With the increasing popularity of digital assistants like Alexa, Google Home etc, optimizing for voice search is critical to your SEO success. With it’s Hummingbird update in 2013, Google shifted its focus more towards understanding the user intent, semantics and contextual meaning of queries & the Voice Search technology simply takes this a step further.
Voice Search technology relies on Natural Language Processing (NLP) to recognize the user’s voice texture, interests, and behaviour. As time passes, Google “learns” your language, accent, and other patterns by closely monitoring the way you speak.
Points to consider while doing SEO for voice search technology
- Voice search is more likely to contain question phrases.
For voice search optimization, we recommend using a tool called Answer the Public to find questions pertaining to your keyword. When you enter a keyword, it returns a bunch of questions which can be used as long-tail keywords or incorporated within titles. Other useful tools include Question Samurai and StoryBase.
- More than 20% of voice queries are for local content.
According to The Internet Trends Report of 2016, up to 22% of people use voice search to find local information. This could probably be the case because this is a mobile-driven generation and it’s faster and easier for people to look for things while on the move.
- Use the right keywords
Google has stated that “Near me” searches keep growing exponentially year after year. In fact, even the search query for “things to do near me” is being used extensively.
Since most users have a local intent when searching on their mobile phones, you need to match your keywords accordingly. Keep in mind the following pointers:
- The local phrases people use to describe the neighbourhood around your location.
- Use “near me” in your title tags, meta description, anchor text and internal links.
- Specify landmarks around your business location.
