Why Voice Search will Dominate SEO in 2020

No one would have heard about voice search ten years ago. But believe me or not, Voice Search has gained a massive success under 10 years. Alexa, Siri, Cortana, these are common nowadays. Digital technology is moving very fast. Every month we got something new in technology. And Voice search is such an example. We actually are depending on our voice search assistant in our day to day life, whether it is to find a local restaurant or listening to today’s breaking news. They can even play your favorite music just to entertain you. You just have to say- OK Google and ask them anything to play. This is just an example. So voice search optimization in 2020 will gonna rock.

Some years back blog content was in trend. Then came video content. And now voice search. But do you know why voice search is getting popular day by day? Because it is more convenient to speak rather than typing. And you get instant results. Faster and quicker.

So if you are a blogger and want your blog post ranked on top. And if you haven’t optimized your website for Voice Search then you are missing a lot, my friend. Because in the future everyone is going to use Alexa, Google Home and other voice assistants to perform voice searches. It is estimated that More than 50% of all searches will actually be voice searches. And that will be pretty huge.

Here are some statistics for 2019 related to voice searches:

More than 66 million Americans own a smart speaker means more opportunities for voice searches.
More than 25% of people prefer to buy voice assistant based household products.
75% of smartphone users search for a local business on a weekly basis using voice searches. That’s going to impact local businesses a lot.

Also Read: Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2020

By 2020 these numbers will surely increase and so voice search will going to dominate SEO in the future definitely. Now you are wondering how to do voice search optimization?

In this article, I am going to tell you how to optimize your website for Voice Search. Here are some strategies that as a website owner or a blogger you should follow for voice search optimization in 2020.

Best Strategies for Voice Search Optimation for 2020

1. Optimize your article for Featured Snippets

You must have heard about Google Featured Snippets several times if you are a blogger. And it’s very important that your article must appear in Feature snippets if you want your article to rank at number one position. Your content will more likely to rank higher if it appears in Featured Snippets. And if you don’t know- What are Featured Snippets?

Well, its a summary of the answer that the user has searched and it is displayed on top of the Google Search results. It provides users with a concise, direct answer to their questions – right there on the search results page, without the users having to click through to a specific result. We sometimes call it zero position ranking.

Tips and Tricks for Featured Snippets:

Write high-quality content. Make it as relevant as possible to Google for the specific query.
You can create a sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console.
Structured data is always prefered as it is easy to read. And also Google Crawlers will easily crawl it as for them also it is easy to understand.
Consider adding lists to your content. They can perform very well in featured snippets.
Include a brief summary of your main content above the fold under 30 words.
Make sure to use long-tail, conversational keywords in your content.

2. Optimize your website for Mobiles

Now people are using their smartphones for searching for any query. So it is very crucial to optimize your website for mobile also. Mobile devices have smaller screen than desktop. So if you are optimizing your content and making it mobile-friendly, it should adjust in that smaller screen. Now you are thinking- Why mobile optimization is important?

Mobile optimized websites attract more customers to your website. Almost all people are using their smartphones and they are easy to access. When they search for anything and get their answer faster Google will know it. And ultimately the ranking of the blog will be improved. For Google, user satisfaction is most important. And if you are perfect in that, nothing is better than that.

Tips to make your website Mobile-Friendly

Improve your page loading speed. If your site will not load faster people will bounce. And chances are they will never come back again to your blog.
Don’t use long paragraphs as it will distract users.
Optimize your images and video content by resizing them or compressing them. But make sure the quality of images and videos should not be altered.
Make your content scrollable rather than opening multiple pages for a single post.
Use a responsive WordPress theme so that your site’s design should be rendered properly, regardless of what device, browser, and screen size it’s viewed on.
Install AMP for Wordpress plugin. Using this plugin you will be able to create mobile-friendly versions of your site’s pages with advanced layouts.

3. Focus on new Keyword Research Strategy

If you want to optimize the content for voice searches, then start thinking as you are a user. If a person want to get some info about the best restaurants in his area. Then he may type ‘Best restaurants near me‘. But if he does the same research using his voice assistance then he will speak ‘what are the best restaurants near me?’ Can you see the difference? I think you got me. You can find these type of keywords using a tool Answer the Public.

When we have to type for some query we choose short keywords. On the other hand, voice queries contain long conversational language. So start thinking like your audience. You need to find the natural language keyword phrases that the user is most likely to ask.

Tips for Keyword Research

Voice searches mostly contain ‘question phrase’ so try to include that in your content.
You can use Answer the Public keyword research tool to find the keywords for voice search optimization. It will suggest most of the relevant keywords in question form.
It’s a brilliant idea to add FAQ page that focus on those long-tail+ conversational keyword phrases.
Always try to create blog posts that are able to answer your audience questions.
Focus on People also ask section. These suggestions can help you figure out the keywords your users are searching for.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that voice search optimation in 2020 is a game-changer and will going to play a vital role in digital marketing. Now is the time to optimize your website for voice queries. It is a little bit hard but voice search optimization in 2020 will make your article closer to your audience and will help you a lot in gaining massive organic traffic.