Voice Search Tips For Businesses

When it comes to search results, businesses nowadays have to consider so much more than just appearing as the top link when a person types something into a search engine. There are also visual results to think about, and now even voice search results too.

The rise in popularity of voice search

Voice search has become an incredibly popular search method over recent years. It’s quick and convenient and finely tuned, so you almost always get the result that you want. More and more people are buying home devices that are enabled via voice-activated technology, and a whopping 50% of all searches are predicted to be made via voice search as soon as 2020.

This means that voice search is something that all businesses should bear in mind.

In these contemporary times, we are surrounded by devices that support voice assistants from our televisions to our cars to our phones, and they are always on, ready and waiting to help us with whatever we want to know. More and more products are becoming compatible such as smart watches, and even microwaves!

So how can a business make sure that they stay on top of this, understand what kinds of things people are using voice search for that are relevant to their business and ensure that their results come out on top?

How to optimize for voice search

You cannot optimize the same way as you would for search engines, and Google uses different ranking criteria to bring up results.

So when you are creating content, you need to bear in mind the following:

Keep the tone natural and conversational

The more naturally your content flows when being read aloud, the better. So make sure that you listen to how your content sounds being read aloud by an actual human being. If it seems stuffy, complicated, or jumps all over the place, it probably won’t rank well for voice search. Voice assistants are designed to be friendly, and chatty, so make sure your content reflects this with a focus on long-tail keywords to help keep it so.

Make the most of featured snippets

When a person asks a question using voice search, Google is likely to pull featured snippets, reading them aloud to answer the question as well as citing the source. If you can optimize your content to appear in featured snippets you have a better chance of your it being discovered.

Consider the questions people might be asking

Nothing beats thorough audience research and taking the time to think about the kinds of information about your business, products, and the industry that people might be asking will help. But remember it is not just what the question is, but how they will ask it that can help you form content that answers the question accurately. The way you phrase your wording will make a difference, so ensure that you take the time to get this right.

Create a mobile-friendly site

Research shows that a lot of voice searches are still being done via mobile phones, so ma