5 Steps To Optimize Your Website for Voice Search

When it comes to SEO, there are so many aspects to keep track of. If your web pages aren’t properly optimized, they won’t produce the results you’re looking for. Luckily, most SEO systems have accounted for all these variables.

However, one element many businesses forget to optimize their websites for is voice search. So many people these days simply ask their phone or home assistant a question, and the device spits back an answer for them. If your website isn’t optimized properly to account for that, the chances of you showing up in the search results will decrease significantly. If you want to better optimize your site for voice search, here are some steps to follow to get you on the right track.

Replace Short Keywords With Long Ones

When finding keywords to use for various web pages, many companies focus on ones that are a word or two long or consist of short phrases. While this process works well for standard text-based searches, it’s not always the case for voice-based ones. When people say what they want to search for aloud, they tend to be a bit more long-winded and specific.

Which means you’ll need long-tailed keywords that match these results. Longer keywords are more likely to hit the targeted phrases within the search, making your results more likely to be at the top of the search engine’s page.

Turn Queries Into Questions

Another important thing to consider when looking at your keywords is how the search queries are delivered. When typing to find an answer, people are usually straight to the point. However, when voice searching for something, people are more likely to form it as a question. This is because the voice searching process was designed to mirror natural human speech and conversation, thanks to voice assistants.

That doesn’t mean you must restate all your queries as questions. As long as you target some of the questions you think potential customers might ask, you’ll likely pop up on the first page of the results.

Optimize for Potential Snippets

The search result snippet is one part of SEO that has become very important due to voice search and AI assistance. This box appears at the top of the results and actually answers the person’s query without needing to click on the link.

Snippets are crucial for two reasons: first, snippets are always the primary result on the page. Even though the answer the person was looking for is given to them right away, if they want more info, they’ll be much more likely to click the link that gave them the answer right away.

Second, snippets are what AI assistants will read back to the user after conducting a voice search. When using a device that doesn’t have a screen, such as an Alexa, people won’t be able to see the entire page of results. Instead, the voice assistant will read back the snippet. This means there’s only one way for your website to be the answer to a person’s voice search—you need it to be a snippet.

Work on Your Google My Business Profile

Another area you’ll want to work on when optimizing your company’s search results is your Google My Business (GMB) profile. This is where people can find out your location, your hours of operation, and how busy you are currently.

GMB is vital for any type of search, but it’s even more crucial when it comes to voice searches since the AI assistants can also read these results aloud. This means, a person can easily find out if they have enough time to make it to your business before it closes without ever having to look at their screen.

Keep Mobile in Mind

The most important thing to know about optimizing your website for voice search is there’s no specific design standard to follow. Currently, there isn’t a viable way to transcribe web pages entirely into voice. Even if it were possible, if read aloud, most pages would be too confusing to understand.

That’s why you need to make sure your website is optimized for mobile users instead. Many people who perform voice searches do so from their phones. Which means if your site doesn’t look good on a phone’s screen or it’s difficult to navigate, it’ll hurt your rankings for voice searches. Including the key components of a user-friendly website is one of the best ways to avoid this problem. Nevertheless, any mobile-based optimization you implement will improve your overall rankings.