SEO for Voice Search - Will Your Business Get Found?

Alexa, what’s the name of this song? Hey Google, is there a chance of rain today?

These are common phrases heard in more and more homes as the way people search for information online continues to evolve. It’s much easier and faster to speak a request than it is to type it, so it’s no surprise that more people are turning to voice searches when using their smartphones, tablets, and voice assistants (Amazon Eco and Google Home) to get information.

In January 2018, there were more than one billion voice searches per month, according to Alpine.Al and by 2020, experts predict that 50% of all searches will be voice searches. So if you want people to continue to find your business’s website, it’s important to consider the impact voice search is having on SEO.

Backlinko analyzed 10,000 Google Home search results to understand the role of 11 potential voice search SEO ranking factors. Here’s what they found:

1. Page Speed – No one wants to ask Alexa about the weather and then stand around for ten minutes (or, as it turns out, 10 seconds) waiting for an answer; today, everyone expects an immediate response, and Google understands this. Its algorithm has always used speed for ranking on desktop searches and starting in July 2018, it announced that speed will also be a factor in mobile searches. But just how fast does that page have to load? The average voice search result page loads in 4.6 seconds. That’s 52% faster than the average page, which loads in 8.8 seconds! If you want your website to rank well in voice searches, make sure it loads as quickly as possible.

2. HTTPS - HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP. The “S” means that all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted, which makes it more secure. Google has always said that HTTPS helps your website’s ranking, but it looks like it might be even more relevant in voice searches. 70.4% of Google Home searches result in URLs that are HTTPS (rather than HTTP).

3. Google Snippet – A Google snippet is the text that you see with every search result. It describes how the page in the search result is relevant to the search phrase. Google wants voice search results that are short and to the point, so the average Google snippet in a voice search is just 29 words.

4. Schema Markup – Schema markup is code that you put on your website to help search engines understand your content, but it doesn’t appear to have much impact on voice search results. 63.6% of voice search results don’t use Schema. However, while it doesn’t seem to impact your voice search results, it’s still an excellent tool to help improve your search visibility.

5. Domain Authority – Domain Authority, which ranges from 1 to 100, is determined by the number of other sites that link to your page and is a predictor of how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). Page Authority, on the other hand, measures how well a specific page will rank. It appears that Domain Authority matters in voice search because the average domain rating of a Google Home search result was 76.8; however, the mean page ranking of a voice search result was only 21.1.

6. Shared Content – Google has said more than once that they do not use social media for ranking; however, Backlink’s analysis found that voice search results averaged 1,199 Facebook shares and 44 Tweets. Since half of all content on the web gets two or less Facebook shares, an average of 1,199 shares is pretty impressive. They conclude that there’s simply a correlation between engaging, shareable content and ranking, which is the case for any search engine environment.

7. Easy to Read – Elocution - the skill of clear and expressive speech, especially of distinct pronunciation and articulation – is very important in voice search, so the simpler the language, the easier it is to understand. The average Google voice search was written at a ninth-grade reading level. Did you know that MS Word will provide the average reading level of any document you create?

8. Title Tag Optimization – Only 1.71% of Google Home search results used the exact keyword in the title tag, so if all you’re concerned about is voice search ranking, you don’t have to worry about title tag optimization; however, it is still important on desktop searches.

9. Long-Form Content –The average word count of voice search results pages is 2,312 words. This makes sense because longer content means there’s a better chance for the text on your page to match what the person is asking. Another interesting discovering that makes sense is that 2.68% of Google Home search results came from FAQ pages; whereas, with desktop queries, that number dropped to 1.54%.

10. Ranking – The higher your page ranks for a specific keyword, the better chance that it will show up in a voice search result. 74.9% of voice search results came from pages that ranked in the top three for a specific keyword.

11. Featured Snippet – If you go to Google on your desktop and ask a question about any topic, there’s a good chance that you’ll see what is known as a featured snippet. The featured snippet, which is displayed in a box at the top of the search, is a quick summary of the answer to your question. The summary is taken from a webpage and includes a link to the entire page. Appearing in a featured snippet helps improve voice search SEO. In fact, 40.7% of all Google Home search results came from a featured snippet.

PMI would like to help you make this the year that you optimize your website for voice searches. Give us a call at 484-297-6395 or contact us online to learn more or to get started.

*This post is a condensed version of the post entitled “ Voice Search SEO: How to Optimize in 2018 .”