For most of us, it has become second nature to ask Siri, Alexa, or Google for answers to everyday questions. And why not? We save valuable time and effort by voicing our queries instead of typing them into our devices. In fact, last month Forbes reported that “90% of consumers believe that voice search is faster and more convenient than text search.” Advancements in AI and machine-learning capabilities have made it possible to get quick, accurate responses to even complex voice searches, broadening its adoption to the B2B industry. As the preference for voice search continues to rise, marketers will need to adapt their current SEO and marketing strategies to ensure they can meet the needs of both text-based and voice-based queries.
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5-Second Summary
- Voice-based queries are becoming quite popular due to the convenience and speed of them which requires marketers to adapt SEO and marketing strategies to better support both text and voice search.
- Voice queries differ from text queries in their conversational and question-based nature, leading to longer, more detailed phrasing.
- To optimize content for voice search, marketers can focus on creating conversational content, targeting long-tail keywords, providing direct answers, improving content readability, and ensuring audio-friendly content for a more positive user experience.
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How does a voice-based query differ from a text-based query?
Voice searches and text searches are not created equal, simply because we do not talk in the same way that we type. Hubspot explains, “when we talk to our devices, we phrase our queries differently, closer to how we speak in real life.” Since voice-based searches are more conversational than text-based queries, they are typically phrased as questions and are longer (three or more words), with more details.
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Top 5 Content Optimization Tactics for Voice Search
By optimizing your content for both text-based and voice-based searches, you will improve your online visibility and reach a greater number of tech buyers. Marketers can update their SEO and marketing strategies to better support voice search using these 5 tactics:
- Create conversational content.
Use conversational language when creating new content to better match the more casual phrasing used in voice searches. You can adopt a writing style that reflects natural human speech, by using informal words such as “you” or “we” or limiting highly technical phrases. Not only does content that more closely resembles the way people talk better reflect the language used in voice search, but it also results in a search experience that is “more organic and appealing to the average searcher” (Content Marketing Institute). Although the content may be more informal, it should still provide value to your tech audience, addressing their pain points and frequent questions.
- Target long-tail keywords.
Since people use longer phrases with voice search to increase their chances of finding the answer to their specific question, your content should include relevant long-tail keywords. Integrate the phrases that your tech audience would use as they research details about your products or company. For example, an IT manager researching CRM solutions may complete the following voice search, “Does the CRM solution from [Vender A] offer data migration services?” Anticipate your target audience’s most common queries and develop meaningful content that addresses these questions using the target long-tail keywords.
- Write direct, concise answers.
Featured snippets are special descriptive boxes with short excerpts from web pages that sometimes appear at the top of Google results. Google displays featured snippets when they believe it will help people more easily find the exact answer to their query, both from the description and from clicking on the provided link. Featured snippets are a great resource for people using voice search, as they are typically looking for answers to specific questions. To increase the likelihood that your web page will be included in a featured snippet for a voice-based search, develop direct, concise answers to your tech audience’s most frequent questions.
- Increase the readability of your content.
The optimization of your content can also be improved for voice search by ensuring that it is well organized and easy to read. Content that can be quickly scanned and understood will more likely be picked as the first result for a voice-based query. Use tools such as bullet points, headings, sub-headings, short paragraphs, and tables. Scannable content that is quick to read is also a great fit for the time-strapped tech buyer. You may also want to add some audio versions of your text-based articles on your website such as podcasts, to capture more voice-based searchers.
- Use audio-friendly content.
How does your content sound when it is read aloud? Sometimes words or sentences can sound a bit strange when they are read aloud. If your tech buyer hears a response to their query that does not sound quite right, they may move on to the next option that is easier to understand. You can improve the audio quality of your content for voice search by testing it out using multiple voice assistants and adjusting words or phrases when necessary. Since the future of voice search will involve brands speaking to their audience, the Digital Marketing Institute suggests that “brands should be thinking of how they want their company to sound, rather than just look.”
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More tips from Google on how to optimize content for voice search:
To ensure that the quality of their voice search results consistently meet user expectations, Google conducts human evaluations of the voice search results provided by the Google Assist. Google has compiled a list of guidelines that they use to measure the quality of voice search results:
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- Information Satisfaction: the content of the answer should meet the information needs of the user.
- Length: when a displayed answer is too long, users can quickly scan it visually and locate the relevant information. For voice answers, that is not possible. It is much more important to ensure that we provide a helpful amount of information, hopefully not too much or too little.
- Formulation: it is much easier to understand a badly formulated written answer than an ungrammatical spoken answer, so more care must be placed in ensuring grammatical correctness.
- Elocution: spoken answers must have proper pronunciation and prosody.
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