In today’s fast-paced, technologically-centric world, voice searches gain traction, and businesses can only overlook its importance at their own peril.
Tech giant Google says that voice searches constitute almost 20pc of queries on Android devices, while Apple claims that a staggering 500 million customers use Siri. With the surge in the number of devices containing virtual assistants, this number is likely to enhance further, which testifies that voice search will soon become the customers’ first choice. Since Google and other technology behemoths regularly develop new features and capabilities, there’s no disputing that all the search queries in the next few years will be made using voice search.
Therefore, for an eCommerce magnate, it’s important to make decisions for the business’s enduring growth. Besides, voice shopping is likely to grow to $40 billion by 2022; the year voice search will dominate all the internet searches. These statistics necessitate having a voice search SEO for a business’s website. In today’s globalized world, voice search and its role in eCommerce can hardly be held into question.
Key Voice Search SEO Strategies for eCommerce Website
Understanding the Difference between Voice-Search and Type-Search
Customers formulate their queries to be the fundamental feature that differentiates voice search from conventional search. It’s clear that when users use voice search, they enter a query in the same way they speak in real life, but they tend to shorten their queries since typing needs more time. For instance, if a person has to search for the best mobile phone shop near them, rather than scrawl “best mobile phone shop near me,” they’ll ask, “Ok, Google, what’s the best mobile phone shop near me?”
Also, a whopping 70% of the search queries in Google assistant are in the natural language, which means that the first step for voice search SEO will be to zero in on long-tail keywords. As well as long-tail keywords, voice searches also contain question phrases. So, you need to find such queries and enhance the content accordingly. Moreover, long queries are often significantly inexpensive and have much better CTR than shorter queries.
Be Mindful of Local Search
Several voice search queries are created to find local information like “showrooms near me” or “nearby shopping malls.” Therefore, you ought to create a Google My Business page to feature your website in such a search result. A study suggests that 60% of the users used voice search for local business information last year. Therefore, be sure to provide pertinent and precise details like name, address, and phone number along with the area code of your store. Also, you should provide an effective overview of your business and slightly describe the service, using easy, short, and easy-to-read sentences. What’re more, select pertinent categories that suit your business as the right category can make an enormous difference to a voice search standing. Uploading imagery is also a strong way to improve your Google My Business listing. Another exciting option to appear in local searches is by generating a store locator page for your website. You should enable the location extension and add your address, phone, and direction to your business while using local search ads in Google maps as it will help you reach the right people, at the right place, at the right time.
Create an FAQ Page
An FAQ page, when penned correctly, can be used very efficiently for voice search queries. If you’re hard-pressed to enhance your long-tail optimization in pertinent pages, an FAQ page is an excellent way to get around it. Just as good content plays a key role in improving search engine rankings, voice search SEO has equal significance. However, it’s not sufficient to select the right keywords and use them in the content. Instead, you need to study the conduct of your target audience and determine the kind of search queries they are using.
To answer questions you think people may well ask, you can also adjust your current website’s content, such as product descriptions. Creating a blog and uploading engaging articles relevant to your target audience may work wonders for you. Also, you should be able to strike a balance between long and short content; while search engines give top priority to detailed text, easy-to-read and succinct content benefits your audience in more ways than one.
Optimizing your answers is also a great strategy, for Google approves of brief and simple answers. Creating responses of nearly 30 words is the best way to improve your voice search results.
Create a Responsive Website
A website that is responsive to and compatible with smartphones and tablets is of the essence in today’s technology-centric world. It’s no surprise 1 out 5 voice search queries are generated through smartphones. Your website will only be responded to if it’s user-friendly and attractive. Correct placement of products and services on the website will not only enable the users to navigate your website easily, but it will also make your site look professional. Remember this thumb rule: The people using voice search land on incompatible, unresponsive information; they won’t have quick access to the needed information. Therefore, your site needs to be receptive or mobile-friendly.
Conclusion
Voice search is not a fly-by-night trend that will go away after some time. Rather, it’s likely to soar so long as smartphones are around. And with the innovation in the realm of smartphone technology, the use of voice search will only grow and thrive. Nevertheless, many things are still unknown about voice search SEO. However, one most certain thing is that it will become more receptive, intelligent, and precise in the future. Your eCommerce store is prone to be hacked if adequate cybersecurity measures are not taken. Therefore, to ensure that your company faces no such eventuality, it’s important to exercise caution and avoid playing in the hands of hackers and cyberthieves.
