Lots of peo­ple now search by voice instead of typ­ing key­words into a search bar. Say­ing: ‘OK Google, what’s the near­est cof­fee shop?’ or, ‘Hey Siri, find me a recipe for veg­an lasagna’ is just eas­i­er sometimes.

That’s why voice search is the future of online inter­ac­tion. Mil­lions of peo­ple use it dai­ly for every­thing from find­ing infor­ma­tion to shop­ping to con­trol­ling their smart homes. 

At WPBe­gin­ner, we have exten­sive expe­ri­ence opti­miz­ing web­sites for search engines. It has helped us sell our dig­i­tal prod­ucts and ser­vices for over a decade. So, we know how impor­tant it is to stay on top of the lat­est SEO strategies.

To put it sim­ply, if your Word­Press site isn’t opti­mized for voice search, then you are miss­ing out on tons of valu­able traffic.

In this arti­cle, we’re going to dive deep­er into why voice search SEO is so impor­tant and how to opti­mize your Word­Press site to cap­ture those voice-pow­ered searches.

Why Is Voice Search Important?

Voice search is quick­ly becom­ing the stan­dard way peo­ple find infor­ma­tion online. Unless your web­site is opti­mized for voice search, then it will become less rel­e­vant, and you will miss out on valu­able search traffic.

This is because it is so con­ve­nient to sim­ply speak to a smart assis­tant on your phone or devices around your home. Stud­ies show that 62% of adult Amer­i­cans are now using voice assis­tants. Besides that, 27% of glob­al inter­net users are using voice search on mobile.

The three most pop­u­lar voice search apps world­wide are Alexa, Google Assis­tant, and Siri.

Many peo­ple use voice search to get an instant answer to their ques­tions, such as direc­tions to a store or learn­ing when it clos­es. They may be dri­ving and unable to look at a screen and expect their vir­tu­al assis­tant to speak the answer to them right away with­out need­ing to vis­it a website.

At oth­er times, the user may want to spend time explor­ing the search results and doing their own research by vis­it­ing web­sites. For instance, they may be look­ing for the best price on a prod­uct, want to learn the best way to repair their vehi­cle or do some DIY project around the home.

Rec­og­niz­ing that this is a growth area, many Word­Press web­site own­ers are adding voice search to their web­sites. You can learn how to do this step-by-step in our guide on how to add voice search in Word­Press.

How­ev­er, the most impor­tant thing is to do voice search SEO and make sure you are not miss­ing out on this impor­tant traf­fic source. Search engine rank­ing is cru­cial because almost 68% of clicks from voice search­es come from the first 5 results on the search results page.

Now, let’s take a look at how to opti­mize your Word­Press blog for voice search. Here are the dif­fer­ent top­ics we will cov­er. You can use the links to jump to the sec­tion that you are most inter­est­ed in:

That said, you’ll like­ly want to try out as many voice search SEO strate­gies as possible. 

1. Target Conversational Keywords

When peo­ple use voice search, they speak in nor­mal every­day Eng­lish. They don’t use the same key­words as they would type into Google’s search bar.

Instead of typ­ing ‘best piz­za in Los Ange­les,’ they might ask, ‘OK Google, what’s the best piz­za in Los Angeles?’

So, if you want your con­tent to be opti­mized for these voice search­es, you will need to use the same con­ver­sa­tion­al, every­day Eng­lish. In oth­er words, you should write like you speak.

In our expe­ri­ence, the best way to tar­get con­ver­sa­tion­al key­words is to focus on long-tail key­words. These are longer and more spe­cif­ic queries users search for and are often in the form of questions.

Nat­ur­al lan­guage queries like these pro­vide insights into user intent. So, rather than just try­ing to match exact key­words, make sure you under­stand and address this intent in your content.

There are many long-tail key­word gen­er­a­tors you can use to uncov­er these longer phrases.

For exam­ple, you can use our own WPBe­gin­ner Key­word Gen­er­a­tor Tool. You sim­ply type in a key­word and then click the ‘Ana­lyze’ button.

The tool will sug­gest hun­dreds of key­words you can use in your content.

You can scroll down to the ‘Ques­tions’ sec­tion to dis­cov­er the ques­tions users are ask­ing about your key­words. You should try to answer those ques­tions direct­ly in your content.

Anoth­er use­ful tool for dis­cov­er­ing long-tail key­words is LowFruits.

When you type a main key­word in the Lowfruits KWFind­er tool, thou­sands of long-tail key­words will be gen­er­at­ed. You can click on the ‘Ques­tions’ tab to view only questions.

LowFruits can then ana­lyze these key­words to show you their search vol­ume (the ‘Vol’ col­umn), which lets you know which key­words are like­ly to send you the most traffic.

It will also give each key­word a dif­fi­cul­ty score (‘SD’), which shows how hard it will be to out­rank your com­peti­tors on that keyword.

You should pri­or­i­tize the key­words with high vol­ume and low difficulty.

2. Use Schema Markup

We men­tioned ear­li­er that many peo­ple use voice search when they can’t look at a screen, such as when they are dri­ving. They need their vir­tu­al assis­tant to give them spo­ken answers, which may include turn-by-turn direc­tions to your store or the time it closes.

This can only hap­pen if Google and oth­er search engines can under­stand the con­tent of your web­site. To do that, they rec­og­nize and use struc­tured data in the form of schema markup.

Schema markup is a spe­cial type of HTML code added to your Word­Press web­site behind the scenes. It helps search engines under­stand dif­fer­ent types of con­tent, such as blog posts, prod­ucts, recipes, events, and more.

For instance, it allows search engines to rec­og­nize spe­cif­ic facts such as recipe ingre­di­ents, prod­uct spec­i­fi­ca­tions, and pric­ing. Schema markup can also make things like your store office hours or pro­fes­sion­al con­tact details more eas­i­ly searchable.

You can give vir­tu­al assis­tants the infor­ma­tion they need to answer ques­tions by sim­ply fol­low­ing our guide on how to add schema markup in Word­Press and WooCom­merce.

For exam­ple, you can use All in One SEO to eas­i­ly add schema markup for FAQ sec­tions that address ques­tions com­mon­ly asked in your industry.

The struc­tured data will make it easy for search engines and vir­tu­al assis­tants to fea­ture your con­tent in voice search results.

If you decide to use this plu­g­in to eas­i­ly cre­ate schema markup, you might also want to take a look at our com­plete guide on how to set up All In One SEO.

3. Optimize for Local SEO

If you have a local busi­ness, then lots of users are try­ing to find you using voice search. As many as 76% of voice search­es are peo­ple look­ing for local prod­ucts and services.

They may be look­ing for direc­tions to your store while dri­ving or ask­ing about the clos­est cof­fee shop when mak­ing plans with friends.

So, while you are adding schema markup to your site, make sure you add markup for your busi­ness address, con­tact details, open­ing hours, and oth­er impor­tant busi­ness information.

You can make it easy for vir­tu­al assis­tants to answer these ques­tions and direct more cus­tomers to your busi­ness by cor­rect­ly and con­sis­tent­ly adding local schema to your website.

Your store will also become more promi­nent on stan­dard Google searches.

We have writ­ten a detailed local SEO guide to help you grow your traf­fic from local searches.

Besides show­ing you how to add local schema, this guide also cov­ers how to improve local vis­i­bil­i­ty by cre­at­ing a Google Busi­ness Pro­file, adding Google Maps, get­ting list­ed in local busi­ness direc­to­ries, and show­ing pos­i­tive cus­tomer reviews.

4. Optimize for Featured Snippets

Fea­tured snip­pets are the high­light­ed results shown at the top of a Google search results page.

For exam­ple, when you search for a recipe, Google will often place the best results at the top of the page in a fea­tured snippet.

Since these snip­pets are shown above the nor­mal search results, they can direct a lot more traf­fic to your site.

Bet­ter still, with voice search, a vir­tu­al assis­tant will often just read the fea­tured snip­pet to the user. That’s a big rea­son why 40% of voice search results include fea­tured snip­pets.

We can’t pro­vide a guar­an­teed way to get a fea­tured snip­pet because they are cho­sen by Google. How­ev­er, using schema markup on your web­site will help, and there are a few things you can do to increase your chances significantly.

For more infor­ma­tion, check out our guide on how to get a Google fea­tured snip­pet with your Word­Press site.

5. Improve Your Website’s Technical SEO

Last­ly, you should check that there are not any tech­ni­cal rea­sons why Google would penal­ize your rank­ings. You may have cre­at­ed the best voice-search-opti­mized con­tent out there, but if it does not appear near the top of the search results, then all your efforts are wasted.

We cre­at­ed a proven tech­ni­cal SEO check­list to help you iden­ti­fy tech­ni­cal prob­lems that pre­vent you from receiv­ing high­er rank­ings. It will check for com­mon issues such as:

• Poor Word­Press speed and performance
• Unin­dexed content
• Not using a secure HTTPS connection
• Your web­site is not mobile-friend­ly
• And more

Fix­ing errors like these will remove issues that may result in poor search engine rankings.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About Voice Search

Here are some brief answers to fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about opti­miz­ing for voice search.

Isn’t voice search just for find­ing restau­rants and directions?

No, not any­more. Peo­ple now use voice search for every­thing from com­plex ques­tions about how to fix a leaky faucet to shop­ping and con­trol­ling their smart homes. Basi­cal­ly, peo­ple may decide to use voice search for any­thing they want to find online.

Do I real­ly need to opti­mize for voice search sep­a­rate­ly? Isn’t it the same as reg­u­lar SEO?

They’re relat­ed, but voice search is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent because peo­ple speak dif­fer­ent­ly than they type. They use longer phras­es, more nat­ur­al lan­guage, and lots of ques­tions. So, you need to opti­mize for how peo­ple speak.

What’s the most impor­tant thing I can do to opti­mize my site for voice search?

You need to think like your audi­ence and imag­ine how they might speak their search query. What words would they use? What ques­tions would they ask? Then, make sure your con­tent includes those ques­tions and answers them clear­ly and concisely.

Do key­words mat­ter for voice search?

Yes, but you need to focus on ‘long-tail key­words’. These are longer, more spe­cif­ic phras­es peo­ple use in con­ver­sa­tion. For exam­ple, think ‘best Ital­ian restau­rant near me open now’ instead of just ‘Ital­ian restaurant’.

I’m not a tech expert. Is opti­miz­ing for voice search complicated?

It’s eas­i­er than you think. The most impor­tant points are to write nat­u­ral­ly, opti­mize for mobile, and use one of the best SEO tools or plu­g­ins to guide you.

How will I know if my voice search opti­miza­tion is working?

Keep an eye on your web­site traf­fic. Use tools like Google Ana­lyt­ics and Google Search Con­sole to track which key­words peo­ple are using to find you, includ­ing voice search­es, and how they engage with your content.

We hope this tuto­r­i­al helped you learn how to opti­mize your Word­Press web­site for voice search. You may also want to see our expert pick on the best schema markup plu­g­ins for Word­Press or our ulti­mate guide to Word­Press SEO.

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The post Voice Search SEO — Opti­mize Your Word­Press Blog for Voice Search first appeared on WPBe­gin­ner.