Technology

Apr 10 2020

Alexa SEO Statistics, Trends, Facts for Search Marketers

Amazon is perhaps best known for disrupting the e-commerce industry, as they are the most dominant global online retailer to date. The site carries everything from books, music, and clothing to gadgets, appliances, and so much more. In 2014, two decades after the company was founded, they launched another groundbreaking tech that would continue to revolutionize the way people lived: Amazon Alexa.

Alexa is one of the most popular voice assistants to date, along with the ranks of Siri and the Google Assistant. Despite being the newest to the game, the product has made a name for itself, with its voice command even becoming a popular trope in pop culture.

As voice search continues to rise and take over the way your consumers are performing various tasks, it’s critical to understand the state of all the voice assistants and how you can leverage each to your advantage. Alexa is the most compatible assistant on any device, making its consumer penetration further than its two biggest competitors.

Get to know more about Amazon’s voice assistant so that your business understands the best SEO practices for Alexa.

A Brief History of Amazon’s Alexa

In November 2014, Amazon unveiled a new product that would join the ranks of its Kindle e-Reader and Fire tablet. It was a smart speaker called Amazon Echo. At first, it was a cool way to control your music, answer calls, and maybe learn about the weather, but that’s about it.

Through the updates, Alexa, the digital assistant built into it, got more and more capable. Suddenly, it could now search for you on the internet, help you navigate to your next destination, and even control other smart appliances in your home. It suddenly became an essential gadget for the modern home.

Even though smart appliances were present before Alexa and Amazon Echo entered the picture, there wasn’t a centralized way to control them. The smart speaker turned out to be the answer to many people’s dilemmas.

In just under five years since the release of the smart speaker, the adoption of the tech suddenly grew. In January 2019, the Amazon devices team announced that they had sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices. This spans a vast demographic, from mothers to entrepreneurs to young children. With that many devices out there in use by possibly hundreds of millions of people as well, it begs the question, how will this affect the voice search industry?

Below are some more interesting facts on the popular voice assistant.

Amazon’s Alexa Statistics, Facts, and Trends for Your Voice Search SEO

1. Amazon Echo leads in terms of shares in the smart speaker industry, accounting for 70% of all US smart speaker sales.

Even though Siri is noted as the most popular voice assistant, Alexa and the Amazon Echo have infiltrated more homes and users in the past few years. Sales have gone up, and more third-party devices are partnering with Alexa. Since it’s highly compatible with a lot of software, it has a broader reach and therefore has a higher adaptability rate. This also suggests a trend that people are opting for the Echo more than other smart speakers, and this could be due to a lot of factors such as pricing, features, and compatibility.

2. Around half (51%) of Amazon Echo owners keep their smart speaker in the kitchen, which is the second most popular place next to the living room.

Voice assistants work their magic and prove to be the most useful when your hands are preoccupied, which is perfect in the kitchen. A user may want to use the device and perform queries while preparing food. This may include setting timers when cooking, playing music, and following recipes.

3. The top two most used Alexa skills are setting a timer and playing music.

It’s clear that the smart speaker market, mainly those run by Amazon Alexa, targets those who favor simple interactions, including those with fewer conversation steps or those that execute a single, clear function.

Connecting this to the fact that the living room and kitchen are the top two most popular locations for keeping an Alexa device, it makes sense that setting timers and playing music would be the assistant’s most used skills. Alexa can set the timer for when you’re preparing a meal; on the other hand, she can also entertain you or your guests in the living room.

4. The most prominent Amazon Echo market segmentation is 18 to 29 years old at 24%, with 30 to 44-year-olds taking up 20% of the userbase.

The demographics of users who use voice assistants are primarily young, almost the same category as those who own other modern gadgets such as smartphones, tablets, and smart home appliances. While you shouldn’t be discounting on users aged 44 and over, this trend does suggest that those who use voice assistants are more tech-savvy and utilized to devices of the same nature.

5. 43% of teenagers say Amazon is their favorite website.

Building on the young user demographic of Alexa, almost half of all teenagers who participated in a marketing survey revealed that Amazon is their favorite online shop/website. No other site came close. This suggests that Amazon has a lot of influence over the younger audience, which could also point them towards purchasing more products from the brand. It won’t be surprising to see the same loyal Amazon users get ahold of an Echo smart speaker to integrate their favorite website in their everyday searches.

6. Amazon has surpassed Google in terms of product searches.

Most product searches begin on Amazon now versus Google search. In the past three years (2015-2018), Amazon grew from 46% to 54%, while Google fell from 54% to 46%. This is due to the e-commerce website’s extensive inventory and availability of products. It has become a popular benchmarking tool for pricing too, as consumers still opt to check a product on Amazon even if they’ve seen it on another website.

The online retail giant doesn’t have to rely on advertising, as Amazon reported that 90% of their product views come from search compared to other avenues. This creates a massive opportunity for shopping on Amazon—if the practice will catch on.

7. Only 2% of Amazon Echo owners have shopped online using Alexa.

One of the biggest goals of voice assistants is to probably transition their users to the world of “voice shopping.” However, it seems like consumers think there’s a long way to go before that happens. Even though smart speakers have been marketed as a tool to help you discover new products, not every consumer is sold on this method. Alexa itself is equipped to process verbal commands to make purchases, check the status of Amazon orders, and even suggest products.

The small statistic of people who shop with the smart speaker indicates that people still prefer to see their merchandise before committing to payment. This may be one of the platform’s most significant hurdles to address in the coming years as adoption continues to rise.

8. 20% of consumers that own a device installed with Alexa have used it to find deals or track what they’ve bought online.

Don’t mistake the above stat as all bad news. Even though voice shopping isn’t a thing yet with most Alexa owners, they do use the assistant to help them find discounts online or give them status updates about their purchases. This suggests that while this may not be their primary platform for purchasing products, it’s an online shopping partner. Being connected to the Amazon ecosystem is just a bonus. It also highlights the evolving behavior of consumers who want to look for information hands-free.

9. 85% of consumers using voice search end up choosing the items Amazon suggests

Having a smart assistant integrated into the inventory of the largest online retailer in the world has its obvious perks. Since Amazon claimed their edge on Google as the preferred search engine for products, it makes sense that users would trust this platform more. As a result, Amazon does gain more sales. This also proves that users ask their voice assistant’s opinions when it comes to online shopping.

10. Based on a digital assistant IQ test comprising of 800 questions, Alexa delivered 61% accurate answers.

Alexa ranked third in the abovementioned test, after Google Assistant (86%) and Siri (79%). Since this test has taken place, Amazon has been working on making the assistant smarter. Besides the software built into these assistants, they also get their knowledge from the information presented online. It’s worth mentioning that Google Assistant is the only voice assistant that pulls its search results from Google. Both Siri and Alexa use Bing. This opens a portal of possibilities for search marketers and encourages them to make time in investing SEO for Bing and not just Google.

11. Over 100 million devices installed with Alexa have been sold.

Even though there are plenty of devices that have Google Assistant and Siri pre-installed in their software, the demand for Amazon Alexa is present. This is a signal to Amazon higher-ups to continue developing the Alexa platform as many users find the need to incorporate it in their homes. The more features and skills they build, the more users would be hooked to the device as well.

12. Amazon executives shared that Alexa has told more than 100 million jokes **and has sung Happy Birthday millions of times to customers.**

Besides being a trusty assistant for tasks, users also mainly use Alexa for entertainment. It’s vital for these AI-powered assistants to have a semblance of personality, rather than being too straightforward all the time. This means taking advantage of pop culture references, current events, and having an approachable persona, even if users are technically talking to a robot.

13. Alexa is now installed on over 28,000 devices globally.

More devices are getting ahold of Alexa, which means more exposure to users. To give a clearer picture, Alexa was only on around 4,000 to 5,000 gadgets at the beginning of 2018, so the jump is massive. Majority of this growth is credited to third-party integration, more than the acquirement of pre-installed Alexa devices. The company is working towards expanding its reach on third-party apps as it wants to integrate its product into more of what people own already.

14. In 2014, Alexa was launched with 130 skills. As of December 2018, this number has grown to 80,000.

The company refers to its voice apps as “skills.” What this means precisely is that the number of things you can tell Alexa to do is increasing. Besides the additional skills uploaded in Alexa’s software, the Amazon team also worked on the assistant’s ability to understand requests and answer questions by over 2 0% through machine learning capabilities.

Optimize your Business for Alexa

There are a lot of changes to expect in the world of voice search as the competition gets tough and the updates continue to roll. There are even a lot predictions made by different companies, such as 30% of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen in 2020, or half of all searches will be done via voice in the coming year too.

The voice search revolution is powerful, but it wouldn’t have gotten to where it is today without the help of voice assistants and what they can do now. Being one of the frontrunners in the game, Alexa is integral in shaping the future of voice search. Understanding what the assistant is capable of, who uses it, and what it’s used for can help you create voice search strategies you can use to your advantage.

Optimizing your content for Alexa and the other voice assistants need a thorough understanding of the voice search landscape. If you want to maximize your profits and learn more about voice search, you can partner with experts who know their way around the industry. Voice SEO can provide professional Alexa SEO services for your business that will surely get you ahead of the competition.

Apr 10 2020

How to Leverage “Near Me” Searches for Your Voice SEO

The rise of voice-enabled search is changing the digital landscape as we know it. Thanks to advancements in technology, virtual assistants are now commonly featured in smart devices, making it more convenient for users to benefit from what voice search has to offer.

Voice-enabled devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, Siri and Google Assistant on iPhone and Android smartphones, respectively, are helping the number of searches continue to soar, particularly local searches. It’s estimated that by 2021, mobile devices are expected to impact $1.4 trillion in local sales.

Google reports that “near me” searches have grown by 150 percent over the past two years. This means that localized search not only tells us where to go but also helps us find what we need. Indeed, the willingness to interact with devices continue to rise over the past three years, even in public situations.

What’s remarkable is, people have continued to adapt to advances in search technology, leading to more users becoming increasingly comfortable in using voice search when conducting localized searches. That’s all the more reason to focus your marketing efforts to localized searches and be more visible to customers in your area.

The bottom line is that people searching for local services online is now more widespread than ever before. So, if you haven’t optimized your business for localized search, or what we call “near me” searches, it’s about time you consider doing it now through voice search SEO services.

Completely Fill Out Your Google My Business Page Profile

Showing up as a Google Local Business is one of the most effective ways to improve your visibility in Google search results. The way it works is, Google gets information from Google My Business (GMB) listings to know which businesses to show in the local search pack. If your listing doesn’t exist, you’re at a serious disadvantage. In fact, there’s a good chance your business wouldn’t appear at all.

This is the reason why it’s imperative you sign up for a business profile and fill out all the necessary information. One of the most guaranteed ways to boost your chances of getting one of the Google Local 3-Pack spots is by being as informative as possible when creating your GMB profile. If you input enough information, GMB will even create a simple website for your business that will serve as its online representation.

Here are a few pointers you need to consider when creating your GMB profile:

Make sure your display name and business name are one and the same. This avoids confusion when Google tries to rank your site for local search.
Upload an attractive custom image instead of a stock photo. Note that 60 percent of consumers say local search results with good images capture their attention and usher them towards a decision.
See to it that your URL is correct. You wouldn’t want them encountering an error 404, or worse, a different site.
Refrain from using legal terms such as “Inc.” or “LLC” in your business name. Avoid legal troubles.
Use local phone numbers instead of 800 digits. You want to focus on local search.
Have your business verified by Google to make it more legitimate.

Get Your Customers to Leave Positive Reviews

When you’ve established a stronger presence on Google through your GMB profile, your next step is to get more users to post reviews of your services after becoming your customers. Make it your mission to provide the best possible service to each of your customers, even the difficult ones. It’s the only way to earn genuine positive reviews and a higher number of stars.

According to Google’s GMB support page, review count and score are factored into local search ranking. And if you get more customers to come in and experience exceptional service from your business, you can get more positive reviews. Keep in mind that 86 pe r cent of consumers read reviews for local businesses, which may convince them to patronize your brand.

Think of it as a cycle that favors your business: it pushes you to deliver the best possible service you can offer while helping your brand grow a larger customer base. Fortunately, Google aims to create a more positive user experience, making it easier for customers to leave a review through its search interface. The only thing you must worry about is how to get your customers to do it. Here are a few things you can do:

Hand out “leave us a review” cards. It’s not only another form of marketing, but also a way to get those reviews.
Simply ask for a review. Being direct sometimes works best.
Stress how easy it is to do. There’s nothing like letting them know it won’t be a hassle.
Launch a Google business review email campaign. Yes, direct requests work.
Display the Google Review link to your website. Accessibility is key.
Include the link in your surveys. Feedback forms and surveys will allow you to find ways to improve, so you might as well throw in a request for a review, too.
Publish positive reviews on your website using the Schema Review and Schema Rating markups to make it easier for Google to know about them.
Respond to the reviews, since Google also takes responses in consideration when ranking for local search

Include NAP Data on Your Site

There is one other place you need to complete your business information other than Google My Business, and it’s on your website. So, make sure you show your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) throughout your site and social media accounts.

Your NAP is what causes your site to appear in geo-targeted searches. If you skip on including these vital pieces of information, search engines won’t be able to display your business when someone conducts a local search for your product or service.

Despite search algorithms not being public knowledge, many SEO experts believe that search engines validate businesses by cross-referencing their NAP information as they appear on their website. Your site won’t be prioritized if search engines don’t believe it’s legitimate, making NAPs essential for SEO and local search results. If your NAP checks out, it increases the likelihood of ranking well.

Accuracy and consistency are key to doing this the proper way. Go through these guidelines to make sure you’re doing it correctly:

Make sure it’s written as crawlable text. This helps Google easily read the data and figure out how to rank your website.
Display the exact same business name, address, and phone number throughout your site.
Familiarize yourself with the Local Business schema markup to make it easier for Google to understand the contents of your site.
Include the area code in your phone number to help Google pinpoint your location.

Geocode Your Images

Geocoding your images associates them with your business location, which would help beef up your local signal, and eventually boost your presence for “near me” searches.

Incorporating images in your site’s overall content is a great strategy when trying to appear in local search. These images can provide more opportunities for adding keyword signals on a page, which presents better chances for ranking under search results in general.

If these images are also associated with places the right way, they convey additional location signals, which would help your business be considered more relevant in local searches.

Try to explore Google Maps, and you’ll come across locations that have a few images associated with local places in the web mapping service’s interface. If you geocode your images the right way, it gives Google and other search engines another reason why the content should be related to a specific place.

To do it right, here are a few guidelines:

Select the right image. This is going to be a visual representation of your business, so get it right.
Use a relevant file name. It’s SEO-friendly.
Consider the file size. Nothing too big for faster loading.
Embed alt text. This is a great way to boost SEO.
Add latitudinal and longitudinal data. Knowing your business’ specific location matters a lot.

Build a Backlink Profile That Includes Geographic Anchor Text

Building a healthy backlink profile is important for standard SEO. But when it comes to “near me” and voice search, you need to include geographic anchor text. It’s important to include your business city and state since it’s one more way Google determines where your business is located, which can help you rank in local search.

Your geographic anchor text should include your business, city, and state. A good example is “Deep End Guitar Luthier Services in Carson, California”.

Again, this is important so Google can determine where your business is located, which is a huge help in ranking for local voice search. But if you don’t have backlinks with geographic anchor text, you can reach out to non-competing, third-party sites for guest-blogging opportunities. You can then include your anchor text that links back to your business’s home page.

Include Landmarks and Neighborhood Names on Your Site

Just like telling someone who’s asking for directions, another way to help Google where your business is located is by naming landmarks and neighborhoods on your site.

A good example to include on your home page is: “We’re located at <number, street name, and city>, just around the corner from <landmark>, and across the street from <neighborhood village or subdivision>”.

Another effective tip is to let Google know where your customers come from. You can say, “We serve people from all over the <neighboring cities or areas>!” By doing this, even if your business is in a specific area, people who do a “near me” search from neighboring areas have better chances of seeing your business listing.

Include Driving Directions on Your Website

Knowing driving directions going to a specific place may slowly be losing its importance thanks to mobile GPS technology, but for search bots, it can be vital.

If you haven’t done so yet, include driving directions on your “Location” or “Contact Us” section of your website. Make sure to provide directions from different points going to your business establishment.

Again, your efforts to drop more clues about your location will prompt Google to take notice and help you rank in local search.

Boost Your Local SEO By Making Your Site “Sticky”

When we say “sticky,” this means that when people visit your site, they will tend to stay around for a while. This is important for Google since the search engine takes into consideration the average time on site and bounce rate when ranking websites. So, if it detects that people are leaving only after a few seconds, that’s a sign that whatever it is you’re offering isn’t what users are looking for. And when this happens, your ranking will drop.

The average bounce rate is 55 percent, so working on lowering this number would be great to work on.

To prevent this from happening, you should offer compelling content and seamless user experience that will keep your visitors browsing around. There are a few ways to do this:

Boost your site speed. If it takes time to load, your visitors tend to leave immediately.
Improve your content’s readability. Make it legible and easy to read. Avoid large blocks of text.
Refrain from adding popups. Do not ruin the user experience.
Add a compelling call to action. You not only want them to stay but also convert.

Build Local Links

It may be great to get a do-follow link from high authority sites such as Buzzfeed or HuffPost, but you can ease up on this and focus your efforts in looking for local backlinks instead.

Perhaps there are plenty of opportunities to get backlinks from websites that don’t have high domain authorities, but what they do have is local authority, and that can help you rank in local search.

There’s a good chance your local chamber of commerce has a website. Work on that.
Find opportunities from trade organizations, non-competing businesses, and local web directories.

These are the right places you’d want to look for links to boost your local search presence.

Conclusion

Voice technology is on the rise, and it will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. More advanced devices will be sold on the market, pushing it to become commonplace. This will make voice search a more practical way of conducting queries on the web.

This is a great opportunity for your business to start optimizing for local search, so you can grow your business more effectively. As long as you follow the guidelines, you’ll be able to leverage “near me” searches for voice SEO.

If you’re looking for a partner that can help grow your business, you can count on Voice SEO to utilize effective methods of optimization that’s sure to help boost your online presence, particularly for local search. Let us do the work and reap the benefits of showing up in local voice searches.

Apr 09 2020

UX Best Practices to Boost Your Voice Search SEO

There’s no better team in driving consumers to your website and generating leads than a seamless user experience (UX) and effective SEO strategies. These two go hand-in-hand when it comes to ranking in search engines, getting your target audiences’ attention (SEO), and providing the best intuitive experience for the visitors (UX). Simply put, they work together to provide the best experience for visitors.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s define what UX is in the world of SEO.

In its basic form, UX is everything that occurs when users start to interact with your brand or business through your website and other channels. It’s focused on engaging with the users once they click the search result to visit your site.

The goal of good UX is to provide a user-friendly design that seamlessly guides users through their journey. Good UX is when visitors encounter minimal distraction or friction when navigating and using your site; from exploring your content to checking out your products or services, and ultimately converting.

In the epoch of digital, people almost always rely on Google and other search engines to find answers for their questions. In the old days, keyword stuffing was enough to rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This no longer applies today.

In fact, this practice is considered archaic and even detrimental to your ranking. Aside from other ranking factors, UX is positioned as a critical element of an effective SEO strategy that can help your site reach the top of the search results.

Why is user experience important for voice SEO?

User experience is a critical component in an effective voice search SEO strategy. Roughly one in five adults makes use of mobile voice search at least once a month. The inevitable rise of voice and its integration in web design had designers rethinking their website information architecture and navigation.

As consumers continue to “talk” to their smart devices, businesses are presented with a challenge—how can businesses work with this new and ever-evolving technology to satisfy users’ expectations?

You guessed it, improve the website’s UX. While voice search introduces you to your target audience, your website’s UX does the majority of the legwork in keeping them engaged. UX aims to guide the visitors smoothly through the website, and hopefully, they take an action that will generate profit.

Here lies the difference…

Normal type-to-search provides a long list of results. The difference with voice search is it doesn’t provide the searcher several results or multiple choices. Instead, it pulls a single result or a very short list—the top results. It presents what the search engine thinks is/are the most appropriate and relevant content that answers the searcher’s query. The structure of voice search relies on claiming position zero or the top results of the results page.

More importantly, Google’s algorithm takes into account “searcher satisfaction” as a ranking signal, which evaluates how a searcher responds to a result they’ve viewed. Upon clicking a result, the algorithm sees whether the searcher completes an action on the website, shares the page on their social media account, or leaves the site after only viewing one page. These are strong indicators of whether the displayed result fulfilled the searcher’s query.

Your website is your brand’s personality. It shows your visitors how reliable, trustworthy, and credible you are. Because of this, you need your UX design to be as user-friendly as possible to establish that trust, highlight your professionalism, and boost your search visibility.

More than the appearance, you should take into account the other aspects that help with search rankings, like page speed, mobile-friendliness, engaging and informative content, and many others. Given this, brands and marketers are optimizing whatever they can to rank at the top, organic position.

When you design or revamp your website, remember this: if you were a visitor, would the page you’re building, and the content within it suffice your needs?

What are the UX Best Practices that impact voice SEO?

Start optimizing your website for frictionless user experience. Mind you, you’re not doing this for your audience alone, but also for search engines. This helps them determine your website’s authority, relevance, and trust—which are all Google ranking signals—to then help rank and index your page accordingly.

Here’s a rundown of the website elements that influence both user experience and SEO to help your website get the top spot (preferably position zero) in voice search. Let’s get started!

Optimize your headings

Headings are put into place to make it easier for your site visitors and search engine crawlers to find and understand information, and navigate your page content. Appropriate headings make your content more readable and easy on the eyes.

Here are some tips on how you can optimize your headings:

Use heading tags (i.e., h1, h2, h3, etc.) to break down the content for the readers and search engines. It tells them what the paragraphs/sections are about, and helps them find their way on the right section easily, if they ever get lost.
Use h1 tag once on your page. This serves as your content’s primary focus; this is your title tag. The h1 tag is typically found near the top of the page, and it’s the title that appears in search engines. For voice SEO, don’t forget to include your primary long-tail keyphrases in your headings to contextualize what your content is about, and of course, to help with rankings.
The h2 through h6 headers should aid in organizing the rest of your content’s structure. Note that you don’t have to use all heading tags. Sometimes, you only need h1 and h2s for your page content, while there are instances where you’d need more. Just like this article.

Make your website navigation and site structure simple

Google uses a machine-learning algorithm called RankBrain to categorize search results and process search queries. This is its third most important ranking signal. It shows searchers what it deems is the most useful and relevant answer to their key phrase query. If many visitors like a particular page, RankBrain will give it a boost in the SERPs.

Now, how does this connect with site navigation and structure? RankBrain notifies Google whether a visitor likes navigating through a website—if they go from one page to another, clicks on your links, spends a reasonable amount of time on your pages, and comes back to your site time and again. These are all indicators that your site is user-friendly and generally easy to use.

Here are some tips on how you can build your website for easy navigation:

Ditch the pop-ups – The user utilized voice search for convenience and fast results—no typing or several tapping. Intrusive pop-ups obscure the content underneath, which is the primary and only reason why the user is on your page.
Focus on behavior metrics, such as your site’s bounce rate, organic CTR, pages per session, and more. You can use Google Analytics to check this.
For your site’s mobile version, design with the user’s experience, and the narrow space provided in mind. Place touch elements with adequate space in between, use readable font size, and make use of white space.

Roughly 38% of visitors will stop engaging with a website if they find it displeasing. If visitors leave a page without taking any action and go back to the search results with no intention of returning to your site, then that speaks volumes of how poorly optimized the page is. The page will also drop in ranking and get replaced with a different page.

Take note of user signals

Organic search ranking brought by voice search is largely influenced by user behavioral data. This is how brands and search engines, especially, understand every searcher’s intent. It also gives insights about how they interact with websites.

User signals refer to the behavioral patterns of users. Search engines then utilize those findings to position your website in the SERPs. For example, a user performs a voice search then clicks the suggested result, but finds that the website content does not satisfy his/her need or it appears poor in design. They then bounce back to Google. This is a signal tipping-off Google that the result does not fit the user’s search query.

Google leverages this information to help them assess which search results are more useful, valuable, and relevant to a specific search query. Other than the bounce rate, other user signals are the Click-Through Rate (CTR), time spent on a website, return to SERP-rate, pages per session, and even social signals like social media shares and likes. Although these are not direct ranking factors, studies reveal that there’s a connection between these signals and top search rankings. You can use Google Analytics for these data.

Improve your page speed

Website speed has always been one of Google’s most notable ranking factors. It’s also a ranking factor for Bing. Search engine spiders calculate your site’s loading speed based on your page’s HTML structure. Statistics show that 47% of consumers expect a website to load within two seconds or less, and 40% of people will abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds. This means that slow load times affect the user experience of your visitors and feasibly hurt your conversion rates.

Since 20% of voice searches are performed on mobile devices, you’d want to check your site’s mobile responsiveness via how long it takes to load completely. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to analyze your webpage’s content and find out if there are issues that affect its load time, and which ones you can then fix or improve to make your page load faster.

Here are some ways you can boost your website speed for better performance:

Compress your images.
Make use of browser caching.
Limit multiple page redirects.
Do not put your multimedia formats on auto-play.
Minimize the use of plug-ins and optimize your site’s theme to reduce server response times.
Get rid of unnecessary and redundant elements in your HTML, Javascript, and CSS.

People who use voice search are likely on the go. Enhancing your website and mobile version’s page speed is at high priority when it comes to your voice SEO tactics.

Offer an exceptional mobile experience

Speaking of the mobile version of your website, take a look at it as a whole. What does it look and feel like? Are the text font and size readable? Are the images scaled to an appropriate size? Is it easy to navigate? After Google’s announcement of mobile-first indexing (indexing your site’s mobile version instead of the desktop version), poor mobile responsiveness would surely hurt your rankings.

Did you know that about 51% of users will purchase from a mobile-friendly website? Imagine how many conversion you’ll gain by simply optimizing your website for your voice search users’ mobile experience. Do this for searchers who perform and view voice search results on their smartphones.

Remove unnecessary fields on your page.
Keep your CTAs front and center, and easy to tap.
Ensure that your contact details, the “enter” button in your forms, the search bar, menu, and other elements are easy to see and click.
Steer clear of popups.
When performing mobile site configuration, adopt an all-around responsive web design approach (Google recommends it). This method allows your content to display flexibly across any mobile device screen size.

Feel free to utilize Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see how your website renders on mobile devices.

Produce quality content

Voice search usually gives users just one answer. However, there are instances where it can give a concise list of results. If you rank for position zero, then Siri, Google Assistant, and other virtual assistants will give your site a shoutout through voice search results. Search engines, especially Google, care about how accurate the results are because users trust them.

Roughly 60% of consumers will not buy from a brand with poorly written content. The thing is, quality content isn’t just for the audience. Google looks into your page’s content relevance, originality, and quality to determine how it will rank (or whether it will) on the SERPs. High-quality content gets rewarded with higher search rankings.

Additionally, your visitors are likely to stay longer on-site if your content is highly engaging. This decreases your bounce rate and signals Google that your content is an excellent answer to the search query.

Here are some tips to level up your content:

Format your content accordingly (i.e., use heading tags, bullet points, etc.).
Write for your audience—human readers—not search engines. This is especially important in voice search where users perform natural language queries since they interact humanely with it.
Write like an expert and support your claims with references.
Run your draft on a plagiarism and grammar checker to spot errors and duplicate content.

Moreover, Google analyzes content quality via its expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

To rank on SERPs, you need to demonstrate that you’re an expert in the field. To display authoritativeness, your content should have backlinks from credible sources. Your website’s trustworthiness is measured through aspects like strong website security, quality reviews, and your online footprints. On-page indicators of these three are shares, bounce rate, and time spent on-page.

Pro Tip: create content that answers definitive questions, like a FAQ page or blog post, that addresses all your target audience’s burning questions. Then, frame the title or other headings of the content like how users who might use voice command will search for it. For example, you can write the questions in your FAQ page like this: “How to refund/return an item?”

UX influences how visitors will see your brand

User experience is all about prioritizing the searchers’ needs as well as the search engines’. After all, voice search gets your foot in the door, while your website’s UX focus on keeping the visitors engaged and comfortable when browsing your site.

Many people who uses voice search perform “near me” searches. If you want to rank for geo-specific keywords, you need to understand your audience and how they behave on a webpage, the search engine ranking signals, and how they use your website to communicate. When you get your website’s UX and your voice search SEO down to the letter, the ranking (let’s aim for that featured snippet display) will follow.

Are you interested in optimizing your business’ website for voice search? We offer voice search SEO services that can help your brand rise from the competition. Work with us today to provide the best experience for your target audience!

Apr 08 2020

Voice Search SEO for B2B Marketing: A Complete Guide

It’s well-known that voice search is making waves in B2C marketing, especially when it comes to online shopping, navigation, product discovery, and more. It’s improving the quality of customers’ lives and revolutionizing the way companies market their goods and services. The tech is smart, too. As of 2017, Google’s speech recognition was already 95% accurate for the English language.

While voice search is more commonly linked with B2C, its impact on B2B can sometimes get overlooked. You’ve probably heard the popular Comscore figure where half of all internet searches will be done via voice in 2020. Or, you may or may not be aware that usage of voice assistants will triple to 8 billion by 2023.

These various statistics that talk about the rising ownership of smart speakers include business owners as well, which means as a B2B marketer, you should shape your online and SEO strategy to accommodate this portion of your audience.

What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Voice Search

Since B2B buyers are part of the demographic of voice search users, the tech will soon infiltrate and help them in their professional lives as well. Because of the rising popularity of the platform, there’s no doubt that the B2B industry will see voice search as a tool they can leverage in their respective organizations.

As it stands, the tech is evolving, and there’s not always a need for a smart speaker to begin. Figures say more than 50% of consumers already use voice search, with 81% accessing it via their smartphones.

Mobile is incredibly important in the B2B industry. Over 60% of B2B buyers say that mobile did play a role in their purchases. Moreover, it’s estimated that 70% of B2B searches will be made on smartphones by 2020. That’s less than a year away. Why is this tidbit important? You must get to know your audience’s behavior and find the channels they’re using to perform everyday tasks. Knowing their preferred platform is just the first step, which will be touched on again in a bit.

It’s worthy to note that voice search hinges on what already exists online. The tech may be relatively new, but it depends on the information you make available, such as your website. If you truly want to maximize the power that this tool can offer your business, you must have a solid content strategy in place and work closely with your team’s search engine optimization experts. Although voice search SEO for B2B is an entirely different game, a lot of their foundation remains the same.

Voice search is diverse and can be used to your advantage in many ways. Below are tips on how to optimize your content and get your company set up for voice search.

How B2B Companies Can Optimize Their Website for Voice Search

Have a strong presence on mobile

Since mobile is an essential platform for B2B buyers, it only makes sense to boost your efforts in this channel. Get into the frame of mind of your target audience: B2B customers are always on the go, becoming increasingly dependent on mobile devices to perform certain functions in their work.

How do you do this? You have to start by improving your mobile UX and UI. While it’s not explicitly related to voice search only, it does impact your overall SEO strategy. Google prioritizes websites that are optimized for mobile since it’s now a ranking factor. It signals them that this particular website took time to fix its structure to be more helpful for visitors.

First, do a checkup. Google has a free mobile-friendly test that gives suggestions and points out errors on your site. Next, address any issues stated. If all seems to be working fine, do some speed loading tests and see if your website is up to par with customer expectations. Remember: B2B buyers are looking for professionalism and information right at their fingertips. If you keep them waiting long or have a disorganized page, they won’t think twice to look elsewhere.

Build an FAQ page

In line with providing as much information as you can on your website, creating an FAQ page will help ease the worries of your B2B audience and get what they need without having to contact your reps. Anything that can save them time is a great thing. This will shorten the dialogue and decision-making process for them if they want to hire your services or not.

FAQ pages also allow you to mirror the queries that your audience may be asking their voice assistants. The key here is to make sure you’re writing them in the first-person perspective and making them sound as natural as possible as if you’re speaking to a colleague. 70% of voice searches are conversational, which is why this tactic works. Give short, direct answers that provide just the right amount of information you can share, and use internal links to redirect them to in-depth discussions.

Aim to rank for the featured snippet

SEO used to focus so much on getting the first position on search engine results pages, but now, Position Zero is aiming to disrupt that goal. Targeting the featured snippet for your service pages or blog is one of the fastest ways to get your audience to notice you.

Featured snippets are what voice assistants read aloud to a user in response to their query. That’s a big deal and tremendous opportunity. In the voice search universe, you’re not competing with other blue links for your buyer’s attention—it’s all or nothing. If you don’t have the top spot, you risk the reputation and sales of your business.

Ranking for the featured snippet takes time, which is why you have to get right down to optimizing your content as early as now. Here are a few pointers on how to get the coveted spot:

Be specific and answer a query thoroughly. Focus on who, what, and why questions that will allow you to explain the answer with enough context thoroughly. Don’t throw in unnecessarily fillers; stick to the facts.
Format your content properly. Let search engines crawl through your page faster and clue them in that your page has the most complete and organized answer to a specific query.
Always churn out high-quality content. This tip won’t let you down. You can’t come up with thin material or trick your way to getting recognized by Google. Focus on quality rather than quantity.

Target voice search queries

What are your web visitors asking that lead them to your website? Focus on those queries and make sure you have pages or articles that will answer those questions or mention specific keywords that were in the question. You can use your insights as a springboard for future content or promotion so that you can increase your visibility online.

With the proper SEO analysis tools, you’ll be able to uncover the top questions asked about your brand. Voice search queries usually start with “what” or “how,” and contain the words “best” and “top.” Focus on educational pieces and showcase how your services come out to the top. Creating articles with these in your title also works, even if it’s a list that includes yourself and your competitors. The brand recall will be much higher, as they consider you to be the expert of the field.

Prioritize long-tail keywords

Even if people are speaking to (invisible) voice assistants when they make queries, they will be inclined to use natural language instead of shorter keywords they’re used to type. This means complete sentences versus phrases, making the keywords specific to voice search longer.

The good news is, it’s much easier to rank for long tail keywords versus shorter ones. Take the query “voice search,” for instance. At the time of writing, there are over 1.7 billion search results relating to the topic. However, if you narrow it down to “best practices for voice search SEO,” results narrow down to about 16.5 million. Yes, that’s still a lot—but you’ve significantly reduced your competition by focusing on more specific keywords that your voice searching audience would be using more of anyway.

Long-tail keywords make up 70% of all keywords, so make sure to include these longer terms for higher chances in appearing on voice search results.

Use conversational language for your content strategy

Why stop at long-tail keywords? You can adopt the conversational technique across all of your marketing and content channels. As long as it’s on-brand, make it a habit to talk to your B2B audience like a professional colleague, where they can learn from you but not feel too intimidated by the content you’re putting out.

The more you train yourself to churn out content using natural language, the more your website will rank higher in voice search. You might be unintentionally including strong keywords you didn’t know you could be ranking for, as you get deeper into the headspace of a customer who uses voice search to locate your business.

Get your business listed

Google My Business is a great way to help your company appear in the global directory of millions of businesses worldwide. It provides your address, lists your operating hours, and can also include your contact information. When your business is listed, you will earn a snippet in SERPs containing all of that information. If a customer is interested in looking for professional services in a specific location, your company will appear in that shortlist too, maximizing your reach.

Local SEO is an integral part of voice search. Stats show that 46% of voice search users look for local businesses every day. Plus, mobile voice searches are thrice more likely to be local-based than text. If you’re not hooked up on Google My Business, you’re losing a fair amount of money to users who have no idea where you are. Including location information gives your visitors some peace of mind of where you’re operating too, versus some company that can disappear into cyberspace.

If you have a brick and mortar store, local SEO can help point voice search users to your place. This is relevant for shops like restaurants, malls, convenience stores, and the like.

Develop your brand voice

While there’s a lot of suggestions here on how to structure your content and which keywords to focus on, your business won’t fly well if you don’t develop your unique voice. Every company out there will struggle to be original, and that’s a good thing. Imagine a user coming across content written the same way among three different websites—no one wants to read the same thing online.

Users look for your unique selling point (USP), so give them that. Study your competitors, see what’s working for them, but don’t stop there. Take a look at what’s not been done before and aim to see how you can spice things up. Make things uniform, too. It’s crucial to sound consistent across all pages so that your branding looks and sounds solid—bonus points to your audience.

Make Voice Search a Priority Today

Voice search is bound to become an invaluable lead generation tool in the B2B industry. It’s up to your company to learn how to harness its potential and make the necessary steps to get ahead of the game. The voice search craze is not going to happen in the future, as it already exists today. Numbers will continue to grow, users will multiply, and it’s only a matter of time before all searches are done via voice.

If you’re looking for direction on where to start, doing the steps mentioned above will already put you in a better place versus the rest. If you’re aiming for the top, it would be better to tap experts to help you out on this journey. Voice search is a diverse field, and a lot can happen in a short period. The Voice SEO team can help break down the process for you and work with your business to dominate your B2B industry.

Apr 07 2020

Voice Search SEO for Alexa: How to Optimize for Amazon’s Smart Assistant

Much like the evolution of voice-recognition technology that paved the way for smart assistants, e-commerce giant Amazon went through similar progress that allowed them to become one of the businesses to reach $1 trillion in market value. Not bad for a company that started as a humble bookstore.

However, Amazon isn’t content with innovating e-commerce. Products and services like e-book reader Kindle and digital content platform Amazon Video have proven that the Seattle-based company is also trying to influence other aspects of the consumers’ digital experience. With the continuing surge of voice-enabled software and tech, it’s no surprise that Amazon has also dipped their toes into it.

Alexa: Amazon’s Foray into Voice Tech

In 2014, Amazon launched Alexa, its first smart assistant, integrated into their smart home speaker Echo. Alexa does what other voice-enabled assistants do—look up information to answer to queries, play songs, order food, call, and many other tasks. One of the major differences is that it wasn’t initially integrated into a smartphone (though it now has an app), so it can be used completely hands-free.

It’s also no surprise that Amazon’s voice-recognition software places particular importance on shopping, allowing users to order products by asking it to search for an item off Amazon. Alexa will reply with the item and its price, and then ask a 4-digit security code to validate the order.

One caveat to this is, for now, Amazon Prime members are the only ones who can shop through Alexa, and only select Prime-eligible products, as well as specific product types, can be purchased.

The Influence of Amazon’s Choice in Alexa SEO

For Amazon sellers, being awarded the Amazon’s Choice badge can significantly influence their optimization and how they appear to consumers looking to buy something off the platform.

Amazon’s Choice is given to “highly rated, well-priced products available to ship immediately.” Essentially, this means that an item has been bought many times, and customers were satisfied with it based on Amazon’s reviews data. More importantly, when shopping using Alexa, the badge means that the smart assistant would recommend a particular item when a specific keyword is used.

It was created for a seamless voice-shopping experience, where consumers can’t see all their options. It also helps buyers maze through millions of listings easily, especially when they are searching for something relatively generic, and is a way to combat choice overload when choosing through a range of almost identical products.

One of the problems, though, is that for many categories, several options fit Amazon’s Choice generic description. It doesn’t help that the company isn’t as transparent about how products can land the coveted badge. However, there are a few clues left on Seller Forums that sellers can incorporate to maximize their chances of landing the award. According to a response from the company:

“We don’t offer Amazon’s Choice for all searches. Amazon’s Choice recommendations are selected by taking a variety of factors into account including popularity, rating, and reviews, availability, shipping speed, amongst other factors….’

‘There is not currently a means of requesting that your product be selected as Amazon’s Choice for a given search (keyword). Selections are constantly updated, so continuing to offer high quality, well-priced products to your buyers will give you the best chance to be selected as Amazon’s Choice.”

In conclusion, Amazon’s Choice heavily relies on:

High customer rating
Availability to ship via Prime or by Amazon itself, if not always sold by Amazon
Low return rate
Competitiveness of price

7 Ways to Optimize for Amazon’s Alexa

If you’re peddling your products on this e-commerce site, you’d definitely want to be part of the few chosen for Amazon’s Choice. But since this isn’t the only prerequisite for Alexa to reply your items to consumers who would use the smart assistant when buying, you’d also want to look at other techniques that would help you win Alexa’s favor.

1. Do keyword optimization for your Alexa SEO

Several Amazon sellers believe that keyword is significant in voice-enabled purchases; that adding or removing a word can result in different recommendations. For instance, “toothpaste” may turn up Crest 3D White, but “best toothpaste” may show Cali White, a lesser-known toothpaste brand.

Keyword optimization has always been a necessary tactic in SEO, and for Alexa SEO, it’s no different as it helps search engines understand what your content (in this case, your product and the product page) is about. Obviously, the first step in keyword optimization is finding the best ones. There are two types of keywords you need to look for:

Primary

A primary keyword is one that is highly relevant to your product, brand, or industry. To find this, enter a topic or term into Alexa’s Keyword Difficulty Tool, then use the Relevance filter. Make sure that the keyword is also popular with users, so look for those that have a high popularity score.

It may also be best to go for low-competition keywords that are within your range and easy to rank for. Alexa’s Marketing Stack assigns a competitive power score that also indicates keyword difficulty depending on its competitiveness. Keywords highlighted are those within your competitive range.

Secondary

Once you have a primary keyword, perform new research to find 4–5 relevant secondary keywords. These are terms closely related to the primary keyword that add context and send signals to search engines. A simple way to find these is to enter the primary keyword on Google search and look at the list of related searches. After which, you can start creating your content.

2. Be present on Amazon Prime

As earlier mentioned, voice-powered purchases with Alexa is only possible for Prime members for now. That is why you need to make sure that your products are available here. Prime subscriptions (with fees payable monthly or yearly) mean that customers can enjoy two-day shipping for their purchases. Items labeled Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) are part of this program.

FBA means that sellers send their products to Amazon warehouses to let the company handle its delivery, returns, and customer service. Being available on Prime comes with a price, though, which you should be familiar with before you apply for it. Amazon has a calculator that can help you with that.

If you’re a merchant that sells large, expensive, or hard-to-ship items, FBA may not be useful for you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be part of it, considering how valuable it is for your bottom-line. For that, Amazon has another program called Seller-Fulfilled Prime, which allows products to get the Prime badge, making it eligible for Alexa orders, and still ship from the merchant’s location.

3. Be proactive in managing product reviews

You should be aware of what people are saying about your products and services; even more so if you’re trying to earn the Amazon’s Choice grant. Manage your buyers’ ratings and reviews through follow-up emails. Encourage them to leave positive feedback on your page if they are satisfied with it.

Don’t neglect the unhappy ones, though. Forward their concerns to your customer service department so you can help solve whatever problems they had about your product or service. Customers can remove old negative reviews, so there’s value in reaching out to them.

However, do be cautious about offering promos in exchange for positive reviews. Amazon is aware of such practices and believes that it has a damaging effect on customers’ trust in the review system. Because of this, they have started fighting back against low-quality reviews and removing reviews that look fake. Offenses like these may put your seller account in danger of suspension.

4. Optimize your product pages

Despite most of the steps being almost similar to your standard optimization techniques, Amazon is not Google. They do not care about CTRs, dwell time, or fresh content—the only thing that matters is if presenting your product as a search result leads to a transaction. One thing Amazon and Google may agree on is banning black hat techniques such as review and rank manipulation.

Here are the best, legitimate ways to optimize a product for Amazon searches:

Images

Amazon has photo guidelines for each category; make sure to follow them. You can use as many photos as allowed, but make sure that they are all high quality and high-resolution. A picture with 1000 x 1000 pixels will enable desktop users to zoom in and look at details. Providing the zoom feature is a proven way to increase sales. Use lifestyle shots or show scale only for secondary images. Don’t forget to use your primary keywords in the file name and alt tag, as well.

Title/Product name

This is one of the most critical factors in ranking for particular searches and helping the buyers understand the product they are looking to buy. Amazon has a title formula for every category. For example, a particular type may require the product color, brand name, model, and size, all in the title. Focus on readability, include vital information, and avoid marketing phrases.

Bullets and descriptions

Amazon’s terms of service state that bullet points and description aren’t necessarily significant in ranking organically on the site. However, with m-commerce becoming the norm today, you may want to focus on the description, which appears above the fold, and bulleted lists are a more organized way of constructing your product descriptions. This way, your customers can instantly view the specifications of the product without having to scroll down for too long.

Keywords

In Amazon, you don’t need to repeat words to increase page relevance for the term. There’s also less emphasis on the sequence of words in a phrase. It understands each word in the phrase and considers all combinations that may be derived from it. For your part, you can put words in the order that makes logical sense.

You should also utilize every keyword possible in the structured keyword area. It can fit seven words per text box, allowing you to stuff them with every possible relevant keyword.

Structured data

This will help buyers filtering their searches. Make sure that your listings have all the relevant filter items, such as color, size, organic, BPA-free, and others. Utilizing filter terms will help your products appear in relevant search results. Supplying these data could help your product become Amazon’s Choice for a set of filters. Of course, you’re helping buyers narrow down their search, too.

Other standard keyword optimization techniques that you can follow are:

Use primary keywords
- Ideally near the beginning of the meta title and SEO meta description
- In at least one subheading
- In the first paragraph of the copy
- Near the end of the page
- In the permalink
Primary keyword density is at 2%
Use semantic search phrases to reinforce topic and primary keyword
Use all secondary keywords at least once
Have between 300 and 10,000 words of content
Permalink is less than 128 characters
Meta title is unique with less than 66 characters
Only one meta title tag on a page
Meta description is less than 320 characters
Put high-quality outbound links that lead to related content

5. Make sure your website loads fast—on desktop and mobile

During the 2017 Prime Day, it was found that the average loading time of Amazon pages for desktop was 2.3 seconds and 1.14 for mobile. There’s no denying the impact of fast page speeds in the conversion process, especially considering that the modern consumer isn’t too keen on waiting on slow-loading pages and will quickly move on to the next.

Some of the steps you can take to make sure that your product pages load quickly is to (a) cut a few bytes from it to make it lighter to download on the browser; (b) minimize third-party hosts or other elements; (c) use content delivery networks, and; (d) design it in a way that core content loads first than the non-essential items. More importantly, you can let professionals run a speed test to advise you on other techniques.

Another thing to consider is mobile adoption. The total m-commerce sales in 2018 were at $1.80 trillion and are still expected to grow over the next few years. Many voice-powered searches are done through mobile, and not having a responsive mobile site could mean lost sales. Work with an experienced web developer and get things going.

6. Improve your social media visibility

Since Alexa can be used to do many things, including making voice search queries, it can reply with different kinds of results, too, such as editorial content. Human-made recommendations can “help customers on Amazon with product research and discovery, by bringing them helpful content from third-parties,” according to a spokesperson for the company.

These third-party publishers may also include social media sites. When your business is active on social media, not just in Amazon, you may eventually help your prospects find your products and services and increase your sales. Post useful content on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other sites you prefer daily. Not only will this help attract voice searchers, but it can also make you look more credible.

7. Partner with Alexa SEO experts

Learning how to optimize your Amazon product pages, as well as other websites, is easier when you’re working with professionals that can offer the best Alexa SEO services. It’s a lot safer when you get a third-party to do SEO for you, instead of doing it yourself, especially since voice search is new territory. Having a voice search SEO partner is a wise investment that can help you improve conversions and, eventually, grow your business.

Help Alexa Find You Now

Amazon may have kick-started the dominance of e-commerce, but even outside of the website it’s apparent that the industry will continue to grow especially with the rapid advancement and adoption of voice tech. You can expect more e-commerce platforms in the future, but it’s foolish to overlook Amazon’s current winning streak and not take advantage of it for your business.

Continually optimize your Amazon pages and aim to be the top recommendation for your chosen keyword. In time, you may be deemed worthy of being Amazon’s Choice and become the answer picked by Alexa.