In June 2017, smart speakers became available to residents of Australia. By December 2018, just over 30% of Australian households used voice search through these devices or their smartphone. As of June 2019, this number jumped to 57%, and it’s still rising. What does this mean for SEO? How will you have to adjust your strategy to account for voice search? Read on to find out.
Changing Your SEO Strategy to Keep Pace with Voice Search
You want to stay ahead of your competition, and optimising for voice is key. There are several things you can do right now with your marketing strategy. They include:
Tighter Focus on Local Search
If you haven’t updated your Google listing, do it. In the past 12 months, 57% of Australians said they used voice search for local business information. Make sure that your business listing’s information is correct. Update your hours, phone number, address and images.
Long-Tail Keywords
When you type in search queries, you adopt a shorthand way of typing. If you wanted to find the best holiday location in Melbourne, you’d type, “holiday location Melbourne.” Voice search has more natural-sounding language. Key phrases can be up to 10 words long. You’d say, “Where is the best holiday location in Melbourne” for your query with voice. Incorporating these long-tail keywords into your content can make your site relevant to voice searches.
Harder Focus on Questions
Who, what, how, when and where are key ways to start your questions for voice search. You should consider incorporating a FAQ page into your content. When the search engines crawl these pages, it’ll pull them up as something relevant. It’s a good idea to practice incorporating questions into your content if it’s possible.
Concentrate on Featured Snippets
Your featured snippets are boxes of text that you can find right below any organic search. It gives the person searching their answers in a few concise sentences. You should incorporate long-tailed keywords and natural voice into these snippets. This will cause Google to pull your page to the top of the listings and drive traffic.
Voice search is here to stay, and it’s only getting more popular. Incorporating these items into your content is essential to staying ahead. You can start with one and slowly move to the other strategies, and you should see your website improve.
