If you’re looking for an answer to how you can optimize your online store for voice search, you’re in the right place.
To get the answer, let’s assume, you want to buy a nice pair of running shoes for yourself. What would be your first move? To look for the best product online, right? In other words, research. You’re likely to ask Alexa or Siri to find the best pair of running shoes for you, to easily and quickly get results.
According to studies, 51% of online shoppers in the US use voice assistants to help them research products. In doing so, they either use a smartphone or smart speakers. This means by appearing in the voice search results of shoppers you can attract a whole lot of potential leads to your online store.
That clearly highlights why optimizing your online store for voice search is important. It can increase the chances of your products appearing on voice-based search results, attract potential customers to your store, and finally convince them to convert.
So how do you do that?
In this blog, we’ll tell you how to do that. But before that, let’s understand what exactly voice search optimization is.
What is Voice Search Optimization?
Voice search optimization is the process of optimizing your website for searches using a voice assistant. The idea is to strategically use keywords and keyword phrases in your website content to make it appear for common queries of users that come through voice search.
So, when a user does a voice search, they would generally start with something like – ‘Hey Siri/Alexa’, followed by the question they want it to look up for them.
The device will then respond to your query with a verbal answer. If you do it from your mobile phone or a device that has a screen, it will also show you the top results for that query.
To secure a position in these results, you need to optimize your site or store for voice queries. This increases your chances of showing up in these search results.
Voice Search Vs. Traditional Search – How Do They Differ
Now you must be thinking that other than using your voice to look for an answer, is there any other way that makes voice search different from traditional search. Well, there are a few factors that differentiate voice search from traditional search. Let’s look at some of them.
1. Long Conversational Queries
One of the major differences between voice and traditional search is that voice search queries are usually long and conversational in tone.
When people use voice search, their queries seem to be more conversational, just like they are talking to someone. So instead of focusing on standalone keywords, in voice search, you need to focus on longer conversational keywords.
For example, in a written search, users might type ‘best running shoe’ to look for running shoes. The same query might change to something more conversational like ‘what are the best running shoes for men from Nike’.
2. Super Specific Queries
Another important factor to consider about voice searches is that they are super-specific. Since people use a conversational tone in asking these queries, they are more comfortable asking exactly what they want instead of prompting just the generic keywords. And because of that, you get super relevant and to-the-point answers for these queries.
3. Prioritizes Local Listing
Voice queries prioritize local listing. In fact, 58% of people used voice search to look for local businesses. So, your location becomes a prime factor to consider here. Say, for example, you own a footwear store in New Delhi. By optimizing it for your geolocation you can easily attract more footfall to your store.
For better results, you might even consider optimizing it for a more specific location-based search. Like, add your exact location like Footwear Stores in New Friends Colony, Delhi or Footwear Stores in Connaught Place, Delhi, etc.
Voice Search for eCommerce Stores
As mentioned above optimizing your store for voice search helps you appear in voice-based search queries.
But that’s not it.
By optimizing your store, you can also let your users look for their desired products on your store using their voice instead of written keywords or queries.
Users can initiate their search by simply clicking on the microphone icon next to the search box on the online store. Then tap on the microphone and say what they want to find.
Here’s a screenshot of a voice-optimized online store of a popular fashion brand in India.
Optimizing Your Online Store for Voice Search
There are several ways of optimizing your online store for voice search. Here are a few of them:
1. Optimize for Questions
One of the most important practices to consider when optimizing your online store for voice is to optimize your store for questions.
As mentioned above, voice search queries are conversational in nature. So, they are worded differently as compared to text-based searches. Such queries are long, more specific, and more like natural questions. By optimizing your online store for questions, you can make it appear for these long and specific voice queries.
Since these questions are so specific, they attract high-intent traffic. That’s why make sure to optimize your store to satisfy the search intent of your users. One easy way of doing that is to use how, when, where, and what, type of questions. Use these words in the copy of your pages and add them to the H2 tags.
If you’re not sure what questions your users might ask, you can leverage a keyword research tool or get inspired by the related search queries on Google.
2. Use the Semantic SEO Strategy
Another very effective way of optimizing your online store for voice search is to use Semantic SEO. In this form of SEO, search engines focus on presenting accurate search results by understanding the search intent, query context, and the relationship between the words in the search query.
But to start your semantic SEO strategy, you need to focus on a few important factors. For example, you need to understand:
- what the user’s search intent might be
- how and when they might make the voice search
- how the words they use can relate to each other
Starting your semantic SEO strategy with these understandings, help you view people’s voice search queries from different perspectives.
3. Use Natural Language
Since most voice searches include conversational queries, it’s important that you focus on using natural language when optimizing your store for voice search. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that based on location, the same product might have different names.
For example, a certain type of shoes might be searched as sneakers in some areas of the US. While in other areas it might be searched as tennis shoes. Include these variations in your optimization strategy.
Bonus Tip
Marketers take up different strategies to ensure that their sites show up in voice search results. But sometimes, they forget to optimize the speed of their website. This can often chase your leads away forever.
If you don’t want that to happen, make sure that your ecommerce store is well optimized for speed. This can be due to your hosting service, too many unoptimized images on your site, too many plugins installed on the site, etc.
Whatever the reason may be, it’s important that you identify it and fix it as soon as possible.
Over to You
With the rising popularity of voice-based search on the internet, optimizing your online store for voice has become extremely important. It can help you stay ahead of your competitors, attract more relevant leads, boost your sales, and increase your competitors.
Are you ready to optimize your online store for voice search?
