Voice SEO is the search engine optimization of keywords and keyword phrases for searches using voice assistants like Google assistant, Siri, Cortana, and Alexa. According to some SEO experts, Voice SEO is required for websites to effectively show up in search results for searches conducted through voice assistants.

Voice search is a fairly new type of technology that uses speech recognizes so you can search for things by simply saying your search term out loud into a voice assistant device, instead of typing it into the search bar. The growth of smartphones, smart devices and other handheld devices has led to an increase in its usage.

8 Ways to Optimize a Website for Voice Search using Voice Search :

• Use Long-Tail Keywords
• Transform Queries into Questions
• Optimize Your Content
• Design for Mobile
• Use More Conversational Language
• Optimizing for Future Snippets
• Polish Your ‘Google My Business’ Profile
• Localize Your Experience

Voice Search Optimization Best Practices

• Target question keywords and other long-tail keywords
• Use conversational language in your content
• Prioritize local SEO
• Try to capture Google featured snippets
• Use schema markup
• Optimize for mobile
• Keep your site fast

When people use voice to conduct searches, they often times do not use the standard typing-style queries that we as SEO experts and marketers have become accustomed to. Instead people ask questions using more complete sentences, such as, “what is Voice SEO marketing?” Around 75% of voice search results will rank in the top three positions in search engine results pages (SERPs). Most voice searches are answered by Rich Answer Boxes shown at the top of results pages. Featured snippets are included in 30 percent of Google queries.

Voice searches have also begun to impact the world of ecommerce. Voice commerce is a technology based on artificial intelligence which helps you do shopping just with your voice and a smart device like a mobile phone or smart speaker. Voice activated shopping has become very popular and well liked even before 2022.

Instead of using shorthand, voice search makes use of the Five W’s and How (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How), other question modifiers and long-tail keywords that are conversational and capture intent.

Voice search is rapidly being integrated into the lives of all consumers, indicating the need for businesses to develop a voice search digital marketing strategy using voice search. Not only has voice search change the way people conduct searches, but it also has changed the way people find products and interact with brands.

The prediction that voice search will be a 100B USD channel by 2025. Now is the time for businesses to start Voice SEO and optimize their interfaces, platforms, and websites to keep up with the evolving landscape of voice search.

40.2 percent of the United States population use voice search features. 71 percent of consumers prefer to conduct queries by voice instead of typing. In 2021, one-third of all US consumers owned a smart speaker.

How to Get Your Business Found on Voice Search
Step 1: Get your business listed to get found in voice search.
Step 2: Capitalize on Online Business Reviews.
Step 3: Optimize for long-tail keywords in your keyword research.
Step 4: Make your website mobile-first.
Step 5: Leverage Featured Snippets.

If you are not SEO savvy then hire a Voice Search Expert.

Google voice search works through the automatic speech recognition (ASR) system that transforms voice signal into text. Then search engines like Google use the transformed text as if it’s a typical search query and proceed with what they do best, matching the search query with the correct results.

Local SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google. Any business that has a physical location or serves a geographic area can benefit from local SEO services.

A typical local SEO campaign cost between $300 and $2,000 USD per month. The price mostly depends on your business’s needs, your competition, and your geographic location.

For a one-time SEO project focused on analysis, research, clean-up, and site seo optimization, the average price for a Local SEO project would range from $300 – $1500 USD with an average price around $750 USD.

While SEO and local SEO use many of the same strategies, traditional SEO mostly focuses on improving your site’s visibility on a national or global scale. Local SEO allows you to gain local search territory and connect with visitors searching in your area.

** Important: The following steps work only on Android 8 and up.

1. Open the Voice app
2. In the top left, tap > Menu > Settings
3. Under “Account,” tap > Devices and numbers.
4. Under “This device,” tap > Change device number.
5. Choose an option: Your device’s number: Google Voice links to your mobile device.
6. Tap Save.

Set up your phone to make & receive Google Voice calls – Android
https://support.google.com › voice › answer

1. Let your voice open Google Assistant
2. On your Android phone or tablet, go to Assistant settings, or open the Google Assistant app. and say, “Assistant settings.”
3. Under “Popular settings,” tap Voice Match.
4. Turn on Hey Google. If you don’t find Hey Google, turn on Google Assistant.

Access Google Assistant with your voice – Android
https://support.google.com › assistant › answer

In the early days, you’d search for something like “soft drink calories”… and be forced to search through 10 different results. But with a voice search, you will get your answer read back to you within seconds. For the most part, voice searches are done on the Google app (or by “typing” with your voice on your phone).

First you will need to claim and optimized your Google My Business, Apple Maps Connect, Bing Places and Yelp business listing. Once completed, you’ll be well-positioned to start showing up in both direct and discovery / brand local voice search queries.

When it comes to answering speech questions, Google Assistant takes the crown. During a test of more than 4,000 questions done by Stone Temple, Google Assistant consistently outperformed all the other major industry leaders including Siri, Alexa, and Cortana when recognizing and responding to questions correctly.

Voice assistant users:

In April of 2022, 123.5 million US adults will use voice assistants at least once per month, and that base will continue to increase over the next few years. The number of voice assistant users will continue to rise nearly half the US adult population.

To assure Siri knows your business is legitimate, claim your listing with each local major listing websites. The claim process is similar across most sites—you visit the Claim Your Business page and search for your business. If a listing pops up, click “Claim Your Business.” If not, then you will be prompted to create a new business listing.

Young consumers between 18-24-year olds are adopting voice technology at a faster rate than their older counterparts and statistically are more likely to use their voice assistants less. While 25-49-year olds are using them most often and are statistically more likely to be considered “heavy” voice search users.

For Android phone or Tablet:

1. Turn on voice search
2. On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google app .
3. At the top right, tap > your Profile picture or initial Settings > Voice.
4. Under “Hey Google,” tap > Voice Match.
5. Turn on Hey Google.

As of August 2021, over 50 % percent of people who own a voice technology speaker say they feel natural speaking to it. This shift illustrates that consumers feel more comfortable sharing information than ever before. Purchasing products with voice technology (voice commerce) will make for an easier, hands-free customer experience.

As speech recognition and voice analytics technologies advance, we will continue to see search behaviors change. Advertising agencies and marketers are predicting that platforms like Amazon and Google will start to open up to other forms of paid advertising, as comScore had estimated over 50% of all search will be voice tech by the end of 2020.

AI Voice (Artificial Intelligence Voice) allows users to communicate verbally with there phones. Giving users the option to operate there phones hands-free. For example users can wake up AI Voice and give a voice command. Currently this feature is only available in certain countries and regions.

Voice input computer software systems (or speech recognition software systems) are capable of learning how a particular user pronounces words and uses that information and speech patterns to guess what words are being spoken.

Long-tail keywords is a great SEO tactic. Long-tail keywords (phrases) are keywords or key phrases that are more specific and usually longer  than the more commonly used keywords. Long-tail keywords are easier to rank, get less search traffic, but have a higher conversion value, as they are more specific.

Voice Engine Optimization or “VEO”, is a term used for voice-based search engine optimization. VEO is the process of optimizing website  content to become the primary answer in voice searches. Voice search refers to verbal searches made to devices that have Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa or Cortana.

Length of Answers: The average word count of a voice search page is around 29 word.

• Incorporate Spoken and Long-Tail Keywords into your content.
• Creating content that reflects the way people speak and can help you expand your voice search reach.
• Think of long-tail keywords that aren’t just contextually relevant to your business / brand, but that also include local searches, transactional phrases, and popular qualifiers.

Voice recognition technology sways consumers because more than 50 percent of people who own a voice technology speaker say they feel natural when talking to it. This change / shift means consumers feel more comfortable sharing information more than ever before. Purchasing products with voice technology (voice commerce) will make for an easier, more hands-free customer experience.

Each and every improvement in A.I. technology is tailored to enhancing the user experience. Features are becoming more personalized and data is becoming more personal. As technology will continue to advance, voice-powered A.I. will give users a faster customer experience (and a much shorter customer lifecycle) than screen-powered devices.

The new voice recognition software’s are expanding beyond simply serving a single function. Voice technology can be used as a hub between several smart devices in an effort to optimize consumers experience.

Yes! Streamlining and compatibility among existing voice-powered devices will inspire to create new product growth with the goal of monopolizing a customers / customer’s daily activity. To be able to do this, tech companies will develop voice technology products that will act as a hub between several home appliances and devices.

Because, voice technology has no visual real estate for marketers and advertisers to strategize (or visually advertise) their products, and the rise of A.I.-powered voice search, this poses a variety of challenges as companies face the absence of a visual interface. The current existing products (such as Amazon Echo or Google Home) have no visual features.

This could result in voice tech opening up a market of paid advertising on personal assistants. Brand visibility will rely on listening points,  and speech recognition from consumers to optimize their marketing strategies. Even though it is currently dominated by tech industry leaders, these voice search marketing strategies could bring new advertising avenues for small businesses. These voice search marketing opportunities will continue to increase in demand as more consumers continue to be attracted toward using smart assistants.

With the rise and increase of search volume by voice, brand visibility is shifting. Companies are forced to adapt to the new trends in voice search to optimize their brand visibility on search engines.

Customers / consumers don’t type the way they talk. Speech-to-text translations are currently inaccurate on new or underdeveloped technologies. Tech companies have seen their own learning curves, for example in detecting voices in places with distractions and background noise. As products continue to develop and evolve, more of these issues are being solved  in order to optimize the user experience.

As users are becoming more comfortable sharing their product opinions on voice-powered platforms, it has inspired the rise of the talking survey. As brands continue to investigate customer feedback through personal assistants, consumers will likely give more feedback / responses in the comfort of their own homes.

This method would revolutionize diary surveys, where customers / consumers track their habits and behaviors in a paper diary or on an Excel sheet. Brands / companies conducting research will be able to strategize their data collection in new ways. Surveys will be made to feel much less like an interrogation, and more like a conversation.

This approach will result in brands to become more effective in targeting their customers personas through the use of voice than through conventional screen time.

With recent developments in A.I. (artificial intelligence), internet tech has been able to store incredible amounts of user 0metadata to understand consumer preferences. Voice technology, in a similar way will be able to store the same metadata from voice interactions, and use that data to build customer personas.

With the current and evolving streamlining of compatible devices, it gives users the opportunity to customize many features that change how they carry out their daily tasks. For example, users are able to ask “What’s on my agenda / calendar today?” and receive a quick rundown of all their upcoming activities / events. Or, users can ask questions similar to a Google search, like “What’s the weather going to look like this afternoon?”

However, at the moment this approach doesn’t work well with shared devices. Multiple users can’t be understood at the same time. The  future development of speech recognition software will allow for personal assistants to differentiate between user voices on shared or family devices.

As tech companies continue to develop A.I. that has a deeper understanding of human voice, the technology itself is becoming more human-like. Humans and A.I. systems will one day be indistinguishable.

The future of A.I. ethics concerning voice search has been a popular topic of discussion. As customers / consumers become more comfortable with voice recognition technology, the users data revealed to these devices becomes more personalized, and thus more sensitive.

The ways that tech companies handle personalized data will determine the future of A.I. ethics. The increase of digital payment forms, the ease / ability to store personal banking information on personal devices, and the existence of digital marketplaces are all at risk.

More than 50% percent of users who own a voice technology speaker say they feel natural and comfortable talking to it. This change means customers / consumers feel more comfortable sharing personal information than ever before.

Purchasing products with voice technology (voice commerce) will make for an easier, and hands-free costumer experience. In order to prevent fraud, voice commerce will also increase the use of voice verification and speaker I.D.

The next stage of advancement for A.I. powered voice technology is not just understanding what users are saying, but how users are saying it.

About 62% of customers who own and use a voice-powered speaker have reported they will make a purchase by voice within the next few months. Consumers will become increasingly more comfortable shopping with voice-powered A.I. systems as it becomes more common. Voice search will fundamentally change the ways that humans interact with A.I. smart devices.

For Voice Search SEO, developers need to add structured data to a website in order that search engines can understand the website’s content better. Adding About and Mentions Schema perfectly relate to this, as they help search engines better understand and connect different topics on the internet.