Voice Search Optimising: Why You Should Keep It In Mind

Every month there seems to be more news and reports on the rise of voice search. With increasing sales of smart home devices such as Alexa and Google Home, along with searches carried out on phones, voice search is on the rise year on year and it’s certainly worth thinking about if you’re not already.

As we usually type and speak in different ways, approaching voice search needs a slightly more specific type of keyword research. A lot of business-related voice searches are questions that are asking for opening times or directions (because of this, always make sure your business information is up to date!), but users will ask many other types of questions too - information on promotions and sales, events, and even tips and guides. Voice search queries are conversational in style.

Just type in a question people often ask relating to your field in to Google and you’ll see a ‘People also ask’ feature. This will reveal similar questions you could probably answer and create content for.

We’ve talked about Featured Snippets before, and those are types of results that often get read out. The search result being read out will usually inform the user of the source, which gives a nice bit of brand awareness.

Users looking at a screen after speaking their query will see results that’ll have links to sites. A user wanting to know more may click on a listed source which will of course add on to your traffic stats in a traditional, trackable way.

What may have been seen as a fad or a novelty when Voice Search assistants first rolled around has since been taken more seriously. There’s not an awful lot of specific voice search optimisation options to carry out at the moment, but creating content in a question and answer type format, and having a fast site, are considered to help increase your chances of ranking for it and will help in the long run.