How to optimize the site for voice search?

How to optimize the site for voice search?

September, 17, 2020

The popularity of Siri, and other voice assistants has led to the fact that many people use voice search instead of typing. In this regard, the question arises: do I need to separately optimize the site for voice requests or is standard optimization enough? Answer: you must!

Here are 8 tips on how to optimize your site for voice search.

1. Optimize the resource for mobile traffic

Most often, voice requests come from mobile devices.

Thesis and necessary steps:
1. Implement a mobile version of the site or responsive design.
2. Check the version in Google Search Console.
3. Walk the path of the user from the moment of visiting the landing page to the moment of the intended transaction.
4. Use Google AMP technology.

"Mobilization" of Internet users is a trend in SEO for the last 5-7 years. If you miss any of these items, immediately implement and find customers. Faster!

2. Create content based on questions

The semantics of written and voice requests differ. If in the browser we briefly write, for example, "buy an elephant in Zurich", then aloud we formulate the same query differently: "Where to buy an elephant in Zurich?»

Check whether there is a demand for such requests in your subject. If it is and the indicators are not isolated, then the content on your resource should be optimized for such requests.

To understand what specific queries are asked by users on the subject (what questions, phrases should be taken into account when optimizing texts), you need to form a construction of several operators and lemmas.

3. Use voice-friendly
Voice requests are often more informal than printed ones. This nuance gave life to the concept of voice-friendly-keys. These are lemmas that are more commonly used in colloquial speech, for example:
the best (when optimizing remember the law "on advertising"), correct;
the cheapest;
information;
instruction;
where to buy;
how much;
promotion, discount;
online store;
what, how, what;
nearby;
not far from me;
not far from (famous part of the city).

For each subject, the set of such key phrases is individual. To understand which conversational phrases (voice-friendly-keys) your audience uses, brainstorm or survey customers/users.

4. Use LSI phrases

Voice requests are longer than text: it is lazy or inconvenient to write the same long and detailed requests. In voice search, people often use LSI phrases.

Latent semantics, LSI-keys (from the English. latent semantic indexing - "hidden semantic indexing" or "indexing of hidden meaning" — - non-obvious keywords that accompany the main query and complement it (synonyms, words of similar topics).

Lemmas, which are "near" the semantic core, help to make the text more literate, understandable, interesting, and most importantly-to answer the user's question.

5. Create an information section
You can quickly optimize content for voice search by creating a section on the site.:
"Useful to know»;
FAQ;
blog.

Almost any type of site will come in handy version of this section. Its pages will become landing pages and will answer popular questions (they are also voice requests) of users.
Under each request, take a separate page with relevant information. Ideally, a short but clear answer to the user's question should be placed at the beginning of the text. Avoid complex formulations and possibly professional terms, write in simple, clear language.

6. Create separate pages
Another option for optimizing content is to create separate pages for a group of voice requests.

7. Optimize text on existing pages
The easiest optimization option is to adjust the current text on existing pages. In the text and subheadings h2–h3 on the pages add:
lemmas from voice queries;
question words;
voice-friendly-keys.

8. Optimize for local search
When searching for the right place, such as a store or cafe, people use local search-a system that generates search results based on the location of the user.
For the card on the geolocation service, fill in in detail the information that may be interesting and useful to the client: be sure to specify the address, contact details, working hours, location on the map. Make a unique description of the business, choose the right categories, upload 3-5 photos. Keep this information up to date and update it regularly.

These eight points of site optimization, of course, are suitable not only for optimization for voice requests. The introduction of each of them will help to attract additional traffic from search engines, and these optimization methods are either free or require minimal investment.