With the rise of voice search devices, many marketers are starting to ask: “how can I be more voice-friendly in my SEO marketing efforts?” That is a fair question, and in recent years it hasn’t been totally clear what exactly businesses can do to appeal to voice search. Luckily, that is changing and we are starting to get a better idea as we launch into 2018.

In case you are wondering about relevance and whether or not voice search is something we are going to have to continue to account for in business strategy, according to HuffPost we can expect that there will be approximately 20 billion voice searches per month by 2020! That is huge. They also stated that as of May 2016 20% of mobile searches were voice searches—and we know this is on the rise.

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The research above, conducted by MindMeld and cited by HuffPost, contextualizes the rising attention that voice search is getting—with adult smart phone users doubling the amount of users in the past 6 months (from when this study was conducted). I think it is safe to say that if you have been wondering whether voice search is something you need to pay attention to, it is. Have no far, we will cover how to start shifting your focus to the voice-search optimization world that we are undoubtably going to be living in within a few years time.

To make this even more relevant for small businesses and small business owners and marketers, Search Engine Land cites Aggarwal’s stats given in a SMX West presentation:

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These stats show that voice search isn’t just on the rise—it is becoming more relevant for business growth and generating leads. It is the potential connection between a consumer choosing your location or choosing another. It is how users are finding local businesses, choosing them, and becoming return customers.

How to Account for Voice Optimization in Planning

Just like any other marketing effort, you need to be able to account for voice search optimization in your strategy—but what does that mean, practically speaking? To start, I know this is a general statement, but you really need to be knowledgable of what voice search is, why it is relevant, and HOW users are turning to voice search. The last point is critical. In the marketing and business world more broadly, the focus has to be on the user. There are undoubtably going to be times that users continue to rely on text search or more traditional methods of searching. However, as we see the shift towards voice, there are also going to be trends relevant to WHEN voice search is being used—and it is important that these are the key areas you pay attention to as you optimize your strategy.

Know the Platforms and the Searches

Consumers are using voice search in a variety of ways, but they are conducing searches on platforms that are known and widely used. Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Assistant are really the top voice activated assistants. As you can imagine, since each of these is associated with a brand, they have a unique way of interacting with the internet, as well as preferred search engine platforms.

The thing you really need to pay attention to as a marketer is WHAT people are searching for. In other words, how can you optimize your content to be voice search friendly? See the graphic below for a break-down of the top categories for voice search, based on the Internet Trends Report 2016:

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As you can see: local information, fun/entertainment, personal assistant features, and general queries are the top search categories for voice.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

Now that you have some context for the relevance and key features of the voice search optimization movement to pay attention to, let’s turn our attention to how to actually optimize your own business information and content so that you can be found by the top platforms that are available and being used on the market today:

  1. Make sure your business listings are up to date. This first point is one that should be a universal marketing rule for any kind of search, but is especially important in thinking about optimizing for voice search. Earlier I discussed the importance of paying attention to how users are using voice search—and we know that finding local information is a key category. If your business information is not up to date (or, not listed at all) on major search engine platforms (but especially Google My Business) then there is no way your location is going to be able to compete in voice search results.
  2. Focus on “conversational” voice style in your content’s language. In this article I have tried to demo this, in case you are wondering what I mean by “conversational.” Voice search relies heavily on HOW the user is speaking and asking for information or giving commands. As such, voice search engines rely heavily on conversational style in finding relevant data. The more that your content sounds “voice-friendly” in conversational tone, the more likely you are to appear in voice search results.
  3. Use structured data. Structured data has been important in SEO for a while, but is becoming even more relevant with voice search. Structured data essentially allows you to communicate more (search-engine friendly) information about your site the you are able to say in your content, which makes it even easier for your website to be searched and recognized by voice search.
  4. Always make content easily digestible. By using list posts, FAQ pages, bullet points, headlines, sub-headings, etc you make your content more digestible to readers looking to skim information, but it also allows search engines to more easily read and recognize keywords that you are using for relevant search queries. Pages upon pages of content that have no structure and are not easy to read are unlikely to get you very far—utilize structures that clearly communicate your most important information and keywords.
  5. Be mobile friendly. This another one of those marketing rules that should go without saying now—but I am going to say it anyway! Make sure your website is mobile friendly! If you are not up to speed with your mobile optimization, then it is going to hurt and effect your voice optimization as well.

The Takeaway

Focusing on voice search in conjunction with the marketing strategy you have in place already will help your business be more relevant and appeal to users who are using voice search more frequently than ever before. By focusing on shifting your content and business listing towards appealing to voice, you will be one step closer to voice optimization. Remember, marketing strategy is a day-by-day challenge, but if you start to work on this now you will be well set up for 2018, and think of where you will be in the voice search world by 2020!

Feature Photo Credit: thesearchagency.com