voice search

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.

Apr 07 2020

How Voice Search Is Changing Customer’s Journey and Behavior

Smart devices, such as phones and home speakers, are getting smarter and smarter such that they can now take voice commands from users. Not only that, as they’re able to perform these commands with precision.

Because of these capabilities, people are finding it convenient to use their smartphones and other voice-enabled devices to help them with web search. Instead of typing their queries on search engines, users are turning to Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant—the three most popular voice assistants—to get the info, product, or service information that they need using spoken language. This search method is faster too since users can just dictate their commands instead of typing them out.

On the other hand, these changes may pose a challenge for your marketing team since your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy now has to include voice search into the mix. Although SEO for text queries and SEO for voice search are both meant to build a strong online presence for your business, there are certain nuances with voice search especially because search engines have distinct algorithms for it.

Amid these trends, you can tap into your knowledge of the evolving buyer’s journey as well as customer behavior and use relevant insights to help your business stay competitive in online search.

Changes in Consumer Behavior

People’s routines now include using voice-enabled apps. From consuming news content to personal shopping and finding general information on the internet, people are relying on smart speakers and voice-assisted devices to help them with their daily needs.

Considering the statistics from Google and Content Marketing Institute below, it’s safe to say that the voice search technology is fast gaining momentum now more than ever.

52% of consumers with a voice-activated speaker at home place the device in a common room, including the family room and living room.
62% of people who regularly use a smart speaker are likely to use it to buy something at any given month.
48% of smart speaker owners like receiving personalized tips and information from brands to make their everyday lives easier.
About 70% of queries or requests to the Google Assistant are communicated in natural language instead of the typical keywords that people use in web search.
24% of people prefer using a voice assistant than go to a website.
By 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice-based.

Voice Queries in the Sales Funnel

In any customer-facing situation, you have to remember the significance of using the sales funnel to dictate the strategies that you will use to convert someone into becoming a sale or lead for your business. When you model the sales funnel, you’re focusing on the series of steps or processes that people go through in their customer journey.

Depending on your business model, your sales funnel should include at least four stages.

Through the sales funnel, you get to have an understanding of what type of mindset customers have in each stage. Being aware of this pattern of thinking or behavior helps you map out your marketing strategy.

Awareness — A customer is experiencing a problem and conducting research to understand the nature of the problem. At this stage, the customer’s questions revolve around the problem.
Consideration — The customer has identified the problem and is now looking for available options or solutions.
Decision — The customer has come up with a strategy to solve the problem. This is also the point where the customer narrows down the possible products or services that could best solve the problem.
Loyalty — The customer has developed a preference for a particular kind of brand, idea, or method and continues to engage with it.

The sales funnel can also serve as your guide on what queries people are using throughout their buying process and, consequently, help you tailor your content or approach accordingly. Along the way, you might find gaps in your sales funnel, which may be giving customers a reason not to convert. You should then tweak your tactics to make sure that you’re delivering the right message at the right time to your audience.

Here are some examples of questions that customers might have as they move from one stage of the sales funnel to another (using “tea” as an example):

Awareness: What are the benefits of drinking tea?

Consideration: How do green tea and jasmine tea compare with one another based on their medicinal properties?

Decision: How many tea bags should I use to make one liter of tea?

Loyalty: What snacks or delicacies go best with tea?

If your business involves manufacturing or selling tea, you’ll want to make sure that your content strategy includes information on the questions listed above as well as all possible topics that might be useful for tea drinkers.

In addition, you should spend time optimizing your content pieces for voice search. These factors play a role in how Google and other search engines may rank your brand on voice search:

1. Length. Google recommends an average of 29 words when framing answers for voice search.

2. Readability. Search engines prefer content with a 9th grade comprehension level because it is easier to understand than upper grade levels.

3. Word count. Google extracts voice search results from long-form content where the average word count per page is 2,312.

4. Featured snippet. Web pages that appear as a featured snippet represent 40.7% of voice search answers in search engine results pages (SERPs).

5. Structured data. Pages that use schema or structured data show on SERPs at a rate of 36.4%.

How to Do Keyword Research in Voice Search

Voice technologies are changing the way that customers are searching the web. In voice search, people use more conversational language and long-tail questions since they are asking more specific questions unlike in text search where the questions are more generalized.

Based on these evolving search methods, how you use keywords to make your business visible on SERPs likewise needs a different approach.

Here are some of the best practices in keyword research for voice search:

Target long-tail keywords. You can use question phrases to match the way that users form their queries.
Put keywords in your headers or sub-headers. This will help your content provide context to users’ voice queries and appear as a possible answer to a voice search.
Include function or filler words into your keywords, so they mimic how people speak in casual conversations.
Add steps from the sales funnel into your keyword research. This means plotting possible questions for every stage of the buying process.
Identify keywords based on usage along the buyer’s journey and map these into your content assets. For example, you should include keywords that people in the consideration stage use to make comparisons, while content that targets customers in the decision stage might include keywords that are related to pricing or cost.

Voice Queries Based on Intent

Another helpful strategy in developing and optimizing your content for voice search is to match it with search intent. Search intent pertains to what searchers want to know as they dictate their queries into their device. When you know the searchers’ intent, you can then create a piece of content that matches exactly with that desire.

Search intent can be grouped into four different categories: informational, transactional, navigational, and commercial investigative.

As the name implies, informational searches are made by people who are looking for information. People with this type of search intent have a specific question or want to know more about a particular subject matter.

What type of content should you be producing for this intent:blogs, how-to guides, infographics, newsletters
Transactional searches are used by people who intend to buy something on the internet. They’re using the web to search for the best or most suitable deals.

What type of content should you be producing for this intent: FAQs, video demo, product information or comparisons, reviews, testimonials, product listing, pricing information

Navigational searches help people to get to a specific destination, such as a website or a physical store.

What type of content should you be producing for this intent: corporate profile, press releases, company news or updates
Commercial investigative searches are geared toward the research process among customers. These searches are meant to help buyers make an informed decision about a purchase they’re planning to make.

What type of content should you be producing for this intent: case studies, whitepapers, e-books

Using Search Intent to Build the Buyer’s Journey

It’s important to note that there’s a relationship between the buyer’s journey and search intent. Customers at the awareness stage will likely use informational keywords, navigational keywords at the consideration stage, and transactional keywords at the decision stage.

Thus, breaking down the search intent is helpful for keyword research, too. When you know the reasons behind a customer’s specific search, you can match your keywords with the buyer’s intent and develop relevant content that cuts across the customer journey. The goal is to make your business visible and accessible through voice search wherever the customer is in the sales funnel.

Here are some things that can help you in mapping keywords and organizing them based on search intent and customer journey:

Interpret the kind of questions that users ask. You can look for signal words to determine their degree or kind of intent. “Who” and “What” questions may signify that users are in the awareness or consideration stage, while “Where” and “When” questions may be signs that they’re ready to buy.
Brainstorm commonly used keywords for each stage of the customer journey. For example, a buyer searching for product comparisons might include the search phrase “pros and cons” in their search, while buyers at the decision stage might ask using “discount offers” as keywords.
Use topic clustering. This refers to building a collection of content that centers around a main topic to improve your brand visibility on search as well as establish your industry authority.

Through topic clustering, you can target a variety of keywords, especially long-tail phrases that cater more to voice searches.

To implement topic clustering, you should come up with:

A pillar page — This covers the main topic on a single page with smaller cluster topics that link to it. Here, you can focus on the awareness or consideration stage of the funnel.

A cluster page —This page contains more information about the main topic on your pillar page to help your prospect during the awareness stage.

A target or landing page — This contains keywords or phrases about a specific product or service. Your focus here is on the decision-making process.

The Customer’s Journey and Behavior in the Age of Voice Search

The emerging voice search technology is shaping the buyer’s journey and customer behavior in new ways. Through voice search, customers are able to find answers to their questions in a faster and more convenient fashion.

At the rate voice search is growing, it won’t be long before it becomes the norm in online search. Instead of waiting for voice search to go full blast, you could take the lead in making sure that your business is well prepared and responsive to this shift.

You can start by revisiting your SEO and content marketing strategies to gain fresh insights on what customers are searching, with special focus on their intent and how they’re expressing this in their search. Don’t forget to keep track of new algorithms from Google and other search engines as following these can help you optimize your website and your content pieces, so you’ll appear as a top response on voice search.

With these strategies, you can position your brand as experts in responding to the voice search revolution to drive traffic to your site, establish thought leadership, and engage users all throughout their buying journey.

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 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.

Mar 29 2020

7 Voice Search SEO Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Bottomline

As long as new digital marketing tools and trends surface, search engine optimization (SEO) practices will continue to evolve. The case is true with all the historical algorithm updates that keep on challenging experts to go for white hat tactics and provide value to their target audience.

Besides these search guidelines that get regularly refined, one of the most significant changes to hit SEO is what you’ve come to know as the voice search revolution. People have entered the era where they no longer have to type in their queries via touch screens or tactile keyboards; there is now an option to talk to your gadgets.

In this day and age, it’s not uncommon to own a device pre-installed with a voice assistant. As of 2018, there were already 2.5 billion assistants in use, and this figure is projected to go up to 8 billion in 2023.

These intelligent robots live inside smartphones and smart speakers, promising to make life easier and more manageable for the users who choose to engage with their features. The most popular ones in the game so far are Siri for iOS users and Alexa or Google Assistant for Android users.

Back in the day, they were mostly used to play music, set reminders, or maybe call someone from your phonebook. Now, they’re being used to search for pertinent information online or navigate the way to the nearest establishment of your choice—features that can help businesses maximize their digital marketing efforts.

That said, if you’re not in on the voice search phenomenon, you could be severely hurting your bottom line! If you’ve already begun to optimize your business for voice search, you’re on the right track, but your work is far from over. It pays to familiarize yourself with the most common VoiceSEO mistakes businesses can make.

The voice search industry is new, and there are many things to consider. Thankfully, this post will help you identify and avoid said mistakes to make sure you can maximize your business growth without worry.

Top Voice Search SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Mistake #1: Not optimizing for local search

Local SEO is a critical ingredient in voice search. BrightLocal conducted a 2018 study that shows that 75% of smart speaker owners perform searches for local businesses weekly, and an astounding 53% say they perform these searches every day. If you’re not giving out your location information online, you could be robbing people of the chance to discover your business.

The frequency for these types of search shows that voice search tech is relevant for businesses with physical stores that customers can visit.

Solution: Invest in Local SEO

One of the easiest ways to invest in local SEO is to claim your Google My Business page. It shows all the info people would want from your sites such as an address, operating hours, contact number, website, and reviews, if any. Other tactics include optimizing your website by adding your location as one of your main keywords. You can incorporate this on your home page, metadata, and even service or product pages.

Mistake #2: Poor internal link structure

You’ve probably heard about backlinks being king, but internal links serve a significant purpose, too. Its most essential function is creating a clear path for users to navigate your pages, makes your site easier to crawl, and defines your website architecture, to name a few. Additionally, proper internal linking helps search engines understand your content better.

Solution: Observe consistency in internal linking

As much as possible, it would be wise to have at least five internal links in one long blog post. This won’t only ensure that you’re referencing a lot of resource material you’ve written in the past, but also aid in the crawling process that bots do. It should go without saying that you should link intelligently, too. Use anchor texts and links that would be natural for the reader to click on, such as citing a topic with a much more in-depth explanation in another post.

Solution: Submit an XML sitemap to search engines

Your XML sitemap is essentially a blueprint of your website. It will contain all pages, posts, links and where they redirect to, as well as how often each page is updated when they were last changed, and the degree of relevance each page has to another. Having a sitemap is vital if you have over thousands of pages of content that are not linked together and you’re falling behind on your backlinks. This will help search engines understand the content of your site better and assess where your ranking should be.

Solution: Go for structured data

Structured data or schema markup is a type of code or tag that you can add to your HTML so search engines can understand and skim your page better. There are many examples of this, such as the site navigation shown below your main homepage URL on search results or the star ratings, price, and availability on your product results. This is another backend process that will help search engines better understand what content you’re putting out online, to better rank your relevance on SERPs.

Mistake #3: Not tailoring content for voice search

Online content production is increasing every year. In 2018, there were over 4 million blog posts published daily. That means it’s getting more and more challenging to be discovered by your audience, much less by voice assistants. Poor body copy will not get you anywhere, and so your articles and landing pages should be one of the first things you should fix when it comes to the voice search revolution. The good news is, there are ways to tailor your content creation to voice search that will enrich your content further.

Solution: Perform strategic voice keyword research

What are your users saying to their digital assistants to find your website? These keywords are essential to include in future or existing content so your chances of getting picked as the top search result increases. Voice search results don’t show ten or so blue links, but rather speak out the top result that the assistant finds. Similar to how you would conduct text keyword research for SEO, voice keyword research is essential for voice search.

Solution: Use natural language

Another critical thing to note is that voice search queries are longer than text since people use natural language when asking voice assistants. It would then make sense to incorporate conversational words in your posts, all the while not delving away from your brand voice. Write for your audience and not for search engines.

Solution: Create long-form content

The average content length for websites that’s great for SEO is around 1,600 words. The longer you discuss a topic, the more search engines will recognize you as an expert or authority on a subject. This won’t only help you for voice search ranking but desktop search ranking as well.

Mistake #4: Not investing in linkable content

As mentioned earlier, backlinks are critical in SEO. If you’re not creating content that’s credible or exciting enough for other websites to link to, it will be difficult for you to raise your domain rating and rank higher on SERPs naturally. Creating linkable content also helps your content promotion tactics. The more people see your name online, the more they are likely to believe you are credible.

Voice search technology relies on the performance of desktop search as well, which is why you would naturally want to increase your desktop SERP ranking to get noticed by Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Solution: Create link-worthy content

One of the most popular ways of creating linkable content is to include relevant images, videos, and even create infographics that will support what you’re trying to say. Visuals are a great way to keep readers interested and hooked on your piece, especially if you want to create something upwards of 1,500 words.

Another tactic is including statistics and survey results in your piece. Data is fascinating to readers, and many other websites love collating research or case studies as abundant resources for others who are learning about a specific topic.

Adding to this, you may also want to include interview snippets or quotes from interviews that other websites won’t necessarily be able to produce anywhere else. You want your content to contain a wealth of resources yet still be organized and engaging, so people also won’t be overwhelmed with the amount of information packed into one space.

Mistake #5: Not having a mobile-friendly website

It’s 2019, and if you haven’t hopped on the mobile-friendly train, then your digital marketing efforts have been suffering for quite some time now. Mobile-friendly websites are not a new concept, but a few years ago, they were more of a novelty than a necessity. Now, things have changed. Beginning July 2019, all new sites will be indexed using Google’s mobile-first indexing by default. There’s also a global rollout for this algorithm update to existing websites, and as of December 2018, half of all Google searches are powered by this new ranking factor.

Majority of voice searches happen on mobile phones since assistants are pre-installed on there. The chances of your website getting picked as a top result reduce if your mobile site won’t load since the assistant will have trouble crawling through the information on your site.

Solution: Mobile Optimization

The first thing you should do is test your current performance using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Tool. Enter your website and wait for the assessment. You’ll know right then and there if your website is optimized for mobile, as well as any issues you should address (error in loading images, small fonts, and more).

One of the most significant factors for having a mobile-friendly website is choosing a reliable web host and responsive website theme before installation. Having a responsive design can already take away much of the work in ensuring your website looks good across any device your content gets viewed or accessed on like smartphones, desktops, and tablets.

Mistake #6: Ignoring site speed or page load times

The digital age has created a culture of instant gratification and consumers wanting everything in a snap. This is no exception for website loading times—and this is a real issue that could affect your bottom line. The slower your page loads, the more your audience loses interest in what you have to offer. They’ll exit and search for something else that can operate on the speed they want.

So, how fast is fast enough?

If your site loads in 2.9 seconds, you’re only faster than half of all websites online. This in itself is a feat, but you also have to remember that there are one billion websites. So, you’re competing with 500,000 million others at this rate. On the other hand, if your page load time drops to 1.7 seconds, it will be faster than 75% of all websites, leaving you with 250,000 million competitors.

If you want to be part of the top, make sure your site loads in 0.8 seconds—you’ll then be faster than 94% of the worldwide web or just 60 million rivals.

Solution: Thorough SEO audit

Investigate the overall framework of your site to know which ones are potentially slowing it down. A thorough SEO audit can help you identify the loose parts. For one, you can implement caching so your website files can be saved on your visitor’s local device versus having it to load whenever accessed.

You can also simplify your CSS or HTML codes so that it can become more efficient and reduce waiting time. Lastly, you can also compress those HD images. Yes, it’s nice to have high-quality photos on your site. However, if it’s going to load after ten years, no one’s going to stick around enough to see it.

Mistake #7: Not having optimized images and videos

As mentioned earlier, high definition visuals matter—but they can hurt your site performance if you don’t know how to optimize them. In the case of voice search, you also need to give voice assistants context on what your visuals are portraying. This creates a much more thorough understanding of what message your webpage is trying to convey.

Solution: Optimize the alt text

When uploading your images and videos, don’t forget to add alternative text. You can use this to position your images to rank in a targeted keyword image search. The alt text is what’s displayed when the site fails to load and display the image. It’s used to tell search engines the content of your photos and describe the visuals to desktops users, as well as voice assistants.

Be Part of the Voice Search Revolution

Just like how it’s imperative to reassess your SEO efforts frequently, it’s equally essential to review if your current practices follow voice search SEO best practices. All the mistakes mentioned above prevent you from reaching your goal: making a sale.

If your readers don’t find value in your content or have a hard time loading your website, they’ll most likely look somewhere else. Since voice assistants don’t automatically read the top spot on desktop SERPs, the playing field is much more exciting.

Navigating through this new industry may feel overwhelming in the beginning, but that’s why there are experts who dedicate their time to study trends and help other companies grow their business. Voice Search can help you find your footing in the voice search revolution by offering intelligent voice search SEO services relevant to your company’s needs. Contact us now!