When was the last time you spent a few hours away from your phone? Exactly! Smartphones have revolutionized the way we communicate, do business, shop, and learn to the point where it's hard to imagine going through life without one.
People from all walks of life regularly use their smartphones to look up products and services on the go and it is predicted that around 80% of online purchases will be made via smartphones by 2020.
As enamored as we are with texting for hours and endlessly scrolling on our mobile devices, we still crave the immediacy and nuances of the human voice when looking for a solution to a problem. Hence, the surging popularity of voice search technology.
Not only is voice search a faster and more convenient way to find information online, but voice search results that mimic real human conversations are, also, more trustworthy than textual content and can actually drive more traffic to your website and significantly boost engagement rates.
Here's what you need to know about designing mobile websites for voice search in 2019:
Conversational search
Voice-recognition technology is evolving at a speed of light, so the first thing you need to do before you start designing your website for voice search is to get familiar with the technology itself.
Voice-recognition technology relies on a system called analog-to-digital converter (ADC) which converts the vibrations your voice creates in the air into digital data that a computer can process. The ADC removes any background noise from your voice and adjusts the sound to match the template sound samples stored in its memory.
The signal is then divided into smaller segments and matches them to units of sound in English, or any other language. Finally, the system analyzes these units of sound in the context of the other units around them in order to predict what the speaker was probably saying.
You may be wondering why it's important to know all this to optimize your mobile website for voice search. This is because the main thing to keep in mind when designing voice search-compatible websites is that voice queries, unlike keyword searches, closely resemble a natural human conversation.
When users want to look up a piece of information online using their mobile keyboard, they're highly unlikely to type in long, grammatically correct sentences. With voice search, however, people will ask a full question - just like they would in an everyday face-to-face conversation.
This means your mobile website needs to contain answers to real-life questions your target audience wants to know about your product or service. So how will you know what questions they ask? It's simple: make a point of interacting with your audience regularly on social media and pay close attention to the way they talk about your website, as well as the way they formulate their questions. Make an inventory of the most common questions and keep track of the conversational words and phrases that you can later incorporate n the content of your mobile website.
Voice search friendly mobile content
Besides using longer keywords and conversational language, you also need to make sure your website is fully optimized for mobile and the content you post is ready for voice search.
Make sure your mobile website contains enough white space so that it can suit all screen sizes and make the text more reader-friendly. Not only can white space improve the aesthetics of your page, but it can also help you organize your content better and prepare it for voice search.
Your content should be clear, concise, and to-the-point. Don't forget to break down text into shorter paragraphs with subheadings, numbered lists, and bullet points to improve readability.
If your website has a blog, you need to optimize the existing content for voice search based on the problem-solution pattern. Use casual language to write about highly relevant issues and offer simple solutions to your readers. Focus on one topic at a time, use authoritative sources to support your claims, and stay clear of filler words, spammy content, and ambiguous advice.
Local SEO
Making your mobile website voice search-friendly and optimizing for local SEO have to go hand in hand, for the simple reason that people are increasingly starting to use voice search for "near me" searches.
Did you know that 72% of consumers who perform a local search decide to visit a store located within five miles? This is why local SEO is especially important for small business owners since it makes the business more visible to local customers.
If you take into account that people of all ages are now performing local searches on their smartphones from every place imaginable, it's clear why voice search optimization and local SEO are equally important.
Besides using responsive design and an effective call-to-action, you also need to make sure that the business' physical address and contact phone number are clearly visible on your mobile-friendly website.
To further increase the visibility of your business, don't forget to list your business on Local business directories. Since inconsistent citations can negatively impact your ranking, make sure all the relevant information is up to date and optimized for SEO.
This where hiring a team of SEO experts such as the one at GWM SEO company can come in handy. An experienced and reliable SEO company will know exactly what to do when it comes to your website's needs and can help you identify any weak spots that may be preventing you from exploiting voice search to its fullest potential.
Finally, don't forget the importance of a strong link-building strategy. Local link building can help you drive more referral traffic, increase your domain authority, and create content that will make you stand out among the competition.
You should also make an effort to build real-world relationships with businesses in your community which can help you secure more local links. Making your presence felt in the local community can vastly improve your local SEO and develop a viable voice search strategy geared toward local customers.
To sum up...
When designing mobile websites for voice search you need to:
- use longer, conversational words and phrases
- adjust your content for voice search
- optimize your website for local SEO
In 2017, Google's voice recognition software set the record by achieving a 95% word accuracy rate for English language and voice search is undoubtedly on its way to radically transform the way we think about SEO.
In other words, the future of voice-recognition technology is looking bright and, whether we like it not, voice search is here to stay. This means now is the best time to optimize your mobile website for voice search by using the three guiding principles described above.
Guest Author
Nick Brown is a blogger and a marketing expert currently engaged on projects for Media Gurus, an Australian business, and marketing resource. He is an aspiring street artist and does Audio/Video editing as a hobby.