How to Optimize SEO for Voice Searches?

More and more people use voice searches to ask any query thanks to the normalization in homes of virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa or Google Home Assistant by users of all ages and backgrounds. What started as another feature of mobile devices has become one of the most common ways to search for online information today.

Now, many devices can offer a series of results by simply asking the question through voice. This change in the behaviour of the digital user means that the planning of SEO strategies must consider how to talk about users with all their peculiarities to achieve good positioning and content optimization. Thinking that users express themselves orally in the same way as they do in writing is a severe mistake since how we speak is much more complex and diverse than how we write.

Because of this, digital businesses must consider both forms of expression in their organic positioning strategies. Furthermore, this trend will continue growing year after year. 

According to the analysis firm Juniper Research, in 2023, it is estimated that there will be more than 8 billion voice assistants in the world, representing an annual growth of more than 25%.

How do you optimize SEO for voice searches?

As we said, how people express themselves by speaking differs from how they use it when they write. For this reason, if the contents of a website are not well optimized for this search, this can cause results that are not expected.

To achieve good SEO optimization, marketing and business experts must know in depth how voice assistants work, how to interact with them, and what criteria they follow to make a transcription of what they capture in sound and translate it into results.

The first thing to remember is that the expressions and terms used in oral language differ from those in writing. The language is usually more explicit, but the way of asking the questions is longer. In addition, there are many different ways of saying the same thing and multiple expressions that vary depending on the geographical location of each person.

Another thing to pay attention to is that, while using a traditional search engine, we are used to receiving more than one search result; we usually receive only one outcome through voice assistants. Therefore, this must be the closest to what you are looking for. 

Tips to follow to improve your SEO strategy for written and voice searches

We want our SEO strategy to be appropriate for written and voice searches. In that case, we must consider several aspects to achieve this. Today, we bring you, from KSchool, several points to take into account:

• It seems obvious, but having a name that’s easy to pronounce is a big help. Having the company name or domain easy to pronounce goes a long way to improving voice searches.
• It is essential to have a responsive website, not only because it is essential today due to the widespread use of mobile devices to browse the Internet, but because voice searches are mainly carried out through these types of devices. In addition, Google prioritizes mobile indexing and only those sites that are fast and offer a good user experience appear in the first search results.
• Improve the loading speed of your website. Just as it is essential that your site is responsive, that it loads quickly is a significant ranking factor in both voice searches and traditional searches.
• Please pay special attention to Local SEO since, as we have indicated, these devices consider the context in which queries are made. In addition, many users of this type of device search for commercial information, so investing in Local SEO can significantly benefit companies.
• The best idea is to use keywords based on questions since, as we have indicated, this is how we usually express ourselves orally. To process user queries, Google uses what is called “semantic search”, which takes several aspects into account:

Natural Language Understanding (NLP)

• User context
• Query flow context
• Entity recognition

• It is essential to create conversational content, that is, write the content of our website, leaving aside the corporate tone and focusing on the way our users speak without using jargon. An excellent way to do this is to create content that solves a problem and is attractive and long. For example, make a blog post: How to create an SEO strategy?
• Tags: Being with microdata will be essential to achieving good SEO positioning since microdata provides the keys to voice searches. Data such as the address or business hours that offer a quick and satisfactory response to the user become more critical.
• Natural patterns: When positioning content, you should consider how it is spoken. It is necessary, therefore, that SEO strategies focus on the formulation of questions and their answers as if they were a conversation.