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Voice Search: 4 SEO Tips To Optimise Your Business

B.Duncan, 2022

Over the last few years, it has become evident that voice search is the future of online searching. Using voice search became even more popular after the global pandemic, with Statista’s report on the subject showing 4.2 billion digital voice assistants in use by 2020. The same data forecasts 8.2 billion digital voice assistants will be in active use by 2024, almost doubling in growth from the initial report dated in 2020. These numbers alone, should be your reason to start optimising your SEO strategy for voice search.

Why Voice Search SEO Strategies Are Essential

Alongside the huge growth in digital voice assistant users, Google revealed their “near me” searches have increased more than 130% YoY (Year-over-Year). Most of these searches occur from mobile uses, with close to 60% of consumers finding local businesses using voice search. That number is only predicted to grow even further, with 46% of those consumers continuing to use voice search repeatedly to find a local business on a daily basis. With those numbers, it’s safe to say that voice search is the future of SEO for both online and offline businesses. So if you’re wondering how you can optimise your marketing for voice searches, we have 4 SEO tips to help you take advantage of the shift towards voice search and develop your new strategy.

 

4 SEO Tips To Optimise Your Business For Voice Searches

 

1. Local SEO

The majority of voice search users are looking locally, in fact they’re actually three times more likely to be searching for local business than your traditional text search users. When you put the numbers aside, it makes perfect sense for people driving or walking around to use voice search to find something in their local area. Local SEO is likely already an essential part of your existing marketing strategy, but there’s always room for improvement. Whilst Local SEO follows traditional digital marketing methods, there appears to be a large neglect from businesses actually using the word local in their SEO strategy, this goes for any keywords relevant to local businesses in your area. So figure out what consumers local to your area are searching for and make it known your business is nearby, with the capacity to meet your demographics needs.

Some ideas on how to optimise your business for Local SEO:

  • use phrases popular in your area. or that describe your businesses location
  • put “near me” in title tags, meta descriptions, internal links and social media
  • use local landmarks in your visual marketing that link your business to the area
  • link your business to the area by attaching yourself to other local businesses
  • geotag all social posts and make them as specific as possible to your audience

 

2. Register Your Google My Business Listing

This is absolutely essential to developing a successful voice search and local SEO strategy. Voice searchers find businesses through important information such as contact numbers, addresses, opening hours and the products/services you can provide. This is why it should be your number one priority to ensure Google has the most updated and accurate version of this information. The layout and content of your businesses website does factor into your voice search ranking to an extent, but Google’s access to the most important details of your business through your Google My Business Listing will achieve much greater results when used correctly. Just think about what information Google needs to ensure your business can answer the voice searchers question, it’s a good idea to browse other local businesses that rank highly for ideas.

 

3. Optimise Your Website For Mobile Users

There’s no point developing an incredible voice search SEO strategy, if most voice searches come from mobile devices and your website isn’t even optimised for mobile use. Think about it, even if you offer the best products and/or services and you’re found via a mobile voice search, if your website is difficult to navigate you’re likely going to run into huge decreases in conversions.

The main reason for abandoned carts and low click-through rates is poor UX design, or design that wasn’t altered to meet the different needs of desktop and mobile users. It can be hard to wrap your head around the fact that most of your consumers are viewing your business through a smartphone sized screen, as opposed to the traditional desktop view you likely envision when thinking about your website. But having an amazing UX design for your website’s mobile users is the future of e-commerce, so it’s time to pay more attention to your phone. Have a look at our case study on UX design to learn more about how it can benefit your website.

 

4. Don’t Forget Consumers Are Using Voice Search For Answers

The big reason behind voice search's rising popularity, is that it's only natural people like asking questions and having them answered instantly in a way that’s more personalised and organic. Most consumers aren’t looking to research articles in an attempt to find an answer to their generic question,  this is why it’s important your web pages content can act as an immediate answer to someone's inquiry. Use simple language relevant to your products and/or services that’s easily picked up by Google’s voice search results.

The best technique for this is to implement answer-based content in your website as frequently as possible. The general idea of answer-based content is to include SEO friendly answers to popular questions your business may receive and display them on your webpage. You'd then generally use back-linking to direct viewers to another internal webpage of yours, that features broader information about the topic. To learn more in depth about answer-based content for SEO, have a look at our blog explaining everything you need to know about how it can benefit your business.

 

Conclusion

The future of SEO is here and voice search is a big part of it. Don't be left behind struggling to work out why your visibility is getting worse and start implementing these 4 voice search SEO tips into your business strategy and watch your SEO rankings increase.

If you need any further advice on mapping out your digital marketing strategy feel free to contact our Melbourne based digital agency team today!

 

Learn more about voice searching