There’s been a wide variety of trends in 2024 but one that’s recently emerged is voice search optimization. Voice Search Optimization is the process of improving your online presence so you can appear for voice search queries.
With many voice assistants implementing into our day-to-day lives such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, or Google’s Assistant, it’s no wonder voice search it’s becoming more popular.
We’re going to dive into the background of voice search, benefits, its impact on user behaviour and search, and the potential drawbacks. Businesses primary goal is to get selected to be read aloud by voice assistants when users perform a voice search.
Don’t worry, as always we’ve got you covered in this blog so you’re ready to take on 2025.
How Voice Search Technology Actually Works
Dating back to 1925, research on the concept of automatic speech recognition (ASR) started that had a limited capacity around understanding words.
In the last two decades, we’ve seen a massive leap in voice recognition technology, largely driven by Artificial Intelligence and deep learning.
Nowadays, the systems can understand context, recognize emotions and even comprehend tones of voice and accents. It’s crazy how fast it’s developed and we can only imagine it will continue to grow in 2025.
Voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistants, and Apples Siri are commonly used worldwide and are continuously learning each day, improving their predicative capabilities and enhancing the user experience.
We’ve started to move away from traditional text-based searches as there’s been changes in how we phrase our queries. If you’re looking for a restaurant or a store near you, traditionally you would search “restaurants near me”.
But asking a question phrased in a voice search query sounds more like “Hey Siri, can you find me a restaurant nearby?”.
It takes on a more conversationalist tone, longer questions, and aligns more with how we naturally speak.
We have started to see a shift in user behaviour and how we search and interpret information.
There’s over one billion voice searches taking place. There’s so much potential for businesses to increase their visibility online to a broader online, achieving better results and more opportunities to attain new clients.
This shift in user behavior to voice search queries is down to efficiency, speed, and convenience. Over 56% of users turn to voice search on smartphones to gather business information, emphasizing the vital role of optimizing for voice search.
Key Players in the Voice Search Ecosystem
Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri are in the top three in the voice search ecosystem but Google is currently taking the lead with Amazon’s Alexa not far behind.
Google’s assistant has been around since the launch of it in 2016, is praised on its natural language processing capabilities and understanding of complex queries, making the interactions more human-like.
Its compatibility and easy integration into apps such as Gmail, calendar, maps and much more makes day-to-day tasks easier to implement, offering the user an easier and more efficient experience.
Amazon’s Alexa, currently in second place, has started to integrate their Anthropic’s Claude AI into Alexa, enhancing its conversational capabilities and making it more responsive.
By integrating Claude, it will be able to handle larger queries and provide more context-based responses, much like Google’s Assistant.
After becoming a household name, its integrated itself into home speakers and devices worldwide.
Alexa has the ability to recognize different voices and personalize each response based on the individual’s preferences.
In third place, Apple’s Siri is a favorite for Apple users because of its easy integration into Apple’s ecosystem. Iphones, Ipads, Macs, Apple watches, Siri is there to answer any question you have.
Allowing you to create custom voice commands that trigger specific actions or workflows, say goodbye to repetitive tasks that eat up your time.
While Apple is making big strides in its natural language processing capabilities, it just falls short of Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Google will maintain its position, or will Amazon finally take the lead in 2025.
Optimizing Content for Voice Search Queries
User behavior has changed so by understanding user intent, you’ll be able to optimize your content to achieve better results while reaching a wider audience.
It all comes down to convenience and efficiency as people are consistently on the go.
Think of the everyday lifestyle of each person. If you’re driving and need the nearest gas station, you’re not going to pull over to type out your query. You’ll use voice search to find the one closest to you.
People use voice assistants for simple tasks such as a to-do or shopping list.
Many will use voice search to find the closest supermarket with Christmas puddings (did you know it’s Christmas soon?) or the nearest store to pick up last-minute groceries before the big day.
The more convenient something is, the more likely you are going to use it. Before creating a voice search SEO strategy, keep these seven things in mind.
Longer Phrases
If you’re in a rush, we generally type out short, simpler phrases to get the answer quicker.
But with voice search, there isn’t a limitation and people will use longer phrases just as they would in a conversation.
Before creating content, think about the way you speak with a friend.
It’s conversational, natural, and more relaxed. This will help outline what questions you need to create content around.
Focus on Long-Tail Keywords
Short-tail keywords are much harder to rank for while long-tail keywords tend to get less search traffic.
Long-tail keywords have a higher conversation rate compared to short-tail because of the specificity of the question, showing the users intent behind the search.
Spend time researching long-tail keywords over short-tail to help you rank higher and incorporate them onto your landing page or site to help you get picked over your competitors.
Local and Nearby Information
If we’re on the go, we aren’t using voice search to find our next holiday (well maybe you are!).
Normally we are looking for a supermarket or hairdressers nearby that is the most convenient to us. Remember, convenience is what we are aiming for.
Pay more attention to local SEO to help you rank first in the voice search results. Make sure you have submitted your site to the local directories.
Understanding your target audience
If you understand and speak the language of your target audience, it’ll help you craft a voice search marketing strategy that’s tailored to their behaviours and preferences.
Tracking and measuring what keywords direct people to your site will help refine your strategy and focus more on the tactics driving the audience to your site.
Optimize for Different Devices
Voice search is more commonly carried out on mobile devices so it’s important to optimize your site for screen-first and smart devices to help in your content strategy.
Searches are more natural so read your content aloud to see if it sounds like a conversation you would have with a friend.
Featured Snippet
Voice search is more competitive compared to traditional search as only one result will appear which means a huge chunk of your strategy should be focused on creating featured snippets.
Featured snippets are short chunks of text featured at the top of Google’s search results in order to answer a search query quickly. Convenient, right?
They are chosen based on how accurate and close to the question the person asked.
Review your current content and see what sections can be optimized for voice search to help gather valuable traffic to your website.
They are mostly informational so ask a relevant question and answer between one to three short sentences.
“How-to”and “Best” are often used in featured snippets more than anything else. Lists are also the most common format to rank compared to paragraphs or text.
Lists are easy to read and quick to follow so by combining the best words, using them in a list format, you’ll have a higher chance of reaching that top spot.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Answering the most common questions on your site is the best way to rank especially for the featured snippers.
Make sure to make it search-friendly and natural in tone and stick with short sentences.
Tracking Voice Search Performance
Like anything, tracking how well your voice search is doing is important to understand your content and SEO strategy is working.
Unlike text-based searches, voice searches are often delivered in direct answers through voice assistants making it harder to track clicks and engagements.
Despite this, there are still a number of ways to track and analyze what’s working and where there needs to be improvement.
Previously we mentioned long-tail keywords, featured snippets, and optimizing your site for mobile devices to increase your chances of ranking on Google.
Track how often you secure a featured snippet for a search query as this can boost your visibility immensely.
Monitor what pages the snippets are coming from and optimize the rest of your content to increase your chances further.
Using Google Search Console is a great tool to track what search queries are driving traffic to your website.
Long-tail keywords and questions are the best to monitor for deeper insights into how you’re ranking.
Optimizing your site for mobile devices is important because they are more likely to rank well for voice search results.
Monitor how people are interacting with your site by analyzing three key metrics on Google Analytics.
Bounce rates, average session duration, and pages per session will indicate whether your site needs further optimization for mobile-site users.
Using tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, AHREFS, and SEMrush can help determine if your efforts are paying off.
GoViral Conclusion
The world of digital marketing is changing fast and it’s important for businesses and brands to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements to not fall behind.
By implementing a voice search SEO strategy into your content strategy, the higher the chances of your site being viewed by the right audience.
There’s been many trends emerging this year but we see voice search becoming even more important for 2025 as user behavior and intent changes.
Start creating your strategy now and you’ll be one step ahead of your competitors.
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