Surviving SEO in a Voice Search World
You wouldn’t want your annual profits cut by 20 percent, would you? Just like you wouldn’t overlook one out of five of your customers.
By the latest stats, 20 percent of people searching on mobile are doing it with voice search. And we expect that number to grow significantly as more and more people adapt to voice search and voice assistants.
As a marketing officer, you might be wondering how voice search will impact your future search engine optimization strategy.
And that’s what I’m going to talk about today:
- Why and how your audience is using voice search.
- The impact of Google’s machine-learning system, RankBrain, on voice search, where voice assistants come into play, and what voice search means in a mobile-first world.
- Strategic recommendations on how voice search impacts your SEO strategy.
Why Your Audience Is Using Voice Search
Voice search, in many cases, is about convenience.
It’s no surprise that it’s popular among mobile users on the go. Would it surprise you, though, to find out more and more people are using it at home?
According to the 2016 KPCB Internet Trends report, 43 percent of people use voice search in their home:
And as the technology improves, so does the adoption of voice search on mobile devices and voice assistants like Google Home:
Google is leading the charge to improve voice recognition technology.
In November 2015, Google announced that the Google app had improved its capability to understand the meaning behind voice searches.
Just before that, RankBrain — Google’s machine learning artificial intelligence system — hit the scene. RankBrain makes interpreting queries (including voice searches) and matching them to the best search results easier for the Google search engine.
Voice Search Beyond the Mobile Device
The fact that over 40 percent of voice searches happen at home, versus around 20 percent happening on the go, presents a new level of complexity when we’re thinking about how our brands can become a part of a person’s daily search habits.
What we don’t know yet is the future of how voice assistants like Google Home will identify and serve up results.
In many cases, devices like Google Home have to make complex decisions for you about which answer or result to serve up. This is unlike the traditional way of personally choosing among a set of blue links on a page, and voice search optimizations must be accounted for.
Voice search adds further complexity to local search results, in particular. For example, someone who has a broken water pipe might simply tell their Google Home device: “My plumbing is broken,” versus a more traditional voice search like “show me plumbers in my local area” or “who are the best plumbers in my area?”
Let’s not forget that search must also evolve to fit the tastes of new generations as well.
What we do know is that third-party integrations are happening that allow brands to integrate with Google virtual assistants more seamlessly. And that’s worth looking into.
As search behavior changes, Google has more work to do to find the best answers, and we as digital marketers have more work to do to understand how to become a part of those results.
How to Prepare Your SEO Strategy for Voice Search
We do, however, understand some things about voice search to date, and how it can impact your SEO strategy.
Let’s look closer at what you need to know about optimizing for voice search to survive SEO as it becomes more and more the norm.
Know Your Audience
As part of your voice search keyword research strategy, your company needs to be aware of how someone would look for your product or service if they were using a voice search.
Remember, voice searches are more conversational and tend to center around questions instead of the two- or three-word queries that many people type.
But they can also be declarative statements, like the one I used in the plumbing example earlier.
As part of your research, create a list of voice searches you believe users would use. Brainstorm with your team. Peruse social media. Look at forums. Do whatever you need to do to come up with a good starting list for research.
Know Your Results
We recommend in our SEO training class that people start querying their brand, products and services using voice search to find out if they show up and how.
Most companies haven’t taken the time to figure out how to do a search for their products or services on a device using voice search. But, with your newfound keyword research, you can start.
Once you perform that real-time voice query research, if you find your website isn’t showing up, your web pages and their content need some work.
It’s likely that your website pages aren’t doing a good job of answering a where, when, why, what or how-type question.
Know Your Competition
As part of your SEO strategy, you want to find out who is, in fact, showing up for those voice search queries if not you — or who is ranking above you.
Performing page-by-page analyses of the top 10 rankings, for example, for a voice search important to your business can help you better understand the logistics of the content on those top-ranking pages.
Apply Voice Search Keyword Strategy and Website Optimization
The approach to optimizing web pages is the same — meaning you want to ensure you’re following SEO best practices.
But you may choose to tweak your content.
You might decide to include the same target keywords in your meta information and heading tags, but tweak the content to be in the form of a question posed by someone using voice search.
For example, “planets in our solar system” might become, “how many planets are in our solar system?”
This keyword modification tactic could be applied page-wide where it makes sense and feels natural. You might also use the data you gleaned from your voice search keyword research plus the competitive research I mentioned to identify content on your site that’s missing.
Where could you better answer many of the questions your target audience has?
While it’s ultimately Google’s job to best match a search query to a web page, it’s also our jobs as website publishers to do as much as we can to help make that match.
So, many of the SEO practices we’re used to still apply to help make your pages relevant.
I mentioned integrations with Google Home, and those are the types of things you’ll want to watch out for, particularly for certain types of businesses.
And it’s worth mentioning again that voice search today is a highly mobile experience. But we can easily imagine a time when voice search is a desktop function.
Still, with Google planning to take a mobile-first index approach, you can’t afford not to be there.
Right now, it’s safe to say we’re in an experimental phase, where we’re learning how voice search works across devices, how search results surface and how to be a part of it all. And there’s still much work to do.
As brands, we need to figure out how to become a seamless part of our audience’s search habits across technology and devices. Imagine the competitive advantage you would have in being a leader in the “new” search.
But we also need to continue to implement the SEO best practices that help search engines understand our website and its content. Only now, we have more contexts than ever to consider.
What do you think? Do you think a brand can be the last to implement a voice search strategy? Can you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Let us help you develop your voice search SEO strategy. Bruce Clay’s tailor-made services drive your competitive advantage. Let’s talk more about growing revenue through smarter search marketing.
153 Replies to “Surviving SEO in a Voice Search World”
Hi voicelifemedia,
Thanks for your question! Here are some things to focus on when optimizing for voice search:
- Understand your users intent – voice search queries are conversational and longer than text queries.
- Write your content in a natural, conversational tone.
- Focus on long-tail keywords that reflect the way people speak when conducting a voice search.
- Create an FAQ section on your blog that answers common questions that your audience is asking.
For more voice search tips, read this article: https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/seo-voice-search-tips/
Every time I visit this site, your content never bores me. Thanks for sharing this valuable content!!!!!!
Can you help me with this strategy?? how to figure out which voice search based keyword is good for us?
Hi Keshav,
Thanks for your question! These articles will help you in developing a voice search strategy:
How to Optimize for Voice Search: https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/voice-search-seo-tips/
A CMO’s Guide to Optimizing for Voice Search: https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/cmo-guide-to-optimizing-for-voice-search/
It is going to be a big challenge for search engine optimizers, as the search engines make more and more efforts to connect the users with their actual intent in their searches. The change in the algorithm of search engine of Google to favor more mobile friendly and easy to use web pages is a good example where SEO becomes more important. The same thing is happening in a voice search. The search engine is going to give more importance to sites that are easy to use and understand. Also it is going to be rewarding to maintain the consistency in your website content and in the ease of use for the users. It is important to optimize your website for voice search as well as for the regular text searches. It is not just about adding a few extra keywords to your content. It is about making your content easy to understand and easy to navigate.
According to Pew Research, although voice assistants are present in a large number of devices, a big chunk of the American population (42%) uses them on their smartphones. Another statistic by Gartner states that by 2020, about 30% of web browsing sessions will be carried out without screens. Voice assistants are all the rage right now and brands are playing around with a plethora of tactics to leverage them.
This info gives more clarity to my work on voice search. I myself used voice search several times instead of typing! The game is going to take a turn soon.
I use typing for search and I also like reading information instead of watching videos. But, I have seen voice search is popular among children and young people.
SEO is backbone to organic traffic. Thanks for sharing wonderful information. I really enjoy reading your blog.
Good article. This article give full understanding with facts. I am learning SEO and this article helps me. Keep spreading knowledge.
Great post, thank you for sharing this valuable and interesting information about SEO in a voice search world. Helpful for me. Keep posting.
In India, the voice search is slowly picking up among the youth. Business people is not yet started. Hope soon this will pickup.
Those who are uneducated they all prefer to voice search, voice search is constantly increasing and many AI companies are working on it. Somewhere or the other it impacts on Voice Search, Mobile SEO.
In this article, I know many helpful things like how can I Know my audience, how can I know my competitor and many things that help me to grow my online business.
Applying Voice Search Keyword Strategy and Website Optimisation is one of the best ways an SEO must do. i will try it and will report results
Hi
Thanks for the blog articles , very useful topic . Nowadays the voice search are surviving more
Like most questions about SEO, the answer depends on a few factors. But as long as you maintain a credible, respectable, and civilized comment section on your blog, then your posts can benefit in search results.
You are right sir, google voice search has now a day become an important part of the many illiterates in India they use as a weapon to deliver their thoughts in proper English.
Thank you!
Voice search makes everything easy and it’s getting high responses too. Thanks for the post.
Thanks for the nice list! deserves to be bookmarked for reference. I really like the way you have described all the information. Just wondering how do I optimize my blog for voice search?
Hi, thanks for your question!
Our CMO’s Guide to Optimizing for Voice Search should be helpful. Check it out here: https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/cmo-guide-to-optimizing-for-voice-search/.
Really nice article, very informative! Nowadays Google voice is playing an important role
Yes, voice search will undoubtedly be a game-changer in the coming years, but Google’s voice search results should be improved.
I Googled for the same and came to your site from the first listing. Great job done. This will help me a lot in my site promotion.
Most of the people failed in SEO field just because they are follow the wrong people. In coming years voice search is an essential part of keywords ranking. According to some marketers, voice search quires easy to rank with proper keyword placement. Semantic SEO is also a part of voice search quries.
This is nice, people will try to search their query by voice, so Google have to more focus on exact search engine results.
Nowadays SEO in a voice search world is a new trend of digital marketing. It’s really helpful for us. keep sharing
Very effective discussion, Now change of technology, the demand for voice search is high and in the coming days this will drive the SEO. Thanks for sharing great knowledge.
Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates. I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this.Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.
Hello, thanks for your question!
There are many available plug-ins that can embed your Twitter feeds onto your blog. If you’re using WordPress, some popular plug-ins include Custom Twitter Feeds by Smash Balloon and Social Warfare. If you’re using some other platform, a search engine query of Twitter feed widgets for your platform should provide plenty of results.
today’s trend is voice search. People are getting more engaging with voice search as they think typing is a waste of time. All thanks to Google! they give our search easily by voice.
Impressive article buddy.
Nowadays SEO in a voice search world is a new trend of digital marketing. It’s really helpful for us. Thank you for sharing such a great blog. Keep sharing.
Hi Bruce
Thanks for sharing this interesting article, Voice search would definitely dominate Google in the near future and all the budding digital marketers should be aware of this. Once again thanks for sharing this article
Looks like voice search will rule the year 2021. As the ratio of the users over voice search is increased a lot.
Voice SEO is going to be more challenging in countries where English (as an example) is not the native language and hence pronunciation is challenging.
Dear Bruce, Can we analyze the incoming voice query to my client website? I am a new freelancer and have some project and my client need incoming voice query.
Thanks for sharing this great article. Nowadays Google voice is playing an important role. Keep sharing…
Great Article on Voice-based SEO. That’s true, people are more into sending audio notes to search Engines to buy anything online or to search anything digitally. I will surely follow this while performing Voice search based SEO.
Thanks for sharing the informative post with us. Voice search has become an important SEO ranking factor.
Thanks for writing this article, voice search is becoming a boom in the technology field, which makes our work easier and faster.
Great work on the amazing topic about voice search optimization and thanks for discussing the topic with us.
Thanks for sharing the informative post with us. Voice search has become an important SEO ranking factor.
Thanks for sharing this information with us. I learned more about voice search optimization.
Voice search is one of the most important developments of today and the future. That’s why I think companies should think about it. Thank you very much for your article.
voice search is getting popular day by day. That’s only use for mobile search. I think it will also use frequently in PC in future. So SEO in voice search is also important. Thanks for writing the article about this.
Thanks for sharing this article with us. Voice search increases traffic for our website landing pages and it is easily provide answers to users.
Your articles and the level of information have really transformed my SEO practice, Thank you so much. Over the years it has helped me a lot.
In 2020 the analytics predicted almost 30% voice search increased. so the adoption is increasing. its good growth for SEO.
Nowadays, Searching online is not done by typing but voice search had also arrived a while ago and it is used more and more worldwide. Thanks for sharing this article.
At the same time I think certain queries will be gone from typed to voice. For instance, how old is brad pitt or when is [insert movie name] plays in cinema near me.
Great Article on Voice-based SEO. That’s true, people are more into sending audio notes to search Engines to buy anything online or to search anything digitally. I will surely follow this while performing Voice search based SEO.
Wow I really like this article. Now a days every one wants to get desired results in just a seconds thats why most of the users tries to use voice search more.
It’s fascinating to feel that you have upgraded your glimpse so as to Improve SEO in voice search world. Excellent read, Positive site. Thanks a million and please keep up the effective work.
With SEO services it can take several months to get desired results, but as your ranking increases SEO services makes sure that it does not go down.
Wow I really liked this article. Even I was also thinking to hire someone who can help my business to promote in Voice Search SEO.
I really learnt a lot of thing from your blog.
Please keep sharing more about the Digital Marketing.
Voice serach is SEO is going to be big game soon, alexa and voice take over the world in few years.
Voice search is the upcoming trend in the world. As people are attracting towards it. So yes I totally agree with this blog. Nice
Good Article, Google Home and Google Assistant currently read out featured snippets when they answer voice search queries, so it makes sense that you aim for the elusive “position zero”. Perfect Your Local SEO. Improve Your Site Speed. Get Inside the Minds of Searchers.
What a fabulous article on seo in voice. Short and precise. I especially loved the insider tips! Very helpful.
Hey Bruce everything you are saying is good. But I want to optimize voice search for my brand do you have any idea?
If we talk about the changes in search engine optimization or search engine functionings, voice searches have the biggest impact. These days, people start choosing the option of voice searches, and it also brings some changes in the appearance of search results as compared to the normal searches
There is no doubt that voice search is the future of Google. in fact already in 2021 around 40%-50% of the searches are happening with voice. This is mainly because users are accessing Google search engines through mobile devices. With the growing usage of mobile internet, the voice search trend is only going to increase. Plus this has also opened a new avenue like people using their local language and regional language to search on google swiftly. One great tip which I follow to optimize the website for voice search is that write content in a natural conversation fashion. In that sense, you will be talking to your reader in the content and you would also include many relevant questions and answers related to your topic in your blog post. And we should also remember that there is already the Google hummingbird update to reward content written in natural language and optimized for voice search.
This SEO Voice search is an emerging technology from 2020 , I agree all your valuable points are very good information . It clearly describes each and every voice strategy by using the advanced technology . Please do more research on useful blogs . Thanks for sharing the super useful topic.
Thanks for Provide so much important information about voice search. It is become more popular nowdays. From your article I get to known many things.
Definitely voice search in the trend asper Google reports that 27% of the online global population is using voice search on mobile.
Yes, Voice search definitely going to dominate in upcoming days but still Google need to work on it to provide accurate answer.
Good Article! very useful information to read and keep sharing.
SERP is the Best SEO Services Company in Coimbatore offers perfect search engine optimization service which helps to bring your site on top in search engines with various promotion.
Great Article! Very useful information for me and thanks for sharing.
Videos Cafe is an Animated Explainer Video Company in Coimbatore, India. We are offering animated videos, 2D & 3D Cartoon Animation, Whiteboard Animation, Motion Graphics and Typography Videos in an innovative way.
Hey , Thanks for working blog on voice search strategy its highly useful for all SEO users . I guess after reading your blog a voice search recognition increases revenue highly .Now days its an emerging fast growing technology in voice search world , Anyway there are lots of advanced SEO tips too . Keep sharing more blogs
Voice search is most use for local searches, when people find a local shop or service provider according to some report.
This is really great! It should perform that real-time voice query research.
Voice search will eliminate literacy parameter as well, because more and more websites are now putting audio version of the content on their pages.
You get the right answer . Now a days google voice search increasing day by day . So further seo will have Google voice Search.
Hi Bruce,
You have covered very well all the points regarding the voice search spectrum.
Definitely, the voice search will dominate the search world and if we want to succeed in this competitive market we need to keep our website up-to- mark with keeping the Google policies in mind.
yes, voice search must be a game-changer in upcoming days but google needs work on its voice search results for a better experience.
We just had this topic in our meeting last week and looking forward to update the content strategies as per the latest voice search scenario. The article still shares some effective pointers to go through. Thanks to the writer!
1 billion voice searches were estimated per month as of January 2018, and it’s predicted that 50% of search will be dominated by voice in 2020.
Thanks for sharing the valuable information about voice search and how SEO is surviving. Voice search has become an important SEO ranking factor in 2020.
Those who want to succeed in the SEO niche and want to rank their website they have to apply those strategies which are applied by the google to rank a page for voice searches.
Thanks for informative post and useful information about voice search optimization.Those who are unqualified they all choose to voice search, voice search is continuously increasing and many AI companies are working on it.
Kindly
vaishali
I am actively researching about voice search optimization. your article include very comprehensive and useful information voice search optimization.
Thanks and Regards,
Swapnil P
I’m very skeptical that this is a current “risk”. I don’t think that right now, voice search is mature enough. Is it a future “risk”? Absolutely. But right now, I think the technology needs to evolve quite a bit more. In countries where English, is not the main language, this is even more problematic. Even though English is not my main language, I speak English most of the time…. and there were quite a lot of instances where the voice search did not work at all to capture and understand what i was saying.
I would say, to definitely keep this in mind and start working against it, so when it happens, you will be prepared way far ahead of your competition. Would i have sleepless nights about it now. definitely not.
Oh and something else. I have noticed that i am getting traffic to my sites, based on key phrases that are more “natural language” based (such as… where can i find to buy #)… so this may be something to consider, before even thinking of voice searches.
Yes, Bruce. I totally agree with you but shocked by the data you provided that 43 percent of people use voice search in their home in America. If so, we must concentrate on voice search optimisation. (“,)
Thanks for well crafted and informative post.
Kindly
Subhanshu
Those who are uneducated they all prefer to voice search, voice search is constantly increasing and many AI companies are working on it. Somewhere or the other it impacts on Voice Search, Mobile SEO.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think voice search will have took much of an impact on many service type businesses, especially those in the home improvement industry. Users still want to see reviews and see examples of past work to make determinations.
Looks like this concept will rule the year 2020. As the ratio of the users over voice search is increased a lot.
Although it may feel intimidating at first, and it will take some adjustments and getting use too, surviving and thriving as a digital marketing company in the age of voice search is just another step will have to take in this technological era. We can do it!
Thanks for the interesting article – voice search is really changing the game!
I wasn’t aware that voice search was growing at such a rapid pace – I guess this is something we’ll have to start optimizing for. Our Durban website design agency has been able to ride out the shifts in the market but technology has really been speeding up the rate at which these shifts occur.
This new way to deal with the conventional web pursuit can have a colossal impact over the measure of times a website comes up in web search tool comes about, and the volume of hunt activity coordinated towards it.
I can’t understand any of the commenters who are saying that they don’t use voice search and neither do any of their friends or family members. I have two teenage sons and they almost exclusively search by voice. I have learned to do it much myself, as has my mother who is 67 years old! It is something you must definitely pay attention to as an SEO provider.
I think in future People will try to search their query by voice, so Google have to more focus on exact search engine results.
It’s really convenient to use voice search nowadays but some people are really used to it since voice recognition is not good on some smartphones. With the rise of better smartphones every one and a half years, voice search will become and trend.
Writing content and building pages for long tail searches is already hard enough. Trying to anticipate super-long voice searches will be even harder.
I’m more of a fan of typed search queries, because we tend to put more thought into something we write versus something we just blurt out at our phone.
Voice is going to be a challenge especially in countries where English (as an example) is not the native language and hence pronunciation is challenging.
We’ll see !
Adrian: As far as the tech goes, Google Now can already handle voice queries in dozens of languages (see list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice_Search#Supported_languages). Or were you referring more to the SEO’s job being more difficult in other languages?
Yes, Voice search definitely going to dominate in upcoming days but still Google need to work on it to provide accurate answer.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think voice search will have took much of an impact on many service type businesses, especially those in the home improvement industry. Users still want to see reviews and see examples of past work to make determinations. But I do think optimizing for voice will have a major impact in other areas.
Google is evolving every year and so the entire world of SEO. With the change of technology, the demand of voice search is high and in coming days this will drive the SEO. Thanks for sharing this awesome update.
Yes it seems must one stay on top of what Google is doing and the new thing sis voice comamnds
recently my site goes down i dont why…I have updated all of stuffs in website including contents , images etc.
Yes, Bruce. I totally agree with you but shocked by the data you provided that 43 percent of people use voice search in their home in America. If so, we must concentrate on voice search optimisation. (“,)
Thanks for well crafted and informative post.
Kindly
Prajwol
Applying Voice Search Keyword Strategy and Website Optimisation is one of the best ways an SEO must do. Glad to read this. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Bruce,
It is not just you who has mentioned about voice search. I read about it in the past as well and seems like voice search is getting on with text search.
And you are right, no matter how much percent of people search through voice, to keep up with the trend, we need to have our business setup accordingly.
Great share! Thanks
You get the right answer . Now a days google voice search increasing day by day . So further seo will have Google voice Search.
Although some of those numbers can seem intimidating to Internet marketing companies, it’s all about adjusting to the changes and staying with the times. Just as we adapted to searching for services electronically as opposed to in the Yellow Pages, so too will we be able to adjust to optimizing websites for voice searches in conjunction with typed searches.
Looks like a push it concept! No one of my friends use voice search. Some of them did try it once! So where are the 20 percent?
Hey Bruce,
I honestly believe people will still traditional “type search”.
It will be a combination of both however I do agree that businesses should prepare for the shift and be ready.
I personally have Google Home and I still use good old search for a lot of my stuff. But when I am driving I don’t mind asking a question and get quick answer.
To me voice search is more of a “preview/trailer” of the whole movie. If I ask Google to tell me more about planet Mercuy it gives a short description which is great however it is not enough and this is where you get on your device and do further reading.
This changes unless Google decides to give the whole answer and read 3000+ words article about Mercury while you are driving.
At that stage I would be worried because basically Google is stealing all my content and making money out of my work and I am getting nothing.
So while I am ready for the shift as long as we can add valuable information the users will probably want to learn more which can lead them to visit our website or perform further research on Google.
At the same time I think certain queries will be gone from typed to voice. For instance, how old is brad pitt or when is [insert movie name] plays in cinema near me.
That is my 2 cents.
Thanks