How to do Voice Search optimisation in 13 simple steps

This blog is an attempt at demystifying the process of optimising for voice search. It involves a systematic data-driven approach explained with all the steps involved. 

How to do Voice Search optimisation in 13 simple steps

Introduction


  • Voice queries contain conversational words and are longer
  • 22% of voice queries are for local content
  • Users want immediate results on their smart devices


Prerequisites for Voice Search visibility


  • Work to get your brand in the Knowledge Graph using structured data
  • Rank videos in search results
  • Use structured data and as many forms of it as possible
  • The site should be mobile-friendly and loads fast in mobile - that’s how it should be expressed in Google Search Console (Speed section)
  • Optimise the website content or sub-headings with long-tail keywords including question terms - We can also optimise FAQ sections for question-related keywords
  • Create blogs & pillar pages (specific to concerns of your customers - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-a-pillar-page) try to answer your questions of your customers in Natural Language
  • Optimise videos with natural language and conversational words to rank videos in search results 
  • Generate loads of engagement on different social media platforms for your blog & owned content/media
  • Optimise your content for Google Discover - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9046777?hl=en 
  • Submit your website’s blog section to Google News Publisher (of course after complying to their content terms & policies) - https://publishercenter.google.com/publications 
  • Submit your website’s blog to Bing News Publisher - https://pubhub.bing.com/Home/Welcome, in case your website is not already in Bing Webmasters (https://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster), it is recommended to submit there first and then to the publisher


Actions to be taken


  1. Relook at sub-headings for main pages and tweak them to become questions which people are likely to ask. Here are few guidelines to follow
    1. Get a set of people also ask questions for your topic or main keywords - Use tools like Scrape Similar to collect these in a spreadsheet for analysis
    2. Get another set of generic questions which people are likely to ask on the topic or main keyword by using tools such as Answer the public - https://answerthepublic.com
    3. Compare and pick the ones you expect people to start asking more or currently being used - human insight is crucial as no tool or mathematical analysis will work help out beat voice queries
    4. Write new headlines and see their scores here - https://www.coschedule.com/headline-analyzer 
    5. Build social media content based on these questions and drive engagement on social platforms while using these specific natural language questions/content
  2. Implement speakable schema on each of the pages for which you want results in voice search
    1. Please note the titles/headings have to be in natural language and should be highly similar to the questions people are likely to ask
    2. The description path added in the schema has to be around 3 to 5 lines and should ideally be a standalone gist of the content which would make sense when they are read out to someone
    3. Have the content read out to team members who were not involved in the process and account in their feedback
    4. Try to analyse the current voice search results for the topic and see the content length 
    5. Try to make your content longer than the current competition by at least 150 words
  3. Repeat this process for a total of at least 3 articles
  4. Submit to Google for being indexed in Voice Search or Speakable section https://services.google.com/fb/forms/speakablenewsinterest/ 
  5. Finally, Inspect the schema implemented URLs in Google Search Console


Google News Publisher Submission Steps


Below are the requirements for submitting your blog to Google News Publisher - https://publishercenter.google.com 

  1. General - Basic information
    1. Publication name
    2. Description - SEO friendly 
    3. Category - blog 
    4. Primary language
    5. Website property - needs search console access
    6. Location
      1. Country
    7. Contacts
      1. Product updates
      2. Technical issues
    8. Distribution
      1. Countries: multiple countries can be selected
      2. Google properties
      3. Automatic translation
    9. Tracking
      1. Google Analytics tracking 
      2. For AMP version we can provide another analytics property if applicable
  2. Content
    1. Different sections can be added
    2. Needs Atom or RSS feeds - Feedburner 
  3. Images
    1. Square logo - 512px * 512px
    2. Wide logo - light version (white background) - 2000 px * 200 px
    3. Wide logo - dark version (dark background) - 2000 px * 200 px
  4. Review & Submit for approval - it takes 2 to 4 weeks for review and approval



Bing News Publisher Submission Steps


The below are the steps required to submit to Bing News Publisher Hub:


  1. A Microsoft account is needed 
  2. Bing webmasters account has to be created with this Microsoft account
  3. After that, it has to be submitted to the Bing News Pub Hub - https://pubhub.bing.com
  4. The contact details to be provided are as follows
    1. Company name
    2. Contact person name & email address
    3. Contact person phone number


Estimated Impact


Key points for consideration

  1. It’s estimated that 53% of adults use voice search at least once a day, and 76% of smart speaker owners perform local business searches weekly.
  2. Voice searches are 3 times more likely to be local-based
  3. Back in 2016 Google revealed that 20% of mobile searches were made via voice
  4. 72% of people who own a voice-activated speaker say that their devices are often used as part of their daily routine
    1. Google Assistant = Google Search Results
    2. Apple Siri = Google Search Results
    3. Amazon Alexa = Bing Search Results
  5. By 2020, 50 per cent of all searches will be voice searches of which 40% would be from adults and are likely to use voice search at least once per day
  6. 15% of UK consumers now using voice search at least once a week – study
    1. A 1,000-person survey has found that 15% of UK consumers now use voice search at least once a week, while almost two-thirds (66%) of respondents have never used voice search. 
    2. The remaining 19% have dabbled with voice search, using it on an irregular or infrequent basis.
    3. Some 55% of respondents felt that voice search will be crucial in the future, with the remaining 45% stating it will not be so.
    4. A study in the Uberall Voice Search Readiness Report 2019, also analysed the top reasons British people are not adopting voice search more frequently. Either they are not used to it (27%), they do not feel that it is the most efficient means of search (19%), or they do not think it is accurate enough (18%).
  7. In 2019, 42% of UK users conducted a Voice-based Search in Q1. This increases to 46% among 16 to 44-Year-Olds.
  8. 23% of children and teens in the UK have access to a smart speaker. 55% of these use them daily. Music, searching for information and weather updates are the top 3 most used tasks.
  9. 79% of the market share for smart speakers in the UK is held by Amazon Echo, who use Bing, not Google, for their answers. This share is 61% in the US.
  10. Will voice search be monetised?
    1. As ‘Early adopters’ become the ‘Early majority’ in the UK and Germany, and America heads towards greater maturity, the question of paid-for voice search advertising is bound to arise.
  11. Will voice commerce be a $40bn market by 2022?
    1. This is, literally, the billion-dollar question. At the beginning of 2018, OC&C Strategy Consultants issued a very upbeat report stating that with 10% of the UK owning a smart speaker, voice commerce was only worth £0.2bn in 2017. However, as ownership spreads to nearly one in two Brits in 2022, voice commerce will expand quickly and is estimated to be worth £3.5bn a year.
  12. According to Comscore, by 2020, over 50 per cent of all searches will be done by voice, and Gartner predicts that 30 per cent of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen by next year too.
  13. Infographic on Voice search - https://i.imgur.com/jzdAaGCg.jpg 


Voice Search Performance Analysis


  1. Voice search is expected to be dominant by around 2025 to 2027. But this could change or become 2022 itself if there is a widespread roll-out of 5G services which is highly unlikely in the current Coronavirus scenario. 
  2. Bing is likely to lead in terms of Voice search results in the UK due to the popularity of Amazon Alexa over Google Home (and other devices)
  3. Smart screen devices with cameras are expected to dominate in terms of the market share of amongst smart devices
  4. Voice & Vision driven engagement with the audience is likely to be crucial. Hence, the adoption of QR code & Image processing or vision-based AI processing is key to dominating the search market
  5. Our estimate of voice search queries for 2020 is at around 25% (not 50%) of the total search volume in the UK
  6. There is a going to be heavy competition, the easy way to survive or dominate the would be by not ignoring Bing platform while working on Voice optimisation
  7. More and more people are likely to be taking up voice search not just for information queries but for eCommerce transactions as well


Here is a YouTube video of me explaining this article post




References:

  1. https://www.thehoth.com/voice-search-seo/
  2. https://backlinko.com/voice-search-seo-study
  3. https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-for-voice-search/
  4. https://searchengineland.com/study-11-voice-search-ranking-factors-analyzed-unpacked-293221
  5. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/speakable 
  6. https://www.oncrawl.com/oncrawl-seo-thoughts/use-googles-speakable-schema-org-markup-google-assistant/
  7. https://powerdigitalmarketing.com/blog/new-schema-markup-qa-page-and-speakable/#gref
  8. https://sagapixel.com/seo/voice-schema-markup/
  9. https://www.stateofdigital.com/why-and-how-you-should-implement-speakable-and-connected-markup-now/ 
  10. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/leverage-schemas-drive-seo-performance-voice-search/318335/ 
  11. https://wostrategies.com/measuring-voice-search/ 
  12. https://brandastic.com/blog/what-is-google-discover-how-will-it-affect-seo/ 
  13. https://www.theukdomain.uk/voice-based-search-what-smes-need-to-know/ 
  14. https://blog.stormid.com/voice-search-optimisation-guide/ 
  15. https://www.seoworks.co.uk/voice-search-hey-siri-what-is-the-future-of-marketing/ 
  16. https://internetretailing.net/mobile-theme/mobile-theme/15-of-uk-consumers-now-using-voice-search-at-least-once-a-week--study-19606 
  17. https://www.blueclaw.co.uk/2019/12/17/why-you-should-be-addicted-to-voice-search-optimisation-in-2020/ 
  18. https://resignal.com/voice-search/future-of-voice-search/ 
  19. https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2019/oct/25/why-voice-search-where-puck-going-digital/ 
  20. https://smallbusiness.co.uk/voice-search-for-small-businesses-2546553/ 

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