How to Get Extra Traffic from Google Through Voice Search?

Virtual assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant have already taken over the digital space. Voice search within just a few years has become a popular search function and now covers a considerable portion of the search instances across all search engines. 

No wonder, SEO specialists now got up to the emergency task of addressing increasingly popular voice search queries. Since voice search is likely to surpass traditional typed search queries soon, most search engine specialists are geared to take this new challenge. 

Since voice search works differently than traditional searches, you need to have a solid command of the ways and measures to capitalise on this new search function. If you want to utilise the potential of the Google voice search for getting maximum traffic on your website, the below-mentioned tips and measures are worth considering. 

How does Google Voice Search Work?

To understand and capitalise on the Google voice search, it is important to know-how in the first place voice communication works. Just as our brain processes spoken words and converts them into actionable or thought-provoking meanings based upon our already learned linguistic code, the Google voice search function in a similar fashion recognises the voice commands and translates them into meaningful commands by using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology and delivers search results accordingly.

Now that every individual while searching leaves unique voice footprints, the Google search engine over time learns the characteristics of different voices and intonations and accordingly adjusts the search results. This allows the Google voice search function to understand an identical English or French word spoken in different English or French-speaking countries.  

Starting from the Hummingbird update, the search engine began to incorporate semantic search tools. The semantic search function further extends the capability of the Google search engine to understand the exact meaning based upon the intent and despite the variations in search terms or spoken words. Thanks to Semantic capability Google voice search is now capable of detecting the implied meaning more accurately irrespective of the differences in the surface.

Let’s understand how this semantic voice search works with an example. Suppose, you have spoken the search term “buy houses in Bay Area, California” and got the Google property listing and other appropriate results. Now when you make a small query by speaking only “house insurance”, Google voice search automatically understands your intent and offers a list of house insurance providers in the California Bay Area. 

As a search engine specialist it is also important to understand that Google continues to learn from online behaviour such as shopping and browsing patterns, our use of search terms in different contexts, personal data such as location and frequently visited places, our online interactions such as likes, dislikes and shares and all kinds of online activities. 

Now that you have a comprehensive idea about how it works, it is important to explain the tips and time tested measures for receiving extra traffic through Google voice search.  

Ensure results show with rich attributes

Almost all studies found that Google gives high priority to websites optimised to show their answers to search queries with rich snippets. Irrespective of the differences in the use of voice in speaking out the search terms with different phrases and words, the resulting answers will be offered with rich attributes.   

While Google’s knowledge base showcases all types of facts and findings concerning people, places, and things, the featured snippet will showcase the related information on top of the organic search results and provide exact answers to the queries. Any search result having any of these detailed attributes is regarded as a rich answer. 

Here below we provide some tips to get higher search results by optimising for rich answers. 

• Replying to Particular Queries: Make use of the Google feature to provide answers to common questions featured for the public on different subjects. When creating a copy, make sure you cover these common questions asked by people. 
• Concisely give answers: Instead of using a lot of technical jargon that people struggle to understand, make the answer clear, easy to understand and precise to what the question is all about. 
• Write instantly engaging content: The quality content that engagingly delivers authoritative information can only increase your chances for your snippets to be featured by Google.  

Last but not least, the important thing to remember is that voice search queries are more conversational than the written queries. So the tone of the content should have a personal tone to make the best of voice search ranking. 

Optimise the Local SEO

It has been found that a considerable portion of the voice search queries belongs to searches for business information in particular regions or localities. This is why to make the best of voice search queries you need to optimise the local SEO. 

Make sure that the Google My Business Page remains thoroughly up to date with details such as the current business address, contact information and the opening as well as closing hours. All this listed information will get instant answers to their local business search queries.

Optimise the loading speed

Voice search function is exclusive to mobile devices and people often prefer using voice search on the go or in all instances when they need to browse the web for some quick information. Naturally, there is a sense of urgency involved with the voice search function. This is why faster loading speed is so important for a satisfactory voice search experience. 

Faster loading speed has been a consistent criterion for Google search ranking. It is particularly important for mobile and voice searches in which bounce rates is higher as users, unlike other search instances, expect to get away with the answers quickly.  

Optimise the content for voice search

Google Voice Search function fetches the answers to all search queries straight from the websites featuring content with the answers. This is why while targeting specific voice search queries you need to make sure that the content comprehensively addresses the particular queries. 

When you publish content that covers all the aspects of a commonly queries subject or the journey of an online customer, you can gain far better search results. The content should cover the following areas to optimise for voice search. 

• Giving knowledge: When the content informs the user about a solution for a problem, it comes under this category. 
• Satisfying interest: When a problem is identified by the user and he is searching for a particular solution, such content can help.
• Evaluating solutions: When the content compares two or more solutions for solving a problem, it comes under this category. 
• Purchase queries: Content that directly addresses the queries related to particular purchases and informs about pricing, product specifications and purchase options belongs to this category. 

Provide Data in Structured Manner

Google Voice Search, unlike the traditional search listing, delivers one search result for a particular query, to improve your chances of being featured in the answer you need to provide data in a highly structured manner. 

When you use structured data markup, creating metadata for the website becomes easier. This metadata can easily inform Google about the content while keeping the usual look and feel of the content intact. This increases your chances of being featured in the voice search result. 

Some of the key content types or categories about which you can inform Google with structured data include products, news, articles, recipes, reviews, how-to guides, places and people. This besides helping your chances in voice search also improves your traditional search result discoverability. 

Build a FAQ Page

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages are very helpful for delivering relevant content in a conversational manner or natural language. FAQ pages deliver answers to a considerable portion of the voice search queries. This is why creating FAQ pages is important for making the best of voice search. The best thing is, you can always use long-tail keywords on FAQ pages. 

To improve things further, you can also incorporate common questions and answers in related blog posts or can address the questions that your target audience or buyers can answer.  

Conclusion

All the tips and time tested measures that we so far explained to help you get consistent traffic flow through voice search have already been implemented by leading websites across the niches. Since voice search is just on the rise to popularity, no website can downplay its importance now.