The statistics on voice search are impressive. Only a few are needed to drive the point home that your website needs to be optimized to show up in voice search and if you are missing out on voice search, you are missing out on an abundance of potential conversions.
- 1 in 6 Americans own a smart speaker (techcrunch.com)
- 50 percent of all searches will be voice searches by 2020 (comscore.com)
- 20 percent of Google searches from mobile devices are voice search (google.com)
- 72 percent of people who own a voice-activated device say they
This trend is only going to grow in the coming years so your business should optimize your site and your products to voice search to take advantage of this growing habit.
Here are some tips to help your site earn valuable search engine results for voice searches:
- Create featured snippets which, of course, is a goal unto itself. To earn a featured snippet you'll likely have to rank in the top results of page one. One of the best ways to do this t is to answer direct questions that potential customers have.
- Make sure your site loads quickly, Google evaluates the load time of each of your pages when determining where to rank your site.
- Make sure your site is responsive. If your site doesn’t load properly on mobile devices, you will miss out on potential business when people bounce due to the poor user experience.
- Claim your Google My Business listing. Google will offer results from businesses who are verified above those which are not.
- Focus on user intent. Use conversational keywords. Pay attention to the words your customers are using on the phone, not just keywords from your keyword finder tool. Voice searches are a few words longer than the average search, so you can work them into more natural-sounding content. One great source to find out exactly how people are phrasing their searches is Answer the Public.
- Use phrases that indicate locational context like “Near me”, “nearby”, or “nearest” when writing about your locations or where you deliver your services.
- Use Rich Snippets, or Structured Data Markups (schemas). These are embedded code to help the search engine know what results can be found on your site. This means that the search engine bots don’t have to figure out what your site content means from context and word choice, instead, you are telling the bots exactly what is there and how to display it in the results.
So whether you are selling snow shovels or real estate, optimize your website to answer what queries real people are speaking into their phones. Contact us at https://atrainmarketing.com/contact-us/ or call us (970) 419-3218 to discuss how we can help you prepare for voice search.