SEO

Why Voice Search SEO is important for businesses

  24 November 2020

Why Voice Search SEO is important for businesses

Voice Search SEO is an SEO technique of optimizing the content, phrases, keywords, and metadata in your website to boost voice search, and rank at the top of search results whenever a user asks specific questions. So by improving the technology of voice SEO, our voice search commands give us better access to information on Google and google voice search.

The current trend in voice search technology has been a new technological development that will exceed the boundaries of businesses and changes the conventions of SEO. The main reason for these transformations is the widespread acceptance of voice search technology and the google voice search app among users.

According to ComScore, more than 50 % of smartphone users are using voice search technology in 2020. As per Juniper Research, the current 3.25 billion voice assistant users will increase to a staggering 8 billion by 2023. 55% of households in the US are likely to use a smart speaker by 2022.

Rise of Voice Search Trends & Technology

IBM Watson is a powerful voice recognition question-answer super computer founded in 2010 and it has worked as a highly intelligent AI. In the next year 2011, Google released Voice Search and Apple released Siri with the iPhone 4S, the first digital personal assistant.

In 2014 Microsoft launched Cortana and Amazon launched Echo which is a speaker powered by the personal assistant, Alexa. Google launched Google Assistant and smart speaker Google Home in 2016. Other digital assistants include Alice from Yandex, AliGenie from Alibaba.

We know that voice search is a dialogue-based system which is a software created to converse with humans. Automatic speech recognition (ASR) is used for converting input signals into voice search. Imagine you are preparing a new dish in the kitchen and can’t remember a step in the recipe. With ASR you don’t have to use your smartphone with your not-so-clean hands, and can instead just ask for the recipe. Some other benefits of voice search are that it is faster and easier than traditional search. It is also perfect for mobile applications. When we are using a desktop, we might type “making yellow butter cake” or “yellow butter cake recipe.” When we use voice, we might ask, “Hey Alexa, how do I make a yellow butter cake at home?”

This almost makes the digital assistant feel human, which is why the technology is getting traction globally as people are more comfortable receiving information from a software that is reminiscent of human speech, instead of a screen full of google search results.

Currents Trends of voice search SEO in 2020

1. Smart speakers are driving voice search adoption:

According to market research company Emarketer, smart speaker usage is estimated to grow by more than 76 million in 2020. 40 million Americans currently use a smart speaker. Many tech companies are launching their own smart speakers.

2. Improvement in voice AI and machine learning (ML):

Current trends have changed artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) usage and it has changed how users interact with their smart devices and search the internet. With the help of platforms like RankBrain, word and phrase recognition can be used to forecast results accurately.

3. Google’s voice recognition:

Google’s voice recognition has an accuracy of 95%, so businesses are attracting more traffic to their site by implementing voice SEO.

4. Voice search is used more by mobile user:

Voice search is now available in more than 100 languages on mobile devices. So smartphones are used by nearly 40% of voice searches which is far more than smart speakers. This is likely because of the portability and versatility of smartphones as they can be used at the office, at a restaurant, at a party, or any other location.

Best practices to optimize voice search SEO

Though voice technology can affect SEO processes in various ways, here are a few recommended steps brands can take to take full advantage of this technology.

  • Use long-tail keywords: People using long-tail keywords have seen brilliant results with their search rankings, over the long run. We can use long-tail keywords in a more conversational tone to identify what users are looking for. Some of the online tools to find relevant phrases & keywords include UberSuggest, SEMRush, Hubspot.
  • Make your Site Mobile Friendly + Improve Site Speed: Your website must be indexed based on its mobile version and it will rank better on Google based on this factor. Increasing the website speed will improve the quality of user experience.
  • Create Conversational Content: When someone utilizes voice search, they will use more conversational keywords. We don’t usually speak the same way we type! For example, when you want to search for “best suit designs” on google, you will type just that. While using voice search, we tend to use more conversational language such as “What are some of the best suit designs?”
  • Focus on Local Searches: In the past year, 58% of users have found local businesses using voice search and 46% of the users use voice search to find local business daily. Brands should always optimize for “near me” queries.
  • Optimize your Google My Business page: We need to optimise our GMB for our target audience so that our results are the first to be displayed when a voice search is made. 76% of smart speaker-users carried out at least one local search in the past week.
  • Voice search FAQ page: Creating a voice search FAQ page will help you achieve better results for FAQ pages when compared to traditional search. This enables FAQ pages to rank high for several different voice search queries.
  • Improving the Domain authority: optimising on-page content and improving the backlinks is also key. We have to also remove “spammy” links and create a mobile-friendly site.

Many businesses have already started taking advantage of the current trend of voice search SEO and we need to optimize our websites for voice search SEO. The impact of voice technology on SEO will lead to the rise in acceptance of voice search and consequently, it will have a profound impact on businesses. Brands that can adopt these changes will reap its benefits in the years to come. Visit Digistart today to know more.

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