Voice Search Optimisation (VSO) is an incredibly useful tool to bring your business higher up in voice search results, but how does it work?
You can optimise your web pages to answer questions that people might ask through voice search by upgrading the information on your website to suit voice searches, by using more interrogative words, such as ‘Who?’, ‘What?’, ‘Where?’, ‘When?’ and ‘How?’. By doing this, you can also make it more likely that your web page will be read out by voice search devices, such as Alexa, Siri and OkGoogle when someone asks questions about information related to your page.1
With the increase in the use of the Internet of Things, combined with the increase in (potentially, more convenient) voice searches, VSO really could improve your website visit count.
How does Voice Search Optimisation work?
By using more conversational keywords on your website, and writing longer sentences, your webpage is more likely to return as a search result for VSO.
When we ask a question by voice search, as it can be easier and more convenient to ask the whole question than type searches, we generally speak the entire sentence. By conveying this more conversational tone in your website, you are optimising for voice search!2 But to use Voice Search Optimisation effectively, companies must first search how their specific consumer base might search for their product or service via a voice-based application.3
Tips
Focus on long-tailed keywords
Voice Searches tend to be more specific than the short-tailed type searches. A Voice search might be ‘What is the weather going to be like in Hereford today?’, whereas a type search might look more like ‘Weather Hereford’. By making sentences on your website more conversational, your business is more likely to appear in a search result!
Focus on Local Search
By adding geo-targeted terms that are specific to the location of your business, if someone asked, ‘Is there a Web Design Agency in Hereford?’, your businesses service will appear in more specifically located business or service searches.
Consider an FAQ Page
As a high percentage of voice searches are in the form of a question, adding relevant questions to your website can lead to more visits. Voice searches tend to start with ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘When’, ‘Where’ and ‘How’, so consider those question starters when phrasing your FAQs.
Use Conversational Language
By writing the language on your website similarly to how people talk, your website will appear in the search results of more specific phrases.4
References:
1Codedesign. (2021). VOICE SEARCH OPTIMIZATION: A COMPLETE GUIDE IN 2021. Available: https://codedesign.org/voice-search-optimization-complete-guide . Last accessed 15th Nov 2021.
2Sanket Katwate. (2021). How does voice search optimization work?. Available: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-does-voice-search-optimization-work-sanket-katwate/ . Last accessed 15th Nov 2021.
3emmarie. (2019). Understanding Voice Search Optimisation and Its Importance for Brand Promotion. Available: https://goodchronicle.com/technology/seo/voice-search-optimisation-and-its-importance/ . Last accessed 15th Nov 2021.
4Jay Gilbert. (2021). What is voice search optimization?. Available: https://www.morbiz.com/what-is-voice-search-optimization . Last accessed 15th Nov 2021.
