How Do You Implement Voice Search on a Website?

How do you make your website voice search ready?

Now that voice search is gaining momentum, everyone’s wondering how they can get their website on it. Voice assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa are quickly becoming the go-to method for users to search for something, purchase something, or discover a local business.

Voice search optimization on your site is not merely adding a voice search button. It is reconfiguring your entire SEO strategy to ensure that your site is optimized for the conversational and mobile-first voice search movement. Let us find out how you can integrate voice search on your site and get ahead.

What is Voice Search Optimization?

Before jumping into implementation, let’s clarify what voice search optimization entails. In a nutshell, it’s optimizing your site so that it’s both accessible and usable through voice search queries.

It’s not merely adding a voice search button on your site. Voice search optimization is more like synchronizing your site content with the way people tend to query when they speak as opposed to typing.

To do this, you will need to optimize your SEO for voice-convenient conversational and long-tail keyword phrases and voice-optimize your website for voice searching.

Step 1: Optimize for Conversational Keywords

One of the greatest voice search vs. typed search examples is the way in which people phrase a question. TYPING, people will enter short keywords in sequence, such as “best pizza near me.” But through voice search, people do build complete questions, such as “Where is closest pizza?”

Voice search optimized through the use of chat-type queries and long tail keywords. Notice this

Short-tail (standard search): “best pizza”
Voice search: “What is closest pizza?”

Question phrase and long-tail keyword optimization will make it more probable your site will rank in voice searches.

Step 2: Featured Snippet Optimization

If you own a voice assistant, then the assistant probably will pull answers from featured snippets as well as top search results. Featured snippets are short question answer responses, usually displayed in a box above regular search results.

If you wish to be in the limelight, you must ensure that you possess a proper framework of your content so that search engines can locate quick answers without any hassle. Here’s how you can accomplish this:

Answer brief questions: Determine what your prospective customer is looking for and answer them on your website in easy language.
Use lists and bullets: Google likes lists and bullets as they are very readable.
Make use of schema markup: It will enhance the knowledge of search engines regarding your content and yield more opportunities to be consumed as a featured snippet.

Step 3: Local SEO Optimization:

Local search accounts for voice search share. Voice searches are generally locally intent-based, i.e., “What is the nearest coffee shop?” or “What is the closing time of pharmacy?”

Optimize for locally for voice search should:

Claim your Google My Business (GMB) listing: List and get your business fully set up with correct information like your address, phone number, and opening hours.
Utilize geo-targeting keywords: Add your town or city to your copy, meta tags, and title tags.
Make customers review you: Reviews are perfect for local SEO listings, and they are displayed organically in voice searches like “best reviewed restaurants near me.”
Keep your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistent: Make sure your business name, address, and phone number are the same everywhere online.

With these set up, you’ll have a better chance of ranking for location-based voice searches.

Step 4: Optimize for Mobile

Voice queries are almost always done on mobile. More than 50% of voice queries are even done on smartphones. So it’s absolutely crucial that your website is mobile-friendly.

Google mobile-first indexing is a situation where Google is spidering pages from your mobile version of the website. So if your website is not mobile-optimized, then you are damaging your rankings. Here’s how to optimize mobile:

Responsive design: Make sure your site loads properly on different screen resolutions.
Faster page loading: Slow website will lead to increased bounce rate on mobile. Optimize page loading with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and scan.
Tappable call-to-action buttons: Make buttons large enough to tap on mobile.

Step 5: Target Structured Data and Schema Markup

One of the most effective ways of informing search engines exactly what your site is actually about is with schema markup and structured data. Structured data is the way you arrange your content in a form that search engines can read. Schema markup is a piece of code that you insert on your site to provide search engines with additional information about content on your site.

Adding schema markup is helping search engines understand such as:

• Business hours of operation
• Reviews
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Recipes
• Product information

Structured voice search data will have your content read aloud in the correct format by voice users and assistants.

Step 6: Provide Brevity and Direct Answers

Voice search has only one function: to get an answer in the shortest time possible. When customers give voice commands to their voice assistants, they need fast and correct answers. Your content must then attempt to give fast and correct answers to frequent questions on your topic.

When making content, remember the following:

Be concise: Begin with a concise, clear answer to the question.
Keep it brief: Attempt to craft 40-50 word answers as they are being ranked as voice search responses.
Optimize in Q&A format: Frame your content in the form of questions and answers because it is the way humans talk.

Step 7: Utilize Voice Search Analytics

With increasing voice search, you need to be monitoring the impact it’s having on your site traffic and performance. Voice search traffic can be seen through the likes of Google Search Console or Google Analytics.

Monitor:

What keywords are driving voice search traffic
Ranks you’re ranking for voice search type searches
User metrics (e.g., time on site, bounce rate, etc.)

By keeping those types of numbers handy, you are going to be establishing more voice search optimization down the line.

Conclusion

Voice search is not an add-on for features—it’s standard. As voice search becomes more prevalent, you’ll have to contend with evolving human search habits. Once you’ve got keyword phrases that you would naturally speak, neighborhood search optimization, phone optimization, schema markup, and voice search monitoring, your site will be live tomorrow.

Voice search is the future, and the brands that embrace it are going to be the ones leading the pack. Get on it now and voice search-optimize your site, and begin to see more visibility, traffic, and engagement.