Voice Search and Your Website

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before!

While we still aren't travelling between planets or interacting with aliens, there is one specific thing we are using: voice search. Voice search is when we use our voice instead of adding written text within a search engine box. Thanks to the advancement of mobiles and other digital devices including voice assistants, using our voice to request a search is now quite common. Then COVID-19 entered the equation, and even more people wanted to use voice search to avoid or limit touching and contamination. 

As voice search continues to evolve, the type of content it can provide and the 'understandings' it has about what you have searched for will only improve. Having your website content fully optimised for voice search is in a way future proofing it, and like most website things, is best done sooner rather than later.

Hey Google: Why Should I Care About Voice Search?

As we mentioned above, more people are now using voice search than ever before. But there are still those who absolutely hate it and will not use it. As a user, you have the decision as to whether or not you will personally use it. As a website owner, you can't stop voice search users from using to to find your website. You could choose not to optimise for it, but that could seriously reduce the amount of traffic you receive from search engines. But then again, it might not - time will tell on this one.

Optimising Your Website Content for Voice Search

When someone uses their fingers to enter a phrase in a search box on a smartphone, they generally keep the text short and sweet. Smartphones aren't known for being 'big finger friendly' and can be cumbersome to type on. When using a PC, the text entered in a search box is generally longer and more specific. When it comes to a voice search though, people tend to ask long and highly specific questions. This means implementing a few different things into your content to optimise it for a voice search:

• Have an FAQ page - within this page, have and answer questions which use Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
• Use longer and more conversational keywords 
• Target long tail keyword phrases
• Use local place names, as voice searches are more likely to be on a mobile device and looking for a information from close by
• Get your Google My Business listing as it is more likely to appear to users during a voice search

Like with all SEO work on your website, remember that it is your target audience whom you should be focusing on writing for first, not Google. The above strategies only confirm this, as you want to have the content they are wanting to find written in the words that they are using. For further SEO support, we suggest taking a look at our SEO Resources which we update regularly.