Optimizing Content For Voice Search Assistants

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This is a great opportunity to talk about SEO as it relates to some other technology outside of Google and internet search. SEO stands for just that “search engine optimization”, and future prospects for SEO will include anything with a search engine, and that includes artificial intelligence (voice assistants, bots), ASO (app store optimization for iOS/Android), and niche search engines such as Etsy.com, ebay.com, etc.).

Voice Optimization Strategy

  • The rise in instant answers without search results will continue
  • Google (& Apple, Amazon, etc.) will continue to disintermediate simplistic answer/data problems (as a content publisher you need to consider whether or not a search query would be answered directly by the search engine, rather than refer to your content/website
    • g Does your site provide in-depth product comparison, or simplistic product price comparison?
    • Does your site offer coding tutorials or quick function lookups?

Voice Optimization Tactics

Voice search is already widely adopted by the younger demographic.

  • Keyword research & targeting requires SERP feature analysis
    • As SEOs, in the future I think we’re actually going to be looking for keyword research tools that can perform a voice query and then can tell us what the results either look like or sound like from the engine.
    • We need to do our prioritization of keyword targeting, which keywords we actually want to select and which keywords we want to create content for and try to rank for, based on our click-through opportunity and our value. If we don’t have that information and that data, then we’re probably going to be choosing some keywords unwisely compared to our competition who is thinking about this.
  • Content structure should be optimized toward formats engines will use in their instant answers
    • being in that instant answer box is not a bad thing. In fact, it tends to increase click-through rate and overall traffic for many (tip: Optimize for Google Instant Answers)
    • Keep an eye on absolute volume and search volume demand trends
      • Voice search may continue to grow as an additive form of search, but typed search has grown as well, and if enough focus from competition goes to voice search, this would open an opportunity for those optimizing for typed search. So, we need to be aware of how competition has shifted their tactics!