The trending voice search
The traditional search has just been replaced by the new trending voice search which makes searching easier through smartphones, smart home devices, digital assistances like Siri in Apple devices, Google Assistants on Android and Alexa, which is a new device made only for search assistance. It is amazing how voice search through these mediums have invaded our daily lives and become an integral part of our daily activities.
Voice search is more convenient and only gives users one option @ipullrank #DSMPLS pic.twitter.com/OmLDzcF2Gh
— Michelle StinsonRoss (@MStinsonRoss) August 23, 2018
What caused the rapid growth of voice search assistance?
The Google Assistant was first announced during Google’s developer conference on May, 2016. It was great news as the new feature was supposed to be conversational and was supposed to be a two way experience. After a span of two years, voice search has proved its vulnerability and has replaced the traditional search patterns which required a lot of effort.
The new voice search devices and technology make it so much easier for people to simply ask any question and get the appropriate result from their device. A more natural way of interaction is possible with machines and it perfectly sounds like an interactive session to get the desired search result. Using your voice, you can now know the temperature, play music, call anyone in your phone without touching the screen, search for a local restaurant and also get information on any topic from around the world.
Optimizing your website for voice search
Optimizing for voice search is a very key tactics that you need to do for your website to rank high on the voice search results. It requires some different tactics from those traditional SEO patterns as voice search is generally a conversation that a user is trying to have with a device. It means unlike traditional patterns it needs to be more precise and in the form of a query as most voice searches are questions.
Let us look at some of the most convincing optimizations that can be implemented for an assured high rank on the voice search results, for your website:
1. A Fast-Loading Website
A website which loads faster appears to have an edge over other websites in the Google Voice Search results. Despite absence of accurate parameters for voice search rankings, it has been seen that website loading speed and voice search are related to each other. It must be noted that a voice search needed 0.54 seconds to load which is much less than the average of website loading speed of 2.1 seconds.
A site’s loading speed is an important ranking factor that decides if a page allows to be ranked high on voice search results. When a query is asked to Google assistants, your answer is provided through a quick response. So to rank higher in voice search, you must make sure that your site loads as quickly as possible.
2. Higher Rankings affects your voice search presence
A high ranking website is more likely to become a voice search result. A few studies have confirmed that around 75% of all voice search results were from the top 3 results for that keyword. So, if your website ranks high on certain keyword, its chances of being a voice search result are pretty high.
The sites with high domain authority and a preferred source has a strong possibility of finding its place on the voice search. When your website ranks high, Google is confirmed upon the correlation of the search and that your site is the best result for the query as it has already proved itself in the traditional Search Engine Result Page. So, better SEO uses for traditional ranking needs to be maintained for better voice results.
3. Voice Search Results are Concise & Brief
A very important aspect of voice search result is that the feedback from the voice searches are always brief and to the point. The main motives of voice searches are to provide concise results which are short yet trusted. The word length seems to play a important role. An appropriate length is the key factor and a study shows that an average length of a Google voice result is 29 words.
So if you’re optimizing your website to rank in Google or Google Assistant, make sure that your answers are as short as possible while still providing an appropriate answer to that query.
4. Using HTTPS instead of HTTP
A recent research has shown that HTTPS are most likely to be featured on voice searches rather than the conventional HTTP. It has been proved that HTTPS have 20 % more chances of being featured on Google’s first pages, which hugely affects your overall voice search rankings.
As proper guidelines are still not published to guide better search results, this small change might prove beneficial for your website to improve your chances of appearing as a voice search result.
5. Strong Link Authority Tend to Rank Best on Voice Search
Another important optimization for your website is implementation of backlinks. Google tends to take backlinks with trust and authority into consideration while determining a sites vulnerability of being ranking high on voice results. A strong link authority develops a high level of trust over time, age of their presence on the Internet. Backlinks are a foundation of Google and optimization is very important to rank high on voice search results.
A traditional search provides you a list of 10 links; whereas a voice result only gives you a single answer to your question. So, Google requires being extremely confident about the accuracy of the information that it is providing and to ensure accuracy, the voice search may rely highly on a strong domain authority over page authority. So, Google’s Voice Search Algorithm may rely highly on trusted and authoritative domains.
The visual search and voice search have really added a new dimension to the already existing traditional SEO strategies. The industry has expanded and the traditional methods have been slowly overtaken by something, very dynamic. Click below to get tips on visual and voice search results. https://searchengineland.com/how-visual-and-voice-search-are-revitalizing-the-role-of-seo-303958
6. Easy to Read content helps Ranking Well on Voice Search
Google’s Voice Search ratings lay stress on the Elocution or the simple language that is used to write the content. It has been proved that Google wants the voice search results to be simpler and in a tone that is really easy to understand. So while you prepare your content for website, you could well try and keep the reading level to a minimum, precisely at a 9th grade reading level, which has been found out after evaluation most of the voice search results.
It is believed that as voice search results are simple words that are easy to pronounce, read and also accurate. The main reason is that voice results needs to be understood by most users as there are no visual references to any voice results, so it’s possible that Google may analyze the level of words used as a factor to influence voice search rankings.
The first time I’ve seen voice search data like this from Google. Must read for those interested in how voice search works today, and how it will affect SEO and paid search in the future: https://t.co/gMgHFuB0Ja via Google VP of Engineering, Scott Huffman (@huffmansbh). pic.twitter.com/UGXYwhdwWl
— brysonmeunier (@brysonmeunier) August 23, 2018
With Google Assistant and Alexa transforming search patterns and results, optimizing has become a key factor for survival. Click here to know about Voice search optimization, https://www.blog.google/perspectives/scott-huffman/five-insights-voice-technology/
It’s equally important to be heard:
There are nearly millions of websites that are constantly trying to rank higher on the search engines. Higher ranking is everything that a website owner needs as that is his highest goal out of a strategy that he integrates but now voice search results have been taking over the traditional search results. It means that a lot of people are dependent on voice search results which influence their decision so a website not only needs to be just seen but must also “BE HEARD”.
Optimization is the key, as there are no definite guidelines to determine higher ranking on voice search results yet some of the important points mentioned here could guarantee your websites online presence and make some fragments of your website be heard which is followed by being seen.
