Voice Search

What is voice SEO?

Internet searches for content are increasingly shifting from written searches to spoken searches. Voice search is used in 30 percent of online visits.

When writing website texts, this means that you have to ensure that the keywords you use are immediately found by Google.

Voice assistants such as Alexa, Google Home, Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana or OK Google are, like search engines, taken for granted by users.

Messages are dictated into smartphones, Internet search queries are spoken out loud.
With such a development, search engine optimization of websites cannot and must not be left behind. If you don’t prepare for a spoken search, you won’t be found.

The solution is: Voice SEO or Voice Search Optimization!

SEO becomes voice search SEO.

One of the main advantages of voice search is, of course, hands-free operation using mobile devices when driving if the remote control is too far away or cannot be found.

The SEO requirements for voice are different to those for classic web searches, as keywords need to be reconsidered and adapted for the new, voice-based search queries.

Areas of application and application devices

Work, leisure, household and transportation from one place to another – “everyday life” encompasses all kinds of activities and makes them all areas of application for voice assistants and therefore also for voice search.

The main areas include problem solving, information and purchase purpose.

 

We have listed some situations in which users switch from manual operation of a device to spoken operation. W questions, such as:

 

• Office organization (“What appointments do I have today?”)
• Learning and information (“How far away is the sun from the earth?”)
• Car and traffic (“Which is the quickest way home?”)
• Recommendations (“Where is the best restaurant/the best exhibition/the best movie near me?”)
• Household organization (“Turn up the TV, dim the lights, close the shutters, turn on the lights, turn off the thermostat, turn on the vacuum cleaner”)
• Entertainment (“Play one of my favorite songs/Show me the latest movie with Morgan Freeman.”)

 

The devices used by users are just as varied as the situations in which the smart speakers are used. The general public was one of the first to get to know Siri. This was followed by Alice, Cortana and today’s almost best-known voice assistant: Alexa.

Amazon’s voice assistant clearly leads the market with a share of around 70 percent.

More than 100 million Alexa devices have already been sold, both as conventional voice devices and in devices from other brands such as surveillance cameras or televisions.

There is hardly a household appliance that cannot be controlled by Alexa and its Home functions. From the lawnmower to the oven to the blinds.

onehundred.digital SEO tips for voice search

Schema.org Markup

The main focus of Voice Search SEO for a better Google ranking is on the Tips category. In order for customers of companies, restaurants or online providers to find what they are looking for, they need the right keywords for online searches. So far, everything as usual.

However, the search behavior of voice users is completely different. Users cannot search an entire website for a specific piece of information. It needs precise information broken down briefly, so-called structured data.

With structured data, site operators can provide the crawler with further information that enables the search engine to better analyze the websites and thus display them more accurately for certain search queries. These codes help the bot to better interpret data, which would otherwise require a lot of contextual work.

Such brief information and summaries of websites can easily be read out by Alexa in full sentences, bring searchers to the right destination faster and are rewarded with a better ranking in the organic search results.

In order to create a uniform standard for marking up structured data, Google and others have founded Schema.org Markup. Here you will find guidelines for these short texts.

Long Tail Keywords

Keywords and the requirements for them are changing as a result of voice search. The use of long-tail keywords is particularly important for voice SEO. Voice search is strongly oriented towards spoken language, which makes the search queries longer and, conversely, means that the keywords for the search must also become longer.

The average length of a voice search SEO answer is around 41 words. It is therefore important to convey as much information as possible in as short a time as possible.

One principle for this is:
The most important information first!

In some cases, voice assistants still find it difficult to pronounce foreign-language words. This also includes English terms that some people already take for granted.

This problem often becomes particularly serious with brand names. No company wants to see its own name cut up by a computer voice.

To avoid the listening flow being constantly interrupted by mispronounced words, you should make sure to replace the keywords – or catchwords – with German terms. But don’t worry, computers and therefore also voice bots are constantly learning, even when it comes to pronunciation.

Especially in marketing, the language of voice assistants presents another hurdle. Marketing wants to sell, selling is emotional. And therein lies the problem: Alexa’s computer-generated voice is not very emotional and therefore prevents purchases in cases of doubt. So the hope for the future is a more human voice.

What you should already pay attention to now, however, is to make answer texts on FAQ pages as dialogic as possible. A text that looks as natural as possible is always better than a simple list of key points.

Voice search and local SEO

Another characteristic of language searches is spontaneity.
You sit in the car and briefly look for a restaurant nearby. In a foreign city, you want to know where the best museum is within walking distance. The bike has a flat tire and the rider needs the best bike store for repairs in the area.

In all these cases, local SEO becomes important and thus merges with voice SEO. As the name suggests, local SEO ensures that customers become aware of stores and companies in your area. Not just attentive, but positively attentive.

The tool for this is Google My Business. Companies with an active Google My Business presence are found by around a third more customers.

A well-maintained and up-to-date profile not only shows these customers the address, opening hours, main focus of the company or daily specials, but also what experiences others have had.