is this misconception that having SEO for voice search is tricky, but that is not true. You don’t have to discard your current SEO strategies to make your business appear for voice search. There are many local SEO companies that help businesses with voice search. Here in this section, we will list out the ways to optimise your business for voice search.
1. Decrease Page Loading Time
If you want to optimise your business for local SEO, you must know that timing plays an important role. Modern-day users don’t like to wait around. The user wants the result as soon as they have done the action. So the website must have a fast loading time; if it takes too much time to load, visitors will not stay. And with voice search, website loading time becomes more critical as it would hardly take seconds for users to carry out the searches. So as an owner of an eCommerce business, you need to have decreased loading time as it helps determine the ranking of your site.
2. Include Long Tail Keywords
If you want to optimise your business for voice searches, it is best to use long-tail keywords. As the name speaks, long-tail keywords contain more than two words. Such types of keywords have a high probability of ranking. But these keywords were not popular before, but with the advancement in technology, people started paying attention to long-tail keywords. Since voice searches are more conversational and people prefer to say entire sentences instead of focusing on keywords, it is a must for a business owner to optimise their site for long-tail keywords if they want to appear in a search result for voice searches.
3. Make Use Of User’s Question
What’s the first thing users do when they need an answer to anything? Either they search the same on the search engine or ask the voice assistant the same. But the only difference is when users search for answers using voice search, their tone is more conversational. They don’t say keywords; instead, they ask a question, for example, if people want to know the best restaurant near their location. They will ask more natively like can you list the best restaurant near my location? And the best part is most search engines place these queries on the first page of the search engine under the name “people also ask”. All marketers have to do is use these queries as keywords in their blog posts. So that way, if people use voice search, the chance of business appearing on the first page is high.
4. Include Conversational Language
Marketers stuffed their content with keywords to rank their business on search engines. There is no denying that keywords help rank content, but search engines like Google are ingenious these days. They don’t like the content, which is swamped with keywords. So to rank your business, the content should be authentic, and keywords should be more natural. When people do a voice search, they prefer a conversational tone, and that’s why it is best to use conversational language.
5. Optimise Google My Business Profile
One of the critical things for the local SEO checklist and voice search is the Google My Business profile. The GMB profile mentions all the essential details about the business, such as contact number, address, website, opening hours, etc. So when people do the voice search, they will get the accurate details of the business. That’s why a business needs to optimise its Google My Business profile. It helps users and search engines to identify what you offer and how you could help users.
6. Mobile Friendly
Voice search generally happens through phones as it is way more convenient than any other medium. So businesses need to have a user-friendly mobile experience. If the user clicks on the website and it doesn’t appear correct, it only takes him a second to leave the site. Not just this, search engines also want the business to be optimised for mobile. And on top of everything, if you want your business to be optimised for voice search, you can’t overlook the fact that most users prefer mobile devices.
7. Generate Local Content
Another important thing if you want to rank for voice search is making your content more locally. It simply means you have to use your native language. One of the benefits of local SEO is it makes your business rank with minimal effort. And the people who prefer voice search look for local content. If the business generates local content that meets the users’ requirements, then the chances of its ranking are much higher. To gain more knowledge about the same, check out the local SEO guide.
These are just some of the ways to optimise your business for voice search. But other than this, businesses must keep an eye on micro-moments. You must be wondering what micro-moment is; these are the moments where users prefer immediate action, such as relevant information about thor queries which helps them conclude. All businesses must take care of these micro-moments by offering information on their site to help users.
Conclusion
That’s all! Here we have mentioned ways to optimise your local business website for voice search. Gone were days when people preferred to do things manually; modern-day users rely on methods that can save them time, and voice search is one such thing. With smartphones becoming their long-lasting partners, voice search becomes handy. So businesses must adopt them for all these technological changes.
So if you want to incorporate your business for voice search? Reach out to RVS Media now.
