Voice search has revolutionized the e-commerce industry forever changing the way consumers, business owners, and marketers approach optimizing content. When looking to optimize for voice search, there are several marketing strategies that are effective in increasing sales and traffic for your e-commerce business. If your website isn’t optimized for voice search, you risk being left behind by your competitors who are.
Optimizing for voice search requires a different approach than traditional search engine optimization (SEO). You need to consider how people speak and structure your content to answer their questions in a conversational, natural way. You need to make sure your website’s technical components, such as loading speed and mobile-friendliness, are up to par for voice search.
In this article, we’ll explore strategies to optimize for voice search and discuss why it’s essential to stay on top of this trend.
ThinkFlame’s 5 Strategies to Optimize for Voice Search
Conducting Keyword Research with Voice Search in Mind
Conducting keyword research for voice search is a task every digital marketer should prioritize. Voice search uses natural language to deliver results, which means that users phrase their queries in a conversational tone. To optimize for voice search, keywords must cater to how people speak and ask questions. This means using long-tail and conversational keywords that reflect how real people talk.
Marketers can use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Answer the Public to find relevant long-tail keywords. It’s also essential to consider user intent when choosing keywords for voice search. Voice searches are often done hands-free, meaning that users are on the go or multitasking. Therefore, marketers should focus on creating content that directly answers questions or provides solutions to problems. Conducting keyword research for voice search ensures that your website is optimized for the future of search.
Implementing Schema Markup Designed for Voice Search
Implementing schema markup with voice search in mind is becoming essential for businesses. Schema markup is a code that is added to your website’s HTML in order to provide structured data to search engines. This allows search engines to better understand the content on your page and can result in more accurate search results for users. When it comes to voice search, schema markup helps search engines identify the most relevant content to spoken queries.
Creating schemas with voice search in mind makes it more likely that your website will be the top result for certain searches. Schema markup can help with featured snippets, short snippets of information that often appear at the top of the search results page. By implementing schema markup for voice search, businesses have the opportunity to improve their visibility in search results and ultimately increase website traffic.
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Optimizing for Local Search
To optimize for local search, businesses should ensure that their online presence is up-to-date and consistent across all platforms. This includes claiming and verifying their Google My Business listing, adding location-specific keywords to their website content, and having accurate and consistent information (such as name, address, and phone number) on all online directories and review sites.
It’s also important for businesses to encourage positive reviews on these sites as they can directly impact local search rankings. Creating local content such as blog posts or community involvement initiatives can also help increase visibility in local search results. Voice search is most commonly used in local searches. Optimizing for local search now will yield increased traffic and sales as voice search continues to grow in popularity.
Importance of Improving Website Load Speed
Website load speed is crucial in today’s digital era where voice search users are accustomed to instant gratification. A slow-loading website can lead to a poor user experience and drive visitors away from your site. Research shows that a one-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% loss in conversions, while 47% of customers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less.
Website load speed is a significant factor in search engine ranking, with Google’s algorithm favouring fast-loading sites. In a highly competitive online environment, improving website load speed is essential to stay ahead of the voice search curve. A fast-loading site can improve customer satisfaction, engagement and ultimately increase conversion rates.
Creating Conversational Content
Voice search takes utilizes conversational tones used in everyday language. This means that website content needs to be structured around questions and answers that people are likely to ask when using voice search. To do this, it’s important to research commonly asked questions related to your industry or niche and then structure your content around answering those questions in a conversational tone.
Use natural language and avoid overly technical jargon or formal language when creating content. Remember that the goal is to provide the best answers to users in a way that sounds natural and engaging, rather than simply optimizing for keywords. By focusing on creating conversational content, businesses can improve their chances of ranking higher in voice search results and reaching a wider audience.
ThinkFlame has 15+ years in the ever-evolving digital marketing industry. Over the years we have seen the importance of not only knowing what future trends are but being prepared for how they can affect your client and yourself. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us to let our expertise work for you.
Will Golliver is a Digital Marketing Specialist at ThinkFlame. He works to improve aspects of SEO for our clients from content writing to schema building. Will works for our clients to analyze web traffic and SEO strategies to help them improve their visibility.