By 2020 up to 50% of all searches will be done by voice! Meeting this trend, google is tailoring searches to meet the needs of voice assistant’s apps. In fact, google made it very clear when it updated its algorithm in 2013 that voice question-based searches are going to play a key role in its search results. Voice search apps are more accurate and smart due to advancements in voice assistants’ technology. The technology has improved the accuracy of voice understanding and interpretation and also is more sophisticated as it is capable of also understanding the nuance of a conversation.

Make sure your brand is not left behind and that your SEO strategy is meeting voice search requirements!

Update your SEO strategy:

1. The way we talk is not the way we write – we talk differently than we write – when we write in a search we tend to be short and skip the whole structured long sentence. When we talk, we talk longer with longer sentences and we tend to ask a question when we do a search talk. Adjust your key phrases to be longer and structured as a question. The most popular indexed questions start with the 5 W – who, what, where, when, why!
2. It is more crucial to rank on top search results for voice based searches for two main reasons:
   1. When people use voice search they are less likely to scroll down and they read only the top 3 results.
   2. For mobile there are only top 3 results and only 1 top result for smart speakers. Ranking is crucial and more competitor than tradition typed based results.

How can you get to the top? One way of getting there is to get into a featured snippet! The more questions you ask on your site, the more likely you will end up in a featured snippet and get highly scored by google. About 40% of voice search answers come from snippets! Create compelling questions about your product and services that will drive conversation and be noticed by google!

3. Get listed! Google favors local businesses as voice searches tend to search more local businesses. Make sure to list your business on My Business so google can find you easily.
4. Adjust your mobile version for voice searches: make your mobile site version simpler with less images and visuals as voice searches don’t “read” visuals!
5. FAQ web page is becoming a must. FAQ pages are getting more popular as voice search are using questions as their queries. Adding a FAQ dedicated page increases the volume of question type text on your site and the likelihood of voice search to find you.
6. Speed – ensure your site is fast enough for voice assistant programs. Check your speed with google page speed feature on google analytics.
7. Research how your customers speak – determine if your target market speaks the same way you do and adjust your conversational based SEO strategy to meet the way people speak in different geographic areas of your market.
8. Test drive – use voice search on different devices with your key questions to check results and see if it meets your plan and how high you rank.