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Apr 03 2020

How to Build an In-House Voice SEO Dream Team

If you think SEO is highly competitive today, then brace yourself for the rise of voice SEO in the coming years. Voice search, which is predicted to comprise 50% of searches by 2020, will prove to be even more challenging for SEO. Sure, it has its rewards when done right, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult.

With digital assistants only pulling a single result, and with Google’s several SERP features minimizing the need to click on search results, ranking for voice search will be an uphill battle. Luckily, it’s a battle you need not face on your own.

SEO is not a one-man job. It’s a field that requires the collaboration of experts from multiple disciplines. The rise of voice search has only presented yet another field of specialization. And with more and more people leaning towards voice search, the need for SEO strategies specifically geared for voice search will similarly continue to rise. For your brand to remain competitive, you’ll need to invest in voice SEO.

You can outsource from an agency, or better yet, build an in-house team! Outsourcing voice SEO services is a good option if you’re working with a limited budget, but if your company has enough resources, why not be in full control of your voice search SEO efforts? Having an in-house voice SEO team will help you adapt to the demands of the market quicker while hastening the growth of your business.

3 Questions You Need to Ask Before Building and In-House Voice SEO

Building your in-house voice SEO dream team may sound like a good choice, but it’s not always the right one. When deciding whether to choose to outsource to an SEO agency or to build your own dream team, you will need to consider your company’s current standing and unique needs.

1. What’s your budget?

Outsourcing from another SEO agency will always cost less. SEO agencies have different services and payment options suited to your company’s needs. You won’t need to worry about the monthly salary of the employees you will hire, and you won’t need to worry about providing the right tools and equipment.

But if your company has enough funds and resources to start an in-house voice SEO team, why not consider it? Depending on your company and the industry you operate, having your own in-house voice SEO team may eventually be better in the long run.

2. What are the risks you are willing to take?

Several risks come with building your own in-house SEO team. One of the biggest and easiest risks to fall into would be recruiting the wrong people. Google gives everyone the privilege of learning how to do SEO for free (try searching for SEO and see for yourself). This seems like a big plus for people who want to learn, but it also makes it easier for pseudo-experts to claim that they know everything about SEO.

Outsourcing to an SEO agency will make more sense if you don’t want to risk hiring the wrong person. But just like an In-House Voice SEO team, there are also risks when you choose to outsource to a third-party agency. For instance, the agency you end up hiring may not be knowledgeable about your industry. This can lead to ineffective marketing strategies.

Of course, all risks have preventive measures. When building an in-house team, doing a thorough background check via interview and testing can help you find the right employees. When outsourcing, it pays to review the agency’s track record and the companies they’ve worked with.

With this example in mind, and what your budget will allow, what risks are you willing to take?

3. How much control do you want?

If you’re the hands-on type, then building your own in-house voice SEO team is the right thing for you.

One of the advantages of having an in-house voice SEO team is that you’ll have full control over the SEO strategies you will develop. Your table would just be a few steps away from your team, making collaboration easier. As such, aligning with your team and implementing changes when necessary is faster.

With an in-house team, it takes less time to produce and implement strategies that are highly targeted since your team would already be familiar with your audience.

If you want to focus on your core business function, outsourcing with another agency may be the better option.

You don’t have to spend too much time on building SEO strategies because the experts of the agency will be the ones to do it for you. At this point, you’ll be the client rather than the director.

All you need to do is discuss your business and evaluate the strategies that they’re offering to you. Once it’s approved, you can focus on other things in your business while they give you updates. The level of control you’ll have is less, but in return, you’ll get more time and effort for other areas of your operations.

How to Build Your Voice SEO Dream Team from Scratch

By now I’m sure that you’ve already decided that you want to build your own In-House SEO team. Building your in-house SEO dream team from scratch may seem intimidating at first, but don’t worry, we’re here to help.

1. Define your team culture

How your employees will work together and build relationships with each other will ultimately depend on how you structure your team. Managing an SEO team is a lot of work, and having the right structure will keep your team intact.

To develop the right structure for your team, you need to consider your budget, company size, and what team structure works best for your organization. Below are some examples of team structures:

Center of Excellence Model

The center of excellence (CoE) model is a centralized department that is composed of experts in a specific field (in this case, voice SEO specialists). For large companies with multiple branches, this could be a great option, especially if you do not have the capacity to build an SEO team in every location of your business.

Distributed Team

This distributed team model is ideal if you’re starting your team from scratch. You’ll be creating a virtual team wherein both on-site, and off-site employees work together to take on projects. In this model, you will need professionals who are independent enough to work on their own but can also collaborate with their colleagues without any issues.

A good example would be how designers and developers can work independently, but they must also collaborate with each other to ensure project success. Having a good sense of coordination will make sure that what they’re both producing are aligned to your SEO goals.

Hub and Spoke

Like the CoE model, it focuses on centralization that builds a hierarchy of control. The “Hub” will act as the decision-makers, while the “Spoke” will represent the workers. Having everything centralized, the policies and procedures of your organization will be implemented with more consistency and accuracy.

Establishing a hierarchy of control does not mean that one is of a higher position. Just like a car is built up of many parts, all parts work together to get the whole thing moving. There are different roles to be filled, but, in the end, everybody is on the same page.

Defining your team’s culture starts with how you structure it. With these models in mind, what’s the best structure you can apply for your team?

2. Consider the costs

Every single decision you will make will boil down to your budget. Keep in mind that SEO specialists are not cheap. During the recruitment process, you need to figure out your company’s needs and your team’s maximum capacity. Primarily, you will need to consider your company’s benefits and the hourly or monthly salary of each individual employee.

SEO Specialists aren’t the only employees you’ll need. Developing an excellent strategy requires experts from other fields. You need to consider the expenses of hiring content creators, project managers, link builders, and the like. Besides your employees, you must also invest in the right tools, equipment, and training to ensure that your employees can deliver optimum results.

3. Determine Your Goals

Once your budget is clearly defined, you can finally establish your goals. Setting goals such as traffic growth, increase in organic visitors, and better keyword rankings can be indicators of the roles you need to fill. Analyzing your company’s current metrics can help you discover your company’s gaps and treat them accordingly.

Once you know what you want to achieve and what your company needs, you’ll have a clearer picture of the things you should invest in. A clear goal in mind will help you make the right choices, from allotting your expenses to the materials and tools you need to hiring the right specialists.

4. Identify the roles you need to fill

You’ve set your goals, and now you’re ready to hire. When establishing a new team, it’s better to go with a top-down approach. You can start by hiring the SEO director and work your way down the organizational chart. Starting with the supervisors and directors is critical because they will help you in the building process while filling out any necessary gaps you may have overlooked.

6 Critical Roles You Need to Fill

Adapting to the voice search revolution can be a breeze when you’re working with an excellent team. Now that you’re about to commence with the hiring process, below is an imperative list of positions you need to fill to build a highly productive team.

1. SEO Team Manager/Lead Strategist

Every successful SEO team starts with a competent team leader. As mentioned previously, hiring the leader first will give you another consultant. The leader will tell you who you need to hire and recommend tools and materials for the team to succeed. Give your leader the right resources; they will help you get the team to where you want them to be.

You need to get someone who not only has the critical SEO expertise but also has the leadership skills necessary to manage a team efficiently.

2. On-page Voice SEO Specialist

Voice search changed how people look for information in two important ways:

Voice search keywords are significantly longer than text-based searches
70% of searches on Google Assistant use “natural language.”

A voice SEO specialist will help you adapt to the developments in voice search technology. In other words, you need to get someone who has a knack for identifying powerful keywords that has the potential to drive valuable traffic to your site.

Hire someone who has experience implementing voice search optimization tactics and knows how to use and maximize Google Analytics and other website optimization and keyword research tools.

3. Technical SEO Specialist

SEO Specialists are tasked with performing the technical side of SEO. Take note that site speed, proper site architecture, and structured data has become crucial ranking factors in voice search. Having structured data helps search engines crawl and read your content efficiently, which gives you better chances of ranking in the more competitive voice search landscape. Additionally, 53% of mobile users leave a site that takes longer than three seconds to load.

As such, it’s vital that you hire a specialist who is highly competent in performing and analyzing SEO audits, identifying site speed issues, has proficient knowledge in website architecture, and has strong experience in Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

4. Link Building Specialist (Off Page SEO)

If your content has more links, Google will recognize it as a credible source, giving your site a higher chance to appear at the top of the results page. Indeed, sites with a lot of links rank more often in voice search. Of course, they can’t just be any links; they have to be links from high-authority sites, which is why you’ll need a Link Building Specialist.

Hire link builders to promote your content through various link seeding tactics, and to continuously develop link building strategies for your site. Look for link builders who have excellent organizational, communication, and analytical skills, as well as a mastery of relevant link-building tactics.

5. Content Writer

Content is the heart of SEO. In order to keep your site optimized, you will need to attract people by consistently producing valuable content that educates, delights, and converts. With all the competition in the market today, there is no room for mediocrity; posting just any content is not enough. Hiring excellent writers who are knowledgeable in different fields will help your site produce timely, relevant, and engaging content.

Hire individuals who are not only excellent writers but are also proficient in optimizing content for voice search. For instance, having writers who know how to create articles that are optimized for featured snippets and other critical SERPs can make a huge difference in your voice SEO strategy.

6. Web Developer and Designer

Regardless of how good your content may be, you won’t find your site ranking up if it’s hard to use and navigate. While UX is not a direct ranking factor per se, Google still looks for features that indicate a positive user experience. With voice SEO and the fact that 60% of Google searches are done via mobile phones, having a good UX is more important now than ever.

Get a web developer to perform maintenance checks on your site to prevent any technical issues from holding your site back. Similarly, invest in designers to make sure your site is user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and provides a seamless experience for your visitors.

Final Takeaways

Having your own in-house team or outsourcing to an agency has its own pros and cons. In the end, it all boils down to your company’s current situation. While outsourcing to an agency may prove to be more cost-efficient, having your own in-house voice SEO team will may be more advantageous in the long run.

Don’t hesitate to consult with experts. Creating your own team of experts will require you to be hands-on, but you will get full control of everything.

Once you’ve determined your goals, you can quickly identify the resource you need to achieve them. Building your team from scratch is not an easy task but having these things in mind will make the recruitment process more productive and worthwhile. Having experts from different fields with a great sense of collaboration will ensure you higher chances of success with regards to your SEO efforts.

Apr 03 2020

100+ Voice Search SEO Statistics and Facts Every Digital Marketer Must Know

The first speech recognition technology, IBM Shoebox, was first launched in 1961. Fast forward to today, and voice search has evolved from performing mathematical functions and speech to asking Google, Alexa, or Siri to look for the best restaurants in your neighborhood.

But this is just the start of something bigger and more impactful across industries. Voice assistants will continue to revolutionize how consumers look for answers to their queries, how people go on about their daily lives, how businesses reach out to their customers, and more.

If you’re a marketer looking into voice search SEO, you need to get up-to-date with the latest statistics and facts about the industry. Use this information to ride along with the revolutionary tech and gain a competitive edge.

General Voice Search SEO Statistics and Facts

1. Voice search is 3.7x faster than typing, with individuals able to speak 110-150 words per minute. In comparison, the average typing rate is 38-40 words per minute. (Bruce Clay, 2016)

2. Google started feeding its AI engine with 2,865 romance novels as a way of enhancing its intelligence and conversational skills. (Buzzfeed News, 2016)

3. There was an estimated one billion voice searches per month by January 2018. (WordStream, 2018)

4. By 2019, the voice recognition market will rise to become a $601 million industry. (WordStream, 2018)

5. From 2008 to 2017, voice search queries rose to 3,400%. (Hubspot, 2018)

6. ComScore predicts that by 2020, 50% of all searches will comprise of voice searches. (Campaign, 2016)

7. As per seoClarity, about 20% of all voice searches are prompted by a combination of only 25 keywords. (DialogTech, 2019)

8. The top trigger words in voice search queries are “how,” “what,” and “best.” (DialogTech, 2019)

9. It’s predicted that by 2020, 30% of web browsing sessions will be conducted without a screen. (Gartner, 2017)

10. On average, it took 4.6 seconds to load a voice query result page completely. (Backlinko, 2018)

11. Statistics found that the average word count of voice search result page is 2,312 words. (Backlinko, 2018)

12. The word error rate for speech recognition is at 8%. (Bruce Clay, 2016)

13. A study shows that the average Domain Rating of a voice search result was 76.8. (Backlinko, 2018)

14. Pages that rank in the top three desktop results have higher chances to lead voice search queries. Case in point, 74.9% of Google Home results are traced from pages that also dominates the top three results for those particular keywords in the desktop SERPs. (Backlinko, 2018)

15. Creating individual pages for every voice search inquiry isn’t an effective SEO strategy since very few voice search outcomes had the exact answer in their title tag. (Backlinko, 2018)

16. Direct and easy-to-read content may benefit voice search SEO. The average Google audio query result passes a ninth-grade reading level. (Backlinko, 2018)

18. 70.4% of Google Home result pages are HTTPS protected. (Backlinko, 2018)

19. The average voice query answer stretches up to 29 words. (Backlinko, 2018)

Voice Search Device Statistics and Facts

19. There are currently over 20 different smart voice assistants (i.e., Siri, Bixby, Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana, and others) in the market. (Cognilytica, 2018)

20. By the start of 2018, more than 20% of American households equipped with Wi-Fi had a smart speaker. (ComScore, 2018)

21. Smart speaker shipment worldwide grew close to 200% year-over-year in Q3 2018—reaching 22.7 million units in the quarter. (Strategy Analytics, 2018)

22. Apple’s Siri leads the voice assistant usage on smartphones while Amazon’s Alexa tops on smart speakers and Google Assistant is coming up second in both categories. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)

23. A survey shows that 65% of individuals who used smart speakers can’t imagine life without their devices. (Digital Information World, 2018)

24. Another survey shows that 42% of smart speaker users say that voice-enabled devices have become “essential” to their daily lives. (NPR, 2017)

25. The total number of smart devices in households grow 78% annually. (National Public Media, 2018)

26. A report from Strategy Analytics says Google Home and Amazon Echo constitute 94% of all smart speakers presently in use. (TechRepublic, 2018)

27. As per a Hitwise report, 12% of all Google queries are mobile voice searches. (Econsultancy, 2018)

28. About 88% of all “near me” search queries are performed on mobile devices. (MotoCMS, n.d.)

29. 20% of individuals perform voice queries on mobile devices. The more mobile-intuitive a business is, the higher the chances they get to appear on voice search results. (Alphametic, 2018)

Voice Search via Google Assistant Statistics and Facts

30. Based on a digital assistant IQ test comprising of 800 questions, Google Assistant showed the most accurate answers with a score of 86%. (Loup Ventures, 2018)

31. Google projected that Assistant will be available on one billion gadgets, an increase from 500 million last May 2018. (Google, 2019)

32. Active users of Google Assistant grew 4x over the past year. (Google, 2019)

33. Google Assistant currently speaks nearly 30 languages in 80 countries. Also, the voice assistant is now multilingual. (Google, 2019)

34. Google Assistant now works with more than 10,000 smart home devices from 1,600 well-known brands. (Google, 2019)

35. The Assistant now comes with eight new voices, including British and Australian accents, in the U.S. this year. (Google, 2019)

36. In the Google App, 20% of searches are by voice. (Google, 2016)

37. Google Assistant will be intelligent enough to distinguish what language the user speaks, just like Google translate. This should be enough to service 95% of Android users. (The Verge, 2018)

Voice Search via Apple’s Siri Statistics and Facts

38. Based on the same test mentioned above, Siri answered 79% of the queries correctly. (Loup Ventures, 2018)

39. Survey shows that 44% of virtual voice assistant users on smartphones are utilizing Siri. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)

40. Apple’s Siri takes over the U.S. market for virtual voice assistants on smartphones with 45.65%. (Statista, 2018)

41. In June 2017, Siri had 375 million monthly active users. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)

42. 19% of individuals interact with Siri daily. (Hubspot, 2018)

Voice Search via Amazon’s Alexa Statistics and Facts

43. Based on the same test mentioned above, Alexa delivered 61% accurate answers. (Loup Ventures, 2018)

44. Amazon’s SVP of Devices and Services stated that over 100 million devices installed with Alexa have been sold. (The Verge, 2019)

45. Amazon executive Daniel Rausch shared at Berlin’s IFA tech show that Alexa has told more than 100 million jokes and has sung Happy Birthday millions of times to customers. (CNET, 2018)

46. Alexa is now connected with more than 20,000 devices. (CNET, 2018)

47. Alexa’s catalogue of skills—what Amazon calls its voice apps—has now grown from 130 upon its launch to a massive number of 80,000 as of December 2018. (Statista, 2019)

48. There are hundreds of thousands of developers in more than 180 countries working on Alexa. (CNET, 2018)

49. According to a report, 20% of consumers that own a device equipped with Alexa have used it to find deals or track what they’ve bought online. (The Next Web, 2018)

50. Amazon has sold around 50 million Alexa devices. (The Information, 2018)

51. 85% of consumers using voice search end up choosing the items Amazon suggests. (Quora Creative, 2018)

Voice Search via Microsoft’s Cortana Statistics and Facts

52. Based on the same test mentioned above, Cortana showed 52.4% accuracy of answers. (Loup Ventures, 2018)

53. In 2017, a report gathered that Cortana saw a 350% increase in monthly active users. (Windows Latest, 2017)

54. 25% of searches on Windows 10 taskbar are via voice—on a desktop. (Edit UK, 2018)

Voice Search via Samsung’s Bixby Statistics and Facts

55. 4% of smartphone users use Bixby. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)

56. Bixby is currently available in U.S. English and Korean. (Samsung, 2017)

57. Bixby’s voice search capabilities now reach over 200 countries worldwide. (Samsung, 2017)

58. The voice assistant garners 10 million active users globally. (Samsung Mobile Press, 2017)

59. Users can ask Bixby to “take a selfie” and allow Bixby to edit and enhance the image, and even share it on social media. (Samsung, 2017)

Voice Search Usage Statistics and Facts

60. 56% of new smart speaker users have also started using voice command searches on their mobile devices more often. (Convince and Convert, 2018)

61. One in five adults uses mobile voice commands at least once a month. (MotoCMS, n.d.)

62. A survey of 1,200 adults in the U.S. found that 26.1% of people who owned a smart assistant-enabled device used it to make a recent purchase. The same survey revealed that 16% of those consumers used it for shopping every month. (The Next Web, 2018)

63. Smart speaker owners use the device to perform an average of 7.5 out of 28 task types regularly, from playing music to getting flight information. (NPR and Edison Research, 2017)

64. Research shows that people use voice assistants in the car (51%), at home (39%), in public (6%), and at work (1%). (Cognilytica, 2018)

65. Individuals under the age of 24 are 33% more likely to utilize voice search queries in public compared to older people. (Go-Gulf, 2018)

66. Roughly 50% of smart device users rely on voice assistance when looking for products. (Go-Gulf, 2018)

67. 23.3% of smartphone users are very satisfied with voice search. (Go-Gulf, 2018)

68. A study found that willingness to engage by voice with smart gadgets even in public places continued to rise for the past three years,. (Stone Temple, 2019)

69. In 2017, 35.6 million Americans used a device equipped with voice assistance at least once a month. (Digital Information World, 2018)

Voice Search Demographic Statistics and Facts

70. A Global Web Index 2018 Insight Report shows 27% of the global online population is using voice search assistants on a smartphone. (The Webmaster, 2019)

71. Research shows that 42% of U.S. adults use voice assistants through their mobile devices. (Pew Research Center, 2017)

72. Survey shows that around 53 million U.S. adults over the age of 18 currently own at least one smart speaker. (National Public Media, 2018)

73. 25% of people aged 16 to 24 utilize voice search technology on their mobile phones. (MotoCMS, n.d.)

74. A survey found that 57% of people who use smart audio with children in the household said one of the reasons they wanted a smart speaker was to entertain their kids. (NPR and Edison Research, 2018)

75. 80% of smart audio owners agree that Alexa or Google Home “has made it easier to entertain the children in the household.” (NPR and Edison Research, 2018)

76. Baby Boomers (22%) are less likely to use voice assistants when driving compared to Millennials (37%) and Gen Xers (41%). (Higher Visibility, 2019)

77. 19% of Baby Boomers use voice assistants while watching TV, more frequently than Millennials (7%) or Gen Xers (5%). (Higher Visibility, 2019)

78. People between 25 to 34 years are more likely to feel comfortable interacting with voice-enabled devices. (Stone Temple, 2019)

79. Baby Boomers and Millennials are equally likely to ask their voice assistant to find recipes, more likely so than Gen Xers. (Higher Visibility, 2019)

80. Voice-enabled speaker owners wish to receive deals, sales, and promos (52%) as well as event and activity information (42%) from brands. (Think with Google, 2018)

Voice Search by Gender Statistics and Facts

81. In 2018, voice search statistics found that 66% of male smartphone owners use voice-enabled technology at least once. Additionally, there are 53% of male desktop and laptop users, 49% tablet users, and 46% off smart audio users that utilize virtual assistants. (MotoCMS, n.d.)

82. On the other hand, there are 55% of female smartphone owners, 30% of desktop and laptop owners, 31% of tablet users, and 26% of smart speaker owners that have used voice assistants. (MotoCMS, n.d.)

83. Research reveals that 42.5% of women are prone to using voice assistants more likely than men (37%) when it comes to asking for directions. (Higher Visibility, 2019)

Voice Search Behavior Statistics and Fact

84. 55% of people who use voice assistants say the major reasons why they utilize the feature is because it allows them to interact with their gadgets hands-free. (Pew Research Center, 2017)

85. Meanwhile, 23% cite “fun” as another major reason why they use it, claiming that it feels more natural than typing (22%). (Pew Research Center, 2017)

86. 25% of voice-activated speaker owners keep their devices in their bedrooms. (Quora Creative, 2018)

87. 41% of individuals who have voice-activated speakers say using the technology feels like talking to another person or a friend. (Think With Google, 2018)

88. Individuals who engage with smart speakers interact with it as if they’re human, expressing courtesy words such as “please,” “thank you,” and even “sorry.” (Quora Creative, 2018)

89. Survey shows that consumer spending via digital voice assistants is predicted to rise by 18% by 2020. (Quora Creative, 2018)

90. Two-thirds of individuals who utilize digital voice assistants end up using their mobile devices less often. (Hubspot, 2018)

Voice Search Commands Statistics and Facts

91. A survey shows that most people use their smart audio to play music (68%) or check the weather (58%). (NPR and Edison Research, 2017)

92. 17% of respondents in a survey say they regularly use voice search to help them set, cancel, and manage their alarms. Meanwhile, 10% of participants use it to add or manage appointments and events in their calendars. (Higher Visibility, 2019)

93. Roughly 10% of voice search questions start with who, what, when, where, why, and how. (Bruce Clay, 2016)

94. In a study that asked respondents which situations they’re more likely to use voice assistants on their smartphone, the top answers were when their hands are full (50%) and while driving (42%). (Stone Temple, 2019)

Local Voice Search Statistics and Facts

95. 76% of smart speaker users conduct local voice queries at least weekly. (BrightLocal, 2018)

96. A 2018 study found that 58% of consumers have used voice search to look for local business information in the past 12 months, while 46% of voice search users find local businesses regularly. (BrightLocal, 2018)

97. People who utilize voice search most likely use the feature to look for restaurants, grocery stores, and food delivery services. (BrightLocal, 2018)

98. 72% of buyers who find local businesses through voice search ends up visiting the stores within a 5-mile radius. (WordStream, 2018)

99. 27% of consumers visit the website of a local business after performing a voice query. (BrightLocal, 2018)

100. 54% of voice search users also want to be able to place a restaurant or bar reservation using the technology. (BrightLocal, 2018)

101. 46% of consumers would prefer to hear local business’ rates in voice query results. (BrightLocal, 2018)

Prepare for the Upswing of Voice Search

Smart voice assistants are already becoming a part of our daily lives. For businesses, this opens a vast majority to be more in touch with their target audience in a way that matches their search behavior.

Getting into the voice search train as early as possible can help your business elevate your online marketing tactics. Voice-enabled search is here to stay and evolve. Either you adapt to thrive or ignore to flop.

Apr 02 2020

A Complete SEO Guide to Optimizing Websites for Voice Search

In the not-so-distant past, people would conduct a search on the internet by typing their query in the search box, but that has since changed when voice search technology and smart assistants emerged.

Now, digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant make it possible for people to discover content and find answers to queries without physically typing on their keyboard. Instead, users speak into their device to perform a search on the web.

This technological shift presents some major implications for the search engine optimization (SEO) landscape. Check out these quick stats and facts:

In a PWC report, 90% of respondents look at their device’s voice assistant as an easier way of searching online compared with speaking to an agent or typing their queries through their smartphone.
Approximately 33% of the 3.5 billion queries that Google receives every day are voice searches.
Google’s speech recognition supports 119 languages.
By 2020, 50% of online search will be coming from voice search.
Former head of Baidu AI Group/Google Brain Andrew Ng says “As speech-recognition accuracy goes from 95% to 99%, we’ll go from barely using it to using [it] all the time!”

All these data show that voice-activated search is fast becoming the hottest technology that search engines and consumers prefer to use. This only means that optimizing your website content for voice search should now be a major component of your digital marketing strategy. Through voice search SEO, you’re increasing your chances to attract more highly engaged visitors to your site.

What is Voice Search?

Voice search pertains to when people speak into a device to look for something online as opposed to typing keywords into the Google, Bing, or Yahoo search box.

Voice-activated search is possible thanks to advanced speech recognition systems, which help digital devices and assistants understand what users are saying with utmost precision and accuracy.

Why You Should Care About Voice Search Optimization

Programs like Alexa (Amazon), Cortana (Microsoft), Google Assistant, and Siri (Apple) all support voice search. Although they are powered by different technologies, the principle is the same—users ask their device and the smart assistant will provide them with the best answers.

Keeping your website optimized for voice search gives your business a better chance to be part of the top results when these smart assistants receive voice queries. To optimize for voice search means making your content more conversational, natural, contextual, localized, and accessible for mobile users. Remember: people don’t speak in the same manner they type.

Paying attention to voice search SEO can help you reap a number of benefits, including:

Better ranking opportunities. With more and more people taking advantage of voice search capabilities, Google and other search engines are favoring websites that provide information or content quickly and conveniently.
Higher visibility through featured snippets. When your content shows as a featured snippet on Google, it’s an indication that you’ve addressed search queries well enough to be given the top spot in SERP.
Meet query intent based on context. As you’ll learn later, voice search optimization strategies include creating locale-focused content to make it easy for your website to serve timely and relevant responses to users.

Top Voice Search Optimization Strategies

Be sure that your business is ready for the voice search revolution. Follow these strategies to make your business website well-optimized for voice search.

1. Use the right keywords.

The way people process their thoughts through writing is different from how they verbally express what’s in their minds. Similarly, those using a keyboard to type in a search query will phrase it differently than if they used their phone’s voice assistant. One searcher will ask a question using umbrella terms, but another will be including more words that provide context to the search.

In traditional SEO, top-ranking keywords are used. But in voice search SEO, the same keywords are structured as a question, and sometimes even rephrased into relative terms. For instance, a tourist in New York is looking for top restaurants to visit in the city. When using their browser, they may type in “restaurants in New York”. But if they’re using voice search, they will simply say, “What are the restaurants near me?”

How to Optimize for Voice Search

Go for long-tail and conversational keywords in your content, using standard language that people use in real-life situations. This is in contrast to using short keywords that are best suited for desktop search.
Include question phrases, focusing on the types of questions that customers ask when they want to know more about a business, product, or service.
Start question phrases with interrogative pronouns (Who, What, Where, When, How, Which, Whose) to make it easier for you to answer natural language questions.
Use question phrases to determine a user’s search intent. For example, when people start asking “When/Where” questions, it might be a signal that they’re ready to act or buy compared with those asking “What/Who” questions, which might signal that someone is still on the early stage of the buyer’s journey.

2. Create FAQ pages.

Your daily interactions with customers can be a good foundation for creating your website’s frequently asked questions (FAQs) page. Each time a customer contacts you to ask questions, it gives you an opportunity to understand their chief concerns and how they want to conduct business with your company.

Here are specific ways that having an FAQ page can benefit both you and your customers:

It allows you to educate people about your business policies.

Tip: Use the FAQ section to assure customers that you won’t be storing their credit card information after they’ve submitted it for a particular order that they’re trying to place.

It enables visitors to find answers to specific questions they might have about your website, product, or service.

FAQs are a great way to empower customers to solve their questions or concerns on their own without having to go through customer service. This also means your system won’t be flooded by customer support tickets.
It can help you lead customers toward the path to conversion or purchase.

With all their questions answered, you can eliminate any obstacle that may dissuade customers from choosing your business.

How to Use FAQs for Voice Search

Traditional FAQs are those where companies list information about their business in the typical question-and-answer format. This format isn’t effective because it limits the type or amount of information that you provide to customers.

With the emergence of voice search technologies, you have an opportunity to use FAQs to address common customer concerns. This makes it important for you to review your FAQs to make sure they’re comprehensive enough and that they match the way people are seeking information online. These ideas may help you:

Use long-tail phrases to make your FAQ pages sound as natural as possible. This helps search engines distinguish your FAQs from your site’s content when serving search results to users.
Create different FAQ categories by grouping similar questions on the same page. Your categories may be based on a central theme, specific stages in the buyer journey, or relevant keyword phrases. This way, voice search assistants or tools will find it easier to pull the right information for your site’s visitors.
Break down complex pieces of information into more digestible texts. Ideally, content for your FAQ should be written in short paragraphs using simple words, much like how you would write for a 9th-grader.
Expect highly specific searches from voice users. This will help you tailor your FAQ pages’ content to provide more direct answers to customers.

3. Use structured data.

Another way to optimize your website for voice search is by using structured data—a form of metadata that you can embed into your website’s HTML code. Also known as schema markup, this data contains secondary information about your content, helping search engines classify and contextualize your content better.

What are the benefits of using structured data on your website?

You can add structured data on your web pages to help bots understand how your content matches search queries.

For example, a recipe page will add structured data, such as user ratings, calorie content, and cooking time, among others, to help search engines decide if that recipe is relevant to what users are searching for, and therefore, should go to the search results page.

Using these schema markups can also enhance your content’s visual appearance in the search engine results pages (SERPs) or transform your meta descriptions into snippets, making your content look more attractive for users.

In the same manner, structured data helps you set up your web pages for voice search SEO by looking for context clues that match specific queries.

How to add structured data

There are different ways that will allow your webmaster to add specific information about your site and its content using tags or microdata.

Through a plug-in. Your content management platform comes with plugins that allow you to create and add schemas to your web pages.
Through Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. This is a free tool that lets you mark up your content—from blog posts to product pages or reviews and business listings—with different properties to help Google understand your content and offer richer search results to users.
Through schema.org. Tech giants Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex founded this online hub of schema vocabularies that you can use to help your site’s visitors see the different elements of your content when viewing search results.
Through manual addition. This is for when you want to be more specific in creating or generating schema types, which your tools aren’t able to support.

4. Focus on local SEO search intent.

Mobile devices are proving to be useful for people who are conducting an online search, including voice search. Out of voice queries, 22% pertain to local search. This means that people on mobile are asking questions about nearby businesses. “Which pharmacy in Area A closes last?” is a typical example of a local voice search.

One way to make sure that your site’s content is accessible for voice assistants is by implementing geo-targeting keywords (such as the ones listed below) since they can help you address location-based queries.

Phrases that people use to describe the local neighborhood or community
“Near me” phrases in your title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, and anchor texts
Identifiable landmarks around your business location
Names of local institutions that are relevant to your business

Aside from using the right set of keywords, you can also claim your business listing on Google My Business. This strategy involves verifying your contact information so that Google users nearby can locate your business or see your business profile on Google Search or Maps. In addition, by verifying your business, Google lets you track your business’s analytics to help you understand your customers as well as respond to customer reviews on your website.

How to Use Google My Business Listing

Creating your listing on Google My Business takes little time and effort, but it can boost your ranking in the search results when there are voice searches pertaining to locations or local businesses.

Indicate your business name, address, and phone number on Google My Business listing. Make sure the information you provide is accurate, up-to-date, and consistent with other business directories.

Why is this important? Any discrepancy in your contact information can negatively impact the local search results for your business.

Specify a category to describe what your business is, not what you’re selling or offering. If your business is leasing cars, the correct category to use is “Car Rental” and not “Compact cars” or “Sedan cars.”

Why is this important? Although Google will proactively tell you if it’s unable to understand the category you want to be associated with your business, choosing the wrong category can result in your business not showing on the voice search results.

Optimize your business profile by including information about areas you serve, opening and closing hours, special attributes (such as “women-led” or “wheelchair accessible”) as well as photos of your business.

Why is this important? An optimized business profile can bring more traffic to your website and encourage people to visit your physical stores.

5. Make sure your website is fast.

People who use voice search are always on-the-go and want immediate results for their queries. Ideally, your web page should load in 3 seconds or less, or you might suffer from poor ranking in voice search because of speed issues. There’s an exception to this rule though, as Google may still give you a favorable ranking in search results if it finds your content the most relevant from among other slow loading websites.

It’s worthy to note that page speed was used to rank websites only in desktop searches, but Google has decided to apply the page speed criteria for mobile as well, where voice search is usually done.

How to Optimize Page Speed

Check any issues with themes, plugins, or any other integrations on your site, which might prevent your site from being responsive or working well on mobile.
Invest in a good web hosting service that can give you access to high-speed internet connection.
Rid your website of bad source codes—white spaces, new lines, redundant formatting, and the like—to enable you to create smaller web files that load fast.
Determine a good schedule for browser caching. Google recommends a minimum cache time of one week and up to one year for static assets, where changes aren’t that frequent.
Use optimizers or similar tools to make your images and files more compact and lighter.

It’s a New Era for SEO

Trends and technologies are ever-evolving, with voice search slowly but surely reaching the top of the totem pole. This calls for you to match the keywords, language, and tone that voice searchers are using to look for content, as well as implementing mobile-focused strategies to land your business on top of SERPs.

Since voice search SEO is quite different from traditional website SEO, you need to have a thorough understanding of the different methods you can use for your site to rank on voice search. Once you’ve implemented the best practices in voice search optimization, you should keep testing and monitoring your site’s performance as well as anticipate future trends and updates to make sure that your business stays relevant to the times.

Apr 02 2020

38 Powerful SEO Tools for Voice Search Optimization

In the digital age, there is no such thing as too much change. In fact, change is perhaps one of the very few constant things you can expect in technology. One of the more recent developments that search optimization has seen—and evidently must adapt to—in the last few years is voice recognition. It’s evolved so much since the emergence of Apple’s Siri that it’s become embedded into today’s culture; now allowing for instant commands such as voice search.

Back in 2016, Google claimed that 20% of mobile queries will be made through voice search. Their survey last year found that 72% of people with voice-activated speakers use it in their everyday lives. Not only does the considerably new technology make it much easier to multitask, but the development also takes convenience up a notch with faster actions and data retrieval—you don’t spend time reaching for a device, opening it, and keying in your needed task. On top of that, people also use voice search to find brand details like promos, tips, and events. This adoption now provides a new opportunity for digital marketers to up the game in content optimization.

Here comes the new challenge: optimizing for voice search. It’s a different game when you factor in things like understanding speech, mapping out a user’s journey, providing clear-cut keywords ready for one-answer results, and ultimately fine-tuning content to work with the likes of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Add this to the fact that voice search is more commonly used on mobile devices; your website should be mobile friendly too.

The answer to the new tech, therefore, lies in the tools you use. Not only will they help make optimizing a faster, more efficient process, you’ll also be able to hit all the sweet spots you simply can’t hit with the regular SEO protocol.

There are tons of handy SEO tools out there and finding the right ones may be challenging. It might seem tempting to invest in premium tools considering they offer you the state of the art features, but before you do that weigh your options first. Ask yourself some of these questions:

Does the tool provide features and actionable data you need?
How does this paid tool fit into your budget?
Is this identified free alternative something other marketers already trust?
Is there another alternative that could provide you the same if not better results?

Below is a list of 39 tools that provide powerful SEO services for voice searches. Take a moment to look through each of them and choose what works best for you.

Voice Search Keyword Tools

The most jarring difference between typing a query and saying it out loud is the fact that there’s less time to think about phrasing. When users ask the search engine a question, they use conversational language as if they’re speaking to a friend. Semantics is key in addressing voice searches. What colloquial terms might a person say instead of formal ones? Is the result pulled by the search engine within context? These tools can help:

Free

Answer the Public

Get a generous list of keyword predictions to map out any query—be it in the form of a question or phrase that may be said in normal conversation. It’s also a cool hack for content creation.

Google Keyword Planner

Aside from being a tool to support Adwords (which you need to be able to use this), you’ll be able to look into keyword data drawn directly from Google searches. It’s a great source for keyword research considering Google has also incorporated voice search into its system.

Keyworddit

Gain insight on keywords from Reddit threads or categories. It’s the perfect tool for looking into information on trends and specific interests that Redditors might use in voice search.

Google Correlate

There’s no better source for data than from Google itself. This tool shows you what keywords are mostly searched together with other keywords. Not only will you get more insight on what content you produce, you learn about the kind of queries that are searched.

Wordstream

While this tool is built for paid research, Wordstream has a Keyword Niche Finder. This enables you to get terms used by your target audience that other generators normally wouldn’t suggest.

Paid

ClearScope

Find top performing content based on an entered keyword and latent semantic indexing (LSI) terms. You’ll be able to see relevant terms, readability, content type, and more.

Hit Tail

See what keywords reel in the traffic for your website and get a fresh set of keywords not normally generated on most tools—long tail keywords included.

Long Tail Pro

Filter your own keyword research and see the specific voice search keywords you need.

Power Suggest Pro

Get keyword ideas from a variety of search engines. You’ll be able to see relevant and descriptive phrases and terms that users are searching.

Term Explorer

This tool provides you more than just ideas. You’ll be able to obtain a massive keyword listing as well as actionable information on your competitors.

Content Development

Identifying a user’s journey is key to building a strong strategy and compelling content. Consider how voice search keywords have significantly longer terms than text-based searches. In 2017 it was also identified that 70% of queries on Google Assistant used natural language. This implies the need to adjust accordingly when it comes to the information your pages offer. Ramp up your content to cater directly to any kind of need from a spoken query.

Free

Word2CleanHTML

Clean up any kind of content made on software like Microsoft Office and get a clean HTML version that’s safe for use in web pages and eBooks.

Blog Topic Generator

Running out of content topic ideas? Take your everyday terms, put it in a search bar and get a list of handy ideas for your website’s new content.

Headline Analyzer

Create headlines that compel your target audience to read your content. Get a fresh pair of eyes on your opening statements to ensure that your headlines immediately capture your reader’s attention.

Paid

Ahrefs

This tool that can help you learn from the performance of your site and that of your competitors’. It has a huge index that’s always updated with actionable data like the traffic and referring domains any piece of content earns.

Buzzsumo

Monitor content performance across social media channels and get insight on your pages and your competitors. You can also use this tool to gauge whether a topic you have in mind has potential.

Clear Voice

Tap into this all-in-one tool to amp up your content production. It integrates content creation tools, content management systems, and other functionalities that can help you produce content efficiently.

ClickFlow

Run a test on your site to identify which pagesb have the biggest potential for growth. It’s a great way to make sure you’re covering untapped resources.

MarketMuse

Evaluate your content and compare it with your competitors. You’ll be able to find content gaps or improve what you already have—or suggest content ideas for other pages!

Page Speed Tools

The speed at which any page in your website loads is crucial to holding any potential clients interested in your content. Not only that, but loading speed also plays a part in your ranking on Google. Thanks to SERP features like Knowledge Graph and Featured Snippets, the number of organic clicks dropped by 37%. Users no longer need to visit a site to see information, it’s already in the search results. This makes it imperative that you keep your pages seen on results and pull all the stops to making your page speed optimal for user consumption once it’s clicked on.

Free

Google PageSpeed Insights

Identify your page performance straight from Google. Find out your site’s general score and take away actionable answers to improve your current position.

Paid

GTmetrix

Measure your site’s speed accurately with actual load time and a full analysis that combines Google PageSpeed Insights and YSlow data. You’ll also get helpful recommendations on how to boost your speed!

Varvy Pagespeed Optimization

Get a speed test with Varvy and receive helpful information on speed issues that’s easy to understand even for beginners.

Pingdom

This tool offers you a grade and load time similar to GTmetrix. You get to monitor your site’s performance regularly on a premium subscription.

SEO Audit

With organic clicks gradually dropping as stated in the last section, boosting your ranking becomes an even bigger priority to keep your pages visible on search results. There’s nothing quite like a good audit tool to assess if your website is optimized for voice search. These tools offer a convenient boost of efficiency to your work without the extra effort.

Free

Plugin SEO

Take a quick look at what might be up with your website. The tool reports back with some actionable information to help you fix any issues you might have.

Website Grader

Aside from grading your website and checking its load speed, you get an analysis of your SEO and how you can improve it.

Zadroweb SEO Auditor

Get a good look at how your site’s SEO is faring with performance and what kind of changes you can do to boost optimization.

Paid

Seobility

A no-frills site auditor that looks thoroughly into your website structure, including the clicks that may not be indexed. Get feedback on how to improve your optimization as well.

SEO Site Checkup

Receive a detailed SEO analysis on your website. Backlink checks, uptime reports, speed recommendations, and a full error list included.

Whitespark

A cool tool to have as it can help you optimize much better for locale. Find where to list your business, check out your competitors’ performance, and see how you’re performing against it all.

Site Condor

An in-depth analysis tool to nip problems right in the bud. Their recommendations tell you how you can address an issue. You’ll also be able to view what your site’s structure looks like with their Site Graph feature. From there you can gauge whether your website is due for a restructure or some small tweaking.

Technical SEO

The last section of SEO tools in the list is for the website and server optimizations. Get a clear page structure that will make it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site. The easier to map out, the better—especially for something as tricky as voice search.

Free

Google Search Console

Take optimizing to new heights with a collection of tools from Google. This can help you keep track of your site in all kinds of ways.

Google Mobile-Friendly Test

Considering how a large number of voice search users are on mobile devices, your site’s pages should ideally be mobile-friendly. This tool gives you a straightforward answer of whether or not your site is mobile-friendly or not.

Google Analytics

Track your site performance to the very last number—be it for impressions, click through rates, bounce rates, and so on. While it doesn’t tell you exactly what to do, you’ll be able to analyze the activity on your site to see how you can improve it further.

Structured Data Markup Helper

Build your Schema markup without the struggle with this hassle-free Google tool. Save time and effort in whipping up the proper markups.

Woorank

This free Chrome extension checks your site’s standard SEO stats like mobile optimization, page speed, and more. You can look at your competitor’s stats as well. Good to have if you want to keep your brand one step ahead of the rest.

Paid

Schema App

Boost the chances of your content surfacing on voice search. This tool connects your data so search engines can understand your site better. This will also help you re-purpose your data for use with Knowledge Graphs, Chatbots, etc.

WebCEO

This is an all-around SEO tool; you can perform keyword research, monitor ranking, and do technical audits—including but not limited to detailed reports and suggestions on changes to your HTML code and Schema markup.

LinkPatrol

This convenient web plugin cuts your work time drastically when you need to double-check outgoing links on your site. LinkPatrol can spot the bad links and provide you with options on how to proceed, ultimately keeping your site in good shape.

OnCrawl

Aside from giving you the standard auditing features, this tool helps you scan for any duplicate content on your pages. This minimizes the chances of your site getting knocked off search results.

When it comes to addressing this new way of sending through queries, at its heart, voice search is the same as search has always been. A user simply wants answers. The main difference is the more personal aspect of how it’s done.

Because voice search speaks directly to the search engine, there’s less concern over the brevity to cut time and effort in typing and more room to provide longer and more specific searches—not to mention the rising frequency of natural language terms. Location importance has also equally grown in value with a much larger volume of users now looking for products and services in a “near me” mindset.

In response to the new way to search is a new way to find answers. Google’s already started incorporating instant answers in results for voice searches. Thus, you need to consider these three important things when optimizing: colloquial terms used, user thought processes, and the platform by which these answers are accessed.

The range of tools listed above provides a wide variety of functions that can help you optimize your SEO strategies for voice search. While some of them may cost you, it’s equally important to remember that these are only as good as its user. Fully understanding what kind of data you’re getting makes all the difference in optimizing your content and improving it further.

Apr 01 2020

Ask Yourself These Questions Before Getting Started with Voice Search SEO

What is my goal for doing voice search SEO?

A crucial step to setting up for optimization is determining your goal for doing voice search SEO. To find this, it’s ideal to get a full evaluation of your website. Look into the current status of where you currently are, where you should be, and what you need to do to get there. Finding the direction you need to be going will be able to shape what your goals are for integrating voice search SEO into your site.

The purpose of voice search SEO is to provide users with direct answers to questions they may have. Here are some great goals to aim for with voice search SEO:

Drive better website traffic with compelling content
Boost site engagement with mobile-friendly pages
Stay a beat above competitors in SERPs

Am I patient?

There is no one clear path to seeing significant changes in your voice search SEO performance. There are many factors that contribute to your ranking, and each of them can bring in varying effects to your position in search engines. Even then, there is no guaranteed amount of time for your optimization efforts to come to fruition.

At the center of it all, to hit your voice search SEO goals and ultimately gain fantastic rankings, it matters that you do the necessary keyword research, strategizing, optimizing, and analysis. This becomes the cycle at which you can positively impact your website.

Who is my target audience?

In order to market your product, service or website properly, you need to establish who your target audience is. It’s one thing to churn out pages, and it’s another thing to be able to make an impact on the people you want to engage, after all.

Recognizing your target audience lets you dig deeper into what their interests are so you better understand what kind of content would and wouldn’t work with them. This, in turn, enables you to create better-targeted voice search SEO strategies that capture what they need to see and what else they might want to see, at the same time learning to filter out what wouldn’t work.

These can affect two very crucial points in creating content:

Keyword research

When you know who exactly you’re trying to engage, you’ll be able to get in some pretty specific research. For example, when your target audience is mothers balancing their career with parenting, you’ll be able to set up the appropriate research that finds the kinds of terms they use.

You can research a number of ways—through keyword research tools, social media trends, focus groups, and surveys.

Content Strategy

Based on the insight collected from your keyword research you’ll be able to better plan the content you need to create. Following the target audience of mothers balancing work with parenting, let’s say top searches include easy kids meal prep, time management, and quick home organizing hacks. You’ll now know to prioritize information on these subjects in particular to better cater to their interests.

If your content isn’t meeting your target audience’s needs, then you may be sacrificing more than just a couple of missed marks in exchange for faster content production.

Who are my competitors? And what’s their voice search SEO strategy?

Your SEO competitors don’t have to be in the same field or business as you. So long as you target the same keywords, regardless of niche, you’re all gunning for that same top spot in the SERP.

The good news is that it’s easy to monitor their strategy. Try searching for a keyword you use and see what content others are providing right off the results. Check out their pages to see if what they’re producing is something you can use or if their site structure is something you can take inspirational cues from.

With the help of a competitive analysis tool like Ahrefs and SEMRush, you’ll be able to do even more. You can deep dive into their domain strength, content, backlinking, and more. The information you find can serve as the benchmark for changes you need to make to your site and see how to build on them.

What are the metrics and KPI?

There are many ways to measure success in SEO. With regards to voice search SEO however, there are a few specific metrics and KPIs you’ll want to keep an eye out for considering the implementation of Rankbrain in page evaluation.

Here are some metrics worth tracking for voice search SEO:

Ranking

It’s important to keep track of rankings primarily because this is what drives organic search. Having a good position in search results boosts the clicks to your content. It should be noted, however, that tracking rankings matters the most when you factor in other metrics such as CTRs and organic traffic.

Organic Search Traffic

Organic search traffic is a crucial metric to keep an eye on for voice search SEO. Seeing the number of people on your page gives you an idea of how much potential there is to turn visits into conversions.

Organic Bounce Rate

It’s not enough that you’re aware of the number of visits. Recognize the length of time users are on your page. Are they there long enough to look at your content or do they navigate out of it too soon?

Organic Conversion Rate

This refers to the percentage of visitors acting upon a goal you’ve set for them to pursue. It could be to sign up for an account or newsletter or simply purchase something from your site. Tracking this allows you to see how performance fairs on a page compared to other pages on your website. You’ll be able to better understand where to focus efforts on when improving pages and content.

Do I have a keyword list?

As mentioned earlier, determining your target audience affects the way you create content. Using the question of who you’re speaking with, you can then determine what you’ll be talking about.

A monthly keyword research should suffice in keeping you on top of current trends and relevant searches at the same time, ensuring that what you’ll be producing is well-targeted and will bring in the right visitors that will turn into customers. This additionally helps make content strategizing a much easier task as you’ll be able to immediately recognize which topics you can build on and which to reconsider deprioritizing.

Do I have quality content?

Content plays a key factor in voice search SEO. It’s the very reason any user would click on your website from SERPs and the same reason they would stay on your site and eventually explore. But of course, it isn’t enough to just have a block of keyword-stuffed text sitting on a page of your website. It needs to hold a standard of quality that users would come back to.

Circling back to your audience and every search engine’s inevitable core of putting user experience first, your content needs to be of value. Quality content means what’s on your page matches the user’s intent with the information they’re looking for and the language they actually use. Present it in a way that keeps them engaged without missing a beat on being informative.

For businesses that market products and services, FAQ pages are great for ranking. It’s a platform where you can address all the questions about your business in one compact landscape. Not only will you be able to nail a question, but you also gain more trust from your user and directly establish how you’re able to help them. To make sure that users stay on your FAQ page you should make sure that each question has its own page with succinct answers.

Here are other types of content you can consider creating:

Viral content, which can come in the form of text, images, or videos
Guides to a subject related to your website
Product reviews you can pull from your client pool
Infographics for a more informal approach

Am I a local business or an enterprise?

Voice search is used because of its convenience and speed in providing answers to queries. A quick search of a target keyword will pull up results that show you who your competitors are. Regardless of whether or not you’re in the same industry or subject specialty, everyone included in that SERP is considered a competitor.

Forty-six percent of voice search users look for local businesses which they can visit easily. That’s a considerably big chunk of people who are looking for locations within the vicinity, which is good news for local businesses. The best way to compete against big enterprises with multiple branches, as well as other unrelated competitors, is to establish authority in your industry.

For enterprises, on the other hand, if you’re looking to compete against local businesses, you’re going to want to focus on localizing your content in a similar way. Think of growing at ground level, asserting that you are locally available, offering the kind of products or services that a user might be looking for.

This means when optimizing, you need to make sure you’re getting your business on the map. To do this you need to:

Be aware of your local competitors. Knowing who you’re up against in the market gives you the advantage of planning better location-specific strategies.
Filter your competitor accuracy. Look out for who may be providing outdated information. This is the perfect opportunity to boost your business.
Get your business on the map. Part of establishing authority in your industry is getting a business listing, adding your location address, implementing star ratings and customer reviews. You can do this with Googl e My Business.
Be active on social media. Showing your audience that you’re active and easy to contact makes your business a better prospect to visit. Google has also confirmed that this will get you better rankings in local searches.

Do I have a link building strategy?

Link building is important in SEO for two main reasons:

Boosted rankings

Links contribute to the ranking of a site on SERPs. Each website that links to your page counts as a “vote” for relevance and credibility, so long as the page linking to you is one that has an equally if not more credible setup. The more quality links you have, the better chances of your domain authority will improve.

Relevant subject discovery

Sites who have linked to you potentially offer traffic from their page to yours. The more links you have, the better chances there are of more users coming in to view your site aside from accessing it through results pages.

To realize your site’s potential, you can implement your link building strategy with outreach:

You can interact with influential personalities or businesses that can help promote your website.
You can also offer to contribute a guest post to their blog, which will contain a link to your website.

After successfully getting a link from their own page, the exposure follows. These referral links are great for gathering more curious potential customers, underscoring the need to create engaging content on your page.

How much will it cost me to do voice search SEO?

As a responsible SEO or digital marketer, you should be financially aware of how much you’ll be shelling out to optimize your website for voice search. Your budget would, of course, be dependent on what process you choose to go with. Will you be hiring an agency or are you building your own team?

Pricing varies depending on the kind of service you’ll be availing or the agency you’re considering. Building your own team, on the other hand, would have a different cost since you’ll be hiring instead of outsourcing.

Your basic SEO team roles would require a project manager, data analyst, content creator, link builder, and web development. It’s considerably more expensive since this would be a continuous expense than outsourcing. However, you can also choose to upskill existing employees to cut through the hiring process.

Conclusion

Digital assistants have made a significant impact on the way search. Voice search has enabled a stronger culture of multitasking and a bigger demand for efficiency on both offline and online habits.

From an SEO and digital marketer’s perspective, its influence is something that can’t be missed primarily because of the way algorithms have changed and adjusted to suit the new tech. Many factors now play key roles in better rankings. Mobile-friendly pages, faster page load, more complex keywords, improved UX, and linking are just a few things to keep on the list of priorities.

Taking a quick assessment of your website’s current status and your business’s goals is imperative to see whether or not you’re in the right position to be optimizing for voice search. Asking yourself the right questions with the full scope of what you’re getting into should make the decision-making process an easier one.

If you’ve decided to start optimizing for voice search, you can get in touch with Voice SEO. You’ll be well on your way to seeing your site rise through the ranks in no time.

voiceseo-admin

3 Questions You Need to Ask Before Building and In-House Voice SEO

1. What’s your budget?

2. What are the risks you are willing to take?

3. How much control do you want?

How to Build Your Voice SEO Dream Team from Scratch

1. Define your team culture

2. Consider the costs

3. Determine Your Goals

4. Identify the roles you need to fill

6 Critical Roles You Need to Fill

1. SEO Team Manager/Lead Strategist

2. On-page Voice SEO Specialist

3. Technical SEO Specialist

4. Link Building Specialist (Off Page SEO)

5. Content Writer

6. Web Developer and Designer

Final Takeaways

General Voice Search SEO Statistics and Facts

Voice Search Device Statistics and Facts

Voice Search via Google Assistant Statistics and Facts

Voice Search via Apple’s Siri Statistics and Facts

Voice Search via Amazon’s Alexa Statistics and Facts

Voice Search via Microsoft’s Cortana Statistics and Facts

Voice Search via Samsung’s Bixby Statistics and Facts

Voice Search Usage Statistics and Facts

Voice Search Demographic Statistics and Facts

Voice Search by Gender Statistics and Facts

Voice Search Behavior Statistics and Fact

Voice Search Commands Statistics and Facts

Local Voice Search Statistics and Facts

Prepare for the Upswing of Voice Search

What is Voice Search?

Why You Should Care About Voice Search Optimization

Top Voice Search Optimization Strategies

1. Use the right keywords.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

2. Create FAQ pages.

How to Use FAQs for Voice Search

3. Use structured data.

What are the benefits of using structured data on your website?

How to add structured data

4. Focus on local SEO search intent.

How to Use Google My Business Listing

5. Make sure your website is fast.

How to Optimize Page Speed

It’s a New Era for SEO

Voice Search Keyword Tools

Content Development

Page Speed Tools

SEO Audit

Technical SEO

Ask Yourself These Questions Before Getting Started with Voice Search SEO

What is my goal for doing voice search SEO?

Am I patient?

Who is my target audience?

Who are my competitors? And what’s their voice search SEO strategy?

What are the metrics and KPI?

Do I have a keyword list?

Do I have quality content?

Am I a local business or an enterprise?

Do I have a link building strategy?

How much will it cost me to do voice search SEO?

Conclusion

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