Voice Search allows users to search the internet, a website or an app using voice commands.

Voice SEO is the optimization of keywords and keyword phrases used in voice-enabled search utilizing voice assistants. 

With the arrival of smartphones, voice search started as a small-time concept. But then it skyrocketed worldwide with the use of smart speakers and voice assistants. 

Since the use of voice search is increasing day by day, as a digital marketer we must create content optimized for voice search if we plan on reaching a larger audience. The competition for search engine rankings is fierce as always, and in the era of voice search, it is only going to get harder. 

Below are the best strategies to optimize your content for voice search.

Review and Restructure Content

Voice search is conversational compared to traditional searches, so we need to review and restructure our content to include concise questions, and answers to make the content voice search-friendly.

Google voice search prefers short and concise answers to voice search queries and the length for the average answer is 29 words. A study for Google Voice Assistant by SEMrush found that “Text length of the answers returned was nearly the same for every device (around 41 words on average).”

Another helpful tip is to include frequently asked questions on your blogs. They include question keywords and are also short enough to qualify for Google voice search results. The FAQ format makes it easy for Google to draw content from your website and display it as a snippet.

Using Casual Language for Content

The main characteristic of a voice search query is conversational. The use of robotic language in our content will reduce the chances of appearing in the voice search results.

Whatever we publish on the web, using a casual language will rank content higher in the voice search domain. As the queries in voice search are verbal questions, the more natural language we use in our content, the more chances we will have of matching these queries. 

Improving the Load Time of Website

The loading speed of a page plays an important role in Voice SEO. The average voice search page takes 4.6 seconds to load, which is 56% faster than the average traditional search. Many marketers overlook this factor and do not pay much attention to the loading time of their website.

Websites that take longer to load are abandoned by Google voice search in favor of those web pages that take little time to load. Websites load speed directly impacts on bounce rate and, therefore load speed should be optimized at all costs.

Voice search needs immediate results, and if the website is taking forever to load, the content will not be used to answer verbal queries.

Given below are some tips to improve the loading speed of a website:

• Using compressed images and videos on the website

• By using a Content Delivery Network(CND)

• By reducing redirects and the number of plugins

• Using CSS3 and HTML5 frameworks as they load mobile web pages quickly

Content Readability

The readability score is often overlooked in SEO rookies. Creating quality and readable content is a must for a website to be ranked higher in voice search rankings. You can add loads of keywords on a web page but what a search engine is looking for is structured and well-written content that matches the intent of the query.

Voice search responses are usually easy to understand, with the average 15-year-old capable of understanding the answer returned.

Keeping these voice SEO strategies in mind, we should try to optimize our content accordingly if we want to rank higher on voice SEO rankings. Digital marketing using voice SEO is the way forward for every digital marketer.

Every digital marketer aims to reach as many consumers as possible. And if more and more consumers are using voice search to access the internet to search for products or services, it is in our favor to optimize our content according to voice SEO standards.