The Future of Voice Search: How to Optimise Your Website for Voice Queries

Can you calculate the rate at which technology is evolving? Definitely not! With everything advancing around us so fast, the way we interact with the web has changed too. Among these prominent changes is the rise of smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. These platforms have introduced voice search in our lives, which is currently ruling online search behaviour.

Rather than typing long queries into a search bar, people are fonder of asking questions on the web and engaging in conversations with Google and other popular platforms. From finding a nearby restaurant or general store to checking the weather or the latest headlines, voice search has become a common practice. It has made information more accessible to people.

An important thing to notice about this change is the role of voice search in the business world. Website owners must understand its importance and implement SEO strategies for voice queries.  When optimising their ventures, brands need to remember voice SEO to appear in conversational queries.  However, this type of SEO is different from the traditional one in terms of length, keywords, and intent.

Fortunately, business owners can look around this guide to learn about everything they must know while optimising their websites for voice queries. Also, we have discussed the future of voice search to help people understand its needs in the market.

The Future of Voice Search

Over the last decade, voice search has completely evolved from a luxury trend to a necessity. It started off as a novelty feature on the smartphones. However, it has now become a common and essential part of our everyday routine. From communicating with vehicles to getting in conversation with smart home devices, voice search is helping us everywhere.

The Rapid Growth of Voice Search

More people are moving towards voice search for the range of benefits that it provides. To highlight its dominance in the market, we have mentioned a few prominent statistics from different sources across the web.

•     According to a report by Yaguara, approximately 20.5% of people use voice search all over the planet.
•     As per a report by SEOmator, the total number of voice search devices globally is expected to reach 8.4 billion by the end of 2025, which is double the number of these devices in 2020 i.e., 4.2 billion.
•     Heavyweight Digital, reported that 40% of adults in the United Kingdom use voice search regularly.
•     In the UK, Amazon’s Alexa was marked as the most popular voice assistant with 46% usage, after Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant with 26% and 24% usage respectively. 
•     Approximately 90% of people consider voice search easier than typing, while 89% said it is convenient and 87% believe it is faster.

Primarily, voice search is gaining popularity among audiences due to its ease of use.  It offers a great advantage as people can easily find information without wasting time typing their queries. Also, it is a preferable way to browse when multitasking.

Why Voice Search is Gaining Popularity? 

As mentioned earlier, user-friendliness is a great factor due to which voice search is gaining popularity across the market. Also, there are several other factors that contribute to its growth. These include,

   Fast Speed – Voice search is estimated to be around 4 times faster than conventional text-based search. This makes it a more efficient tool for quickly retrieving information.
   Multitasking – Voice search allows you to access information while multitasking. You can continue to cook, drive, work, or perform any other task that you want without stopping.
   Conversational Queries – Voice queries seem like a conversation between the user and the search bar. These appear more natural and easier for people.
   Smart Integration – The feature of voice search can also be embedded with smart devices and vehicles for user-friendliness. This way, you can command doctor these devices with hands-free convenience.

The Role of AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Voice Search

Voice search is highly dependent on two advanced technologies artificial intelligence and natural language processing. Readers can consider AI and NLP as the two primary pillars that decide the efficiency and accuracy of voice search.  With the help of these technologies, voice assistants can easily understand and respond to user queries within a particular time.

For instance, AI-powered search algorithms like Google BERT and MUM are utilised for processing voice-based queries. These algorithms pay attention to the context and intent of a query, unlike other technologies that just focus on the keyword. Further, voice search technology has led to advanced speech recognition through which these assistants can now recognize a variety of dialects, accents and slang.

Artificial intelligence has evolved into modern AI, through which these voice-based assistants can remember previous queries. This way, users can move towards follow-up questions without repeating their queries.

The Rise of Voice Commerce

Another area where voice search is growing rapidly includes voice commerce. Shopaholics nowadays are more attracted towards online shopping through voice search. According to a report, 43% of individuals with voice-enabled devices prefer voice search to shop online. Moreover, a recent forecast states that voice commerce is expected to cross 40 billion U.S. dollars in sales by the end of 2025.

Due to this promising rise of voice commerce, business owners must stay focused. Implementing voice search into their brands is not enough. Every e-commerce platform today must try to update its e-commerce platforms and make them ideal for voice-based transactions. Make sure to remember that more than 55% of users today look for local businesses and their details.

Future Trends in Voice Search

With advancements in technology, voice search is all set to shape the future. Its continuous evolution has led to a few emerging trends in the market.

   Voice-Based Advertising – More brands are expected to use audio advertisements to target potential audiences.
   Multimodal Search – Marketers will combine voice and visual search to boost user experience while searching.
   Voice Search in B2B Transactions – Business professionals will prefer to use voice search for performing transactions and exploring.
   Enhanced AI Assistants – AI assistants will be improved to be smart for voice assistants to provide ideal and contextual responses.

While these continue to evolve and she the market, business owners are advised to stay updated. To keep in the race, professionals must adapt to their digital strategies accordingly.

How to Optimise Your Website for Voice Queries? 

The importance of voice search is clear at this point, which means businesses must work on ways to optimise their websites. Though it serves as a way through which people find information online, voice search differs from traditional search. While the text-based method depends on short and considerable keywords, voice search depends on a natural and conversational tone.

When talking about voice queries, search engines look for quick and accurate results that are contextually relevant. It means, business owners must pay attention to mobile-friendliness, responsiveness, local SEO, and content to boost their search engine ranking.

Below, we have mentioned a few tips that you can follow to optimise your website for voice search.

1.    Prioritise Conversational and Long-Tail Keywords

As compared to text-based queries, voice searches are longer and more conversational. Rather than typing, “best Thai food in New York,” users are more likely to ask “Where to find the best Thai food in New York near me?” Therefore, optimising for such queries requires a few tips.

•    Try to implement long-tail keywords utilising natural speech patterns.
•    Include question-based phrases like what, when, where, why, who, and how.
•    Optimise the web content, headings, titles, and subheadings with conversational keywords.
•    Add direct and short answers to questions when writing FAQ's and blog posts.
• Experts recommend tools like SEMrush, 'Answer the Public’, and Google’s 'People Also Ask' to find relevant and conversational long tail keywords for voice searches. You can use these to find detailed insights about how people utilise these keywords in their voice queries.

2.    Answer Common Questions

It is well understood that voice search users prefer asking full-sentence questions. For this reason, business owners must create content that includes direct answers to such queries.  To do so, have a look at a few tips. 

•    Dedicate a page to detailed FAQ sections that answer common questions related to industry issues and attract voice search traffic.
•    Structure conversational blog posts that include a question-and-answer format as it can improve your chances of appearing in voice search results.
•    Write short and concise answers of about 40 to 50 words to appear in Google’s search snippets and provide direct responses.

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3.    Optimise for Local Voice Search

As mentioned earlier, approximately 45% of all voice searches revolve around looking for local business information. It explains how voice search is beneficial for local businesses. In a great way. While most of these voice queries consist of near-me terms or details about particular locations, business owners must make sure to optimise their platforms for their local searches.

The right way to implement local SEO for voice search includes a few steps.

•    Claim your Google My Business listing while updating it with your accurate address, business name, working hours, and contact number.
•    Optimise your web content, titles, meta descriptions, and headings with location-based keywords.
•    Focus on customer feedback as voice search appreciates businesses with positive reviews and higher ratings.
•    Pay attention to schema markup for local businesses as it is a great way for search engines can understand your business details and niche.

By having a well-optimised GMB list, you can improve your chances of appearing in voice search results. It is the best way to drive more foot traffic.  Still not sure about the results?

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4.    Improve Website Loading Speed

Because most users are looking for instant answers from a website, speed is considered a crucial element in boosting voice search rankings. According to core web vitals by Google, speed is regarded as a key ranking factor. It means, having a slow-loading website can negatively impact your voice search rankings and lead to higher bounce rates.

Fortunately, you can easily improve your website speed by compressing images and using a trustable content delivery network. Experts also recommend compressing images and replacing them with formats like Web P. Also, you can try to enable browser caching as it is a proven method to reduce load times.

Doing so can also help you to stay in the race while outdoing competitors.

5.    Ensure Mobile-Friendliness

It is no doubt that most of the voice searches happen through smart devices. Therefore, having a mobile-optimised website is necessary. Business owners are well aware of Google’s mobile-first indexing because search rankings across the web are determined by the performance and responsiveness of a website.

You can easily optimise your website for mobile devices by using a responsive web design and making sure it performs seamlessly across multiple screen sizes.  Because content is a major ranking factor, make sure it is readable enough on a mobile screen. Users are not fond of websites that require unnecessary scrolling or zooming to read the details.

Try to keep away from intrusive popups and provide users with a smooth experience. A product recommends always testing mobile usability whenever optimising your website for smartphones and other gadgets. The most recommended tool for this is Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.

Professionals must understand that mobile responsiveness is one of the finest ways to improve search engine rankings. It helps to appear higher in voice search results while providing users with a seamless experience.

6.    Optimise for Featured Snippets

The featured snippets by Google, also recognised as position 0 are considered the primary source for boosting voice search results. If you are successful in letting your content appear in a featured snippet, there are more chances of it being read by a Voice Assistant.

To optimise your content for featured snippets, follow a few tips. 

•    Optimise readability by using bullet points and structured headings.
•    Start your content with direct and concise answers to common questions.
•    Increase chances of scanning by formatting your content in a Q and A style. 
•    Boost snippet visibility by adding relevant comparisons, statistics, and insights.

For instance, rather than writing the benefits of SEO, rephrase it into a question like what are the benefits of SEO.  Also, include a short and structured answer alongside for better readability.

7.    Use Schema Markup

Schema markup can be considered a form of structured data through which search engines can easily understand website content for crawling and indexing. By implementing schema markup, website owners can improve the search engine rankings of their performance. It is a great way through which brands can make sure to appear in voice search results.

The most popular types of skipper markup are discussed further.

•    FAQ Scheme –This schema markup helps Google to grab details about the most asked questions and their answers.
•    Local Business Schema – This schema markup helps to boost the visibility of a brand in near-me searches.
•    Product Schema – This type of schema markup improves the visibility of e-commerce brands for voice search results.

Business owners must understand that structuring their web content is the easiest way to help search engines know more about their venture. It directly improves your chances of appearing in search results with relevant keywords.

Final Thoughts

The rise of voice search highly impacts the way people interact with the Internet today. As a crucial part of today's digital world, voice search is a key element for business owners.  Brands focusing on this technology are already prepared to stay at the top of the race.

Professionals must understand that voice search is not just one of the latest technology trends. Rather, it is the future of the digital world. Get ready to implement it into your business and embrace a successful future! In the end, what are your thoughts about the rise of voice search and its future expectations? 

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