Voice Search SEO.

Voice Search SEO*.*

Ok Google, how do I optimise my website for voice search?

Voice search is hugely popular. And that popularity keeps growing. But how do you use voice search for your business? And how do you make sure you are found via voice search? Because a new way of searching also requires a new way of optimising. We will show you how to be found, but also how you can use voice to optimise the user experience of your own website.


In this blog, you will discover:


What is voice search?

Where previously you could only search using textual searches, new ways of searching have been released in recent years: visual, local and thus voice search! With voice search, by using your smartphone or at home using a smart speaker like Google Home and Amazon Echo, you can get an answer to your question in no time, without even having to enter anything.

Talking is a lot faster than typing (even 3.7x faster1) and speech is becoming better understood, making voice search more common. These hands-free searches are also super convenient while driving, cooking or cleaning (at those times when your hands are full).


A new way to search

Voice search heralds a completely new way of searching. The main changes to search:

  • With voice search, people no longer search with 2-3 keywords but use full sentences to get the answer to their question. 
  • This makes the search intent immediately a lot clearer than with a text-based search. Google (or any other search assistant) immediately knows whether you want to navigate somewhere or get more information about something. 
  • People receive just one answer to their question, rather than being able to scroll through a whole list of results. 99% of voice search results come from the top 10 search results in Google. In addition, featured snippets are even more likely to be used as answers by the voice assistant2. So getting the #0 search result is crucial for voice. How to do that, we tell you below.


"Backlinko shows that the loading speed of voice search results 3.8x faster than the average web page."


Voice search SEO

To be used as the answer within Google's search results, it is of course important that you continue to apply standard SEO techniques. For example, think about using keywords and natural writing, but the speed and security of your website are also essential. For example, research by Backlinko shows that the loading speed of voice search results is 3.8x faster than the average web page1.

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In addition to speed, you can apply the following tips so that you increase your chances of becoming the voice search result:

  • Set in demand-driven content: Because voice search users search in complete sentences, it is important to incorporate these questions into your content. Find out what questions are being asked around your keywords using the AnswerThePublic tool and get started with long-tail keywords. Tip: Find out what questions are being asked at each step of the experience journey, using our experience journey frameworkfilled with examples.
  • Give a short but powerful answer to the question: Google is increasingly changing from a search engine to an answer engine. Even without voice search, you often no longer have to click through many links, but Google briefly displays or tells you the answer in one paragraph. And this paragraph is often even less than 30 words1. By the way, this does not have to mean that you have to create short pages. In fact, longer pages are actually more likely to be a full match for the search query. And that in turn means a greater chance for you to appear the voice search result.
  • Create an FAQ pagewhere you directly answer questions that are frequently asked. That way, you don't have to write a full blog article for most questions, but you can still make sure you appear in Google's search results.
  • Optimise for a featured snippet result: More than 40% of all voice search responses come from a featured snippet result1. A featured snippet is the first, or #0, search result that Google displays in a large block in its results.
  • Optimise for local SEO: Voice search is also commonly used on the go, and all search queries with a buying intent show local search results. Even 16% of all voice search queries aim to find local products, services or businesses. So start working on local content, structured data, reviews and optimising your Google Business Profile (or your Google My Business profile).
  • Let your videos rank: Precisely because voice search involves asking complete questions and human speaking, a large part of Google's voice search answers consist of videos. Here, Google not only links to the video, but selects the pieces in the video that answer your question and the video is displayed directly in Google.


"Create a speech-driven search engine in your website with the Google Cloud Speech-To-Text API."


Voice for your website

You can also extend the popularity of voice search to your own platform. For example, you can use the Google Cloud Speech-To-Text API to create a voice search engine within your website. Your visitors no longer have to scroll endlessly through all your articles looking for the answer, but can simply ask their question and get to the right result.

You can also use this API the other way round. For example, if you display a lot of video or audio content within your website, you can use this API to create transcripts of these audio files to allow the search engine within your website to also search within these files. For example, you can display specific parts of a video or podcast within your search results, so that visitors no longer have to listen to all similar videos or podcasts, but can reach their answer directly. And that, in turn, is incredibly good for the user experience.