With voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant becoming more popular, optimizing your website for voice search is increasingly important. Users are now asking their devices questions out loud instead of typing them into a search bar. This represents a shift in how people find information online.
To ensure your website ranks highly in voice search results, it's crucial to understand how voice search works and what users expect when asking questions verbally. Some key things to keep in mind include:
Focus on long-tail keywords. Voice search queries tend to be more conversational and contain additional context clues compared to text queries. Users may ask specific questions like "Where can I find vegan restaurants near me?" rather than just searching for "vegan restaurants".
Prioritize readability. When content is read out loud by a voice assistant, it needs to be scannable, concise, and easy to understand. Sentences should be relatively short and information well-structured with clear headings. Walls of text won't translate well to an audio format.
Optimize page titles and meta descriptions. These elements provide crucial context for what a page is about that voice assistants can read out to users. Take advantage of the full character limits and include likely query variations and answers.
Use a simple, conversational writing style. Mimic how you would naturally speak to another person. Define any technical terms and avoid jargon/acronyms that could be confusing when heard rather than read.
Include multimedia like images and video. Visuals can help illustrate and break up long-form written content. Include alt text descriptions for images to enhance accessibility.
By following these best practices, you can ensure your website is set up for success in both text-based searches and the growing voice space. Users will easily be able to find the information they need through their voice assistant of choice.