Did you know, around 55% of US households will have smart speakers by 2022? That's because voice search is fast, easy, and conversational, and therefore, more convenient. Want to search for something on Google while cooking? Just ask your device, and listen to the top search result without even looking at the screen.
What is Voice Search?
It's a voice recognition technology to let users conduct searches by speaking to their devices right away. It is the underlying technology in various smart devices, like Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, and more. Voice searches are becoming extremely popular among digital natives today. Over 50% of respondents in a 2018 survey reported making a purchase using voice assistants, while 25% said that they will consider making them in the future. With the Covid-19 increasing the importance of contactless technologies and online purchases, this trend is expected to accelerate.
This makes it important to optimize your website for voice search when you're building it up.
Benefits of Voice Search Optimization
- Higher rankings: Voice search results usually achieve one of the top 3 positions on the search engine results pages (SERPs). So, optimize your content for voice searches to draw more audience.
- Higher authority: Your website's authority will rise with increasing visitors when you rank for voice searches.
- Higher revenue: More visitors may lead to higher conversions which translates to more revenue.
Ways to Optimize Voice Search for Ecommerce
Use question-based and long-tail keywords
A voice search user generally asks an entire question and not a set of keywords. So, your content must pertain to interrogative statements. Make your content address your target audience precisely since voice searches provide a single answer. Note the questions asked by prospective customers, and optimize your content with suitable question-based keywords.
Natural language searches are usually more specific and longer. Therefore, optimize your content with long-tail keywords for voice searches. They boost conversion rates as long-tail SEO makes for three-fourth of all online searches. They rank easily due to less competition.
Create conversational content
A user generally interacts with voice assistants in the same way as with humans. Spoken queries are often more elaborated than typed queries. Optimize your content by making it on point, simple, intuitive, and compelling, and avoid jargon. Just offer what your user needs.
Make it mobile-friendly
A huge number of people voice searches on their smartphones to find local businesses. Currently, you get Google's voice search on mobile phones in more than 100 languages. Moreover, Google's new mobile-first indexing gives a chance only to mobile-responsive sites to rank in the first-page results of mobile searches. That's because these sites load faster, and immensely boost user experience.
Are you there "near me"?
Most search queries of users end up with "near me". To rank for them, leverage your Google My Business Page. Inform Google where your business is situated so that it appears among the search results of similar businesses in the area. Provide your name, phone number, and address in the listing, and select the proper area code and business category. Also, try to target local key phrases with location-specific words in your content for them to appear in results associated with the same geographic location.
Voice capabilities are expected to evolve in a way where they can accurately and uniquely satisfy their consumers’ needs. Make sure your eCommerce website is future-ready as well.
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