Optimizing Your Website for Voice Search: Tips and Strategies

Lindsey Merrill

June 15, 2023

As voice search becomes more prevalent, optimizing your website for this type of interaction is essential if you want to boost your search engine rankings and get noticed by more customers.

We’ll show you how to create content that human readers will enjoy and search engines will love, including tips for optimizing your site’s speed and usability on mobile devices.

Understanding Natural Language and Question-Based Queries

Natural language is how people speak. It’s less structured than keyword-based search and more conversational, but it’s still a type of query that you’ll find on most major search engines.

Voice search queries are typically in the form of a question because people are much more likely to ask their smartphones questions than type out keyword searches.

Optimizing your website for voice search means understanding how natural language and question-based queries work. Here are some tips to target question-based queries with natural language:

Use conversational language in your content
Use long-tail keywords that mimic natural language
Answer common questions related to your industry or niche
Write content that is easy to read and understand

By tailoring your content to the language of questions rather than assuming users will speak out loud in full sentences, you can increase your chances of ranking higher when people search with their voices.

Creating Conversational Content

For voice search optimization, it’s crucial that you create conversational content for your website. Here are some tips for creating content that mimics natural language:

Write in a conversational tone
Use contractions
Use first and second-person pronouns
Address your audience directly
Use bullet points and lists to break up your content

Creating conversational content can help your website rank higher in the results of voice search queries.

Optimizing for Featured Snippets

A featured snippet is an answer to a query that appears at the top of search engine results. Optimizing your content for featured snippets will help you appear in voice search results. Here’s how:

Headings and subheadings are great ways to structure your content. They break up larger sections into bite-sized chunks that users can easily digest.
Be sure also to use bullet points, numbered lists, and other forms of metadata, such as image captions or links, in order to make your writing more readable

Optimizing your content for featured snippets can boost traffic to your site from voice search results and make customers more likely to engage with you.

Improving Website Speed and Mobile Usability

Website speed and mobile friendliness are essential factors in voice search. Here are some tips for improving your website’s speed, as well as making it more usable on smartphones:

Make sure your website loads quickly
Use a fast web hosting service
Optimize images and videos for the web
Make your site mobile friendly
Improve accessibility to users with disabilities

Improving your website’s speed and mobile usability can result in a better user experience for voice search users, thereby improving your search engine rankings.

Building a Voice Search Strategy

Building a voice search strategy is an essential first step in optimizing your website for voice search. Here are some steps to get started:

Review your website’s existing content and make improvements as needed.
Research the keywords and phrases most commonly used by customers who buy products like yours.
Create content that addresses these queries directly and provides clear, concise answers.
Optimize your content for featured snippets by structuring it, including multimedia where possible, and providing clear answers to common questions.
To better serve the needs of your mobile users, improve your website speed and optimize for voice search.
Use Google Analytics and Search Console to monitor your performance and identify ways to improve.

Following these tips will help you craft a comprehensive voice search strategy that improves how people find your website and boosts its overall visibility.

Yes, you can optimize your website for both voice search and traditional search by targeting a mix of long-tail, conversational keywords, and traditional keywords. However, it is important to remember the differences in user behavior and intent between the two types of searches.

You can measure the success of your voice search optimization efforts by tracking metrics like organic traffic, click-through rates, and keyword rankings. You can also use tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 to track your website’s performance.

Closing Notes

As more people turn to voice assistants and smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home to search for information online, optimizing your website for voice searches is becoming increasingly important.

By understanding how to create conversational content, optimize for featured snippets and improve your website speed and mobile usability, you can increase the chances of appearing in voice search results and attracting more traffic to your website.

Digital Results is happy to help with your digital marketing needs. Get in touch for a free 30-minute consultation—one of our experts will walk through how we can help optimize your search engine optimization (SEO).

Ready to Grow Your Search Engine Results?

Let Digital Results assist you in your SEO strategy and help
deliver the search engine results you need.

GET STARTED