How Voice Searches are Changing the Internet

Voice assistants are everywhere. From our smart phones to our in-home smart devices, people are using voice-activated technology for almost everything. Chances are, you likely use one of these voice assistants on a regular, if not daily, basis.

As we mentioned, the function most people use voice assistants for is performing searches. A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey asked how frequently people use voice assistants to search for something they’d normally type into a search engine, 89% of survey respondents said either daily or monthly. This was the most popular response out of all the survey options.

The thing is, these devices only read back the top answers when asked to perform a search. So, when it comes to optimizing websites for searches, we now have to think about voice-based searches.

When we have questions, we trust our knowledgeable voice assistants to have the answers. But how do voice assistants choose answers and how do you make sure they see your content? It’s a question our web developers have been faced with, and the answer is that it starts with the initial creation of your website.

You’ll notice that a lot of these adjustments are things that are important to being found through a manual search as well as a voice-activated one. But with the increasing use of voice assistants, these website elements are more important than ever if you want Siri or Alexa to choose your content as the most relevant answer. Especially since voice assistants only read off one answer, rather than showing a page full of results.

When people perform a voice search, it’s usually with a very conversational tone, as if they’re asking another person a question. Searchers tend to naturally use more casual language and longer phrases rather than the few keywords they would use in a manual search.

Manual search: “vegan banana bread recipe”
Voice-activated search: “how do I make vegan banana bread?”

When your content’s language reflects the style of searches, you’re more likely to be recognized as the best answer by the voice assistant. This makes it easier for voice assistants to analyze data on your website to determine if it’s relevant to the user’s search.

As we mentioned in the previous point, most voice-activated searches are in a longer, conversational tone, most often in the form of a question. Therefore, you need to make sure the content you write answers many of the most commonly asked questions about your products or services.

Start by identifying some of the questions you hear most from customers and try to incorporate both the questions and answers throughout the website. Quick, upfront answers to these questions will increase your chances of voice assistants choosing your content as the best answer because you’ve provided a clear answer.

Another way to increase visibility when someone searches with a voice assistant is to make sure local search identifiers are consistent throughout your site and in other listings. That way, if people are searching for nearby businesses, your website shows up as a local option. It’s important to note that Alexa uses Bing for searches and Siri uses Google, so add your location to ALL listings, not just your Google Local Listing.

While this certainly isn’t something new , it is worth mentioning simply because of its importance in voice-assisted searches. It’s just as important to have local identifiers on your website for voice-activated searches as it is for mobile or desktop searches. No matter how people are searching, your location needs to be easily identified by humans and smart devices alike.

Voice assistants have the same functionality as traditional search engines, and they extract data the same way as well. That means they look at every detail of your website, not just the text. Optimizing your metadata, which includes title tags, descriptions, image alt text, etc., increases the relevancy potential to what the users are searching for and tells search devices that your content is related on an even deeper level.

So, if you have more mentions of a keyword or phrase throughout different elements of your site, voice assistants are more likely to recognize your site as having an abundance of relevant information.

There’s no denying the effect voice searches are having on SEO and local searches. If you want voice assistants to read your content as the best answer to a local voice-activated search, you need to take these strategies into account. It’s something we now consider when developing new websites, and seems to be a trend that will only continue to grow in prominence.

Taking measures like adjusting content, adding local identifiers and optimizing metadata, you’ll have a much better chance of being recognized by voice assistants.