The numbers on the use of Google’s voice search disagree in specific, but they all agree on one major trend:
explosive growth.
From 2015-2016, voice search grew from 0% of all Google searches to around 10%. This includes all major voice search options in the market, like Google Now, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana.
A recent survey of 39 leading SEO experts resulted in voice search becoming the third most powerful SEO trend in 2017. Mobile optimization and epic content were slightly ahead.
The reason for this may be that voice recognition has increased dramatically in recent years. For example, Google Now had accuracy well below 80% in 2013, and it now sits well above 90%.
Regardless of how you choose to interpret the data, it’s clear voice search is too powerful to ignore both now and in the future.
How Do You Optimize Your Website for Voice Search?
Google doesn’t yet offer voice search data to the public (although it may in the future). Until that data are released, you can’t create a perfect voice search optimization plan.
But that doesn’t leave you helpless. Not at all. In fact, you can easily optimize for voice search now.
First, start with Google’s answer and question boxes, which you’ve seen before. They look like so:
The answer box at the top may be out of your reach. Typically, Google reserves that for highly reputable websites. Ones that have been around for years and years.
Ditto for the question box.
But, they both give you valuable data to optimize around. Look at those questions and answers, and BOOM! – you’ve got extensive data to build FAQ pages (which rank well in and of themselves).
You might even consider building FAQs not just in your main navigation menu, but directly around specific products and services.
Not only do they help you optimize for voice search, but they also are incredibly useful for your users. Answer thoroughly and honestly, and your website visitors put their trust in you, keep coming back, and eventually buy. Give generic, boring answers, and your customers have no reason to stay at your website instead of visiting your competitors. And you can also save money by not having to spend as much time on your customer service.
And The Content Ideas Gush Out From There…
Now, simple FAQs are great. But, you can go into even further depth (and usefulness, which is what web users want) by giving detailed answers to these questions in blog posts (view our content marketing services to get great content for your blog). You can make e-books that you sell.
You could also create lead magnets out of these and use them to offer an incentive for people signing up to your list. Remember, your e-mail list has your most profitable customers on it. They love you.
Or, you could create a video blog answering the question (especially if you’re a tradesman of some kind). You could turn this into a podcast also.
From the example above, if you’re a lawyer, you could create an ultimate guide to apartment rental law.
Wow! All that from a few questions and an answer?
Yep.
You could spend a full year, or even couple of years working part-time and creating massive content that answers these questions.
For now, this is what you can do. And you’ll only be building future security around your search rankings by doing it.
