How To Optimize Your WordPress Site For Voice Search?

Saffron Edge

Nov 19, 2019

5 min read

Back in 2011, when google introduced Voice Search, nobody would have imagined that it would grow in such magnitude that it would become one of the key aspects of search marketing campaigns. Nowadays, voice search has become a staple feature, thanks to the ever-increasing number of smart devices and digital assistants. As per the current statistics, voice search is used by 41% of adults at least once a day. This number is going to boom as it has been predicted that by 2020, 50% of online searches will be voice searches.

Why is voice search so important?

In recent years, Google has improved the accuracy of voice recognition from below 80% to over 90%. This improvement has been made to pave the way for the future of online searches. As you already know the smartphones have witnessed a boom in their usage, so more and more people now tend to use voice search. The smart devices also leverage the feature of voice search. The current statistics show that there are already 45 million voice-assisted devices being used in the United States alone. So, you can see how voice search is dominating a huge chunk of online searches. If you want to outsmart your competitors and stay on the top rankings in the search results, then you must learn to optimize your site for voice search.

How to optimize for voice search

To optimize your website according to voice search is not rocket science. You just need to take care of a few pointers and you can rank your WordPress site in the top positions. Here are the pointers you must keep in mind to optimize your WordPress site for voice search.

Pay Attention To The Themes And Plugins

Themes are the backbone of your WordPress site. The whole outlook of your website and how visitors respond to your site relies heavily on the themes you use. The plugins are the added functionalities and define the responsiveness of your website. So you must customize the themes and plugins to optimize your site for voice search. A recent survey analyzed 10,000 searches on Google home devices and found out that average voice search results page loads 52% faster than the overall average page. So page speed is a major aspect of voice search results. Accordingly, you must choose the themes and plugins that make your site loads fast. You must go for a theme that uses javascript and loads in seconds. This way, you can ensure that your WordPress site appears at top rankings in voice search results.

Long Tail Keywords

When you use normal search, the search queries contain keywords that have short tail length. The voice searches, on the other hand, have long-tail keywords. Voice searches are also more likely to contain question phrases. Long tail keywords also ensure a high conversion rate as the competition is low in the long tail keywords. Make sure that the content of your website has a conversational tone as most of these long tail keywords come across as conversational questions rather than search queries.

Position Zero Optimization

Gone are the days when website owners used to battle for the number 1 position on the search engine result page. The quest is now for the zero position on the search engine result page, also known as the snippet. You must also customize your content according to this. To gain the position zero, you must fill in all the details and website profile correctly. Also, you must give the complete details about your business and add relevant contact information to be featured on the Google snippet.

Local SEO Implementation

Most of the voice searches end up with results that display the business address. Also, “near me” searches on Google have grown by 900% over the last two years. So to use this fact for the best of your business, you need to master the local SEO strategies and implement it on your website. Local SEO refers to the localization of keywords through geographic indicators. For this, you can try adding keywords that specify the location of your business operations. You can add content to your website that is location-specific and is relevant to your business.

Google My Business Listing

To optimize your website according to voice search, you must also create a Google My Business listing of your business. As you already know how crucial local SEO is for your business. And local SEO works best when your business is listed on Google My Business. Also, with the recent boom in smart speakers, it is advisable to create a listing of your website on different other businesses citing online directories.

Your Content Should Be Readable

Also, you must make your content readable. Most of the website visitors bulleted information crisply and briefly. So you must pay attention to that and rather than using long mundane posts, try to make your content interactive, engaging and readable.

Optimize For Mobile

With Google’s new mobile-first policy, the rules of the game have changed. You need to create optimized content for mobile devices as Google now prioritizes the mobile-based content for mobile devices. So if your website is not mobile-friendly then your website might lose voice search results ranking as well as the normal search result rankings. So check out the guidelines to optimize your website for mobile.

Use Of Schema Mark-Up

Schema mark-up is used to control the way you share information about your website with machines and how machines interpret it. Using schema mark-up to implement structured data lands your website in rich snippets. These rich snippets differ from normal ones and increase your click-through rate and also drive traffic to your websites. They help you to gain an edge over your competition.

The wrap-up

With the introduction of voice search, the digital marketing scenario has changed. To get accustomed to this change, you need to make changes to your website and its content. You need to come up with unique and interactive content and also change the structure of the website if needed. Whether you are developing content specific to voice searches or normal searches, you need to find your niche. You need to identify your brand yourself first and then come up with ways to advertise it. So recognize your brand and establish its dominance. Click here to know more about website optimization.