Voice Search Optimization Tips for WordPress Websites

by Vipe Team in WordPress Development; Published on 13.07.2022

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Hey Google, what’s up, how are you doing? So um, I wanted to ask you… how can I optimise my WordPress website for voice search?

“Well, your safest bet would be following some tips and tricks shared by a reputable WordPress Agency for Development like Vipe Studio.” ~ Google (probably)

Back in 2016, voice search was beginning to make waves. What’s impressive is that even then, voice search was powering 20% of Google’s mobile searches. When you think about it, this is actually a pretty big number. And that number has only grown ever since.

In recent years, voice search has become a popular tool for browsing the Internet. Voice-activated assistants like Alexa, Google Voice Search, and Siri allow people to find answers to their questions by speaking instead of typing.

Many smartphone users find voice searches to be more convenient, especially when compared to typing on a smaller device. Additionally, our WordPress development agency reminds you that using voice search comes in pretty handy when you’re engaging in activities, such as driving, exercising, or working. Not to mention that it’s safer to use voice search in those particular scenarios.

The number of voice searches is only rising with each passing year. As a result, it’s absolutely crucial to optimise your WordPress website for voice search. This will ensure you’re staying ahead of the game.

Remember that if your website doesn’t appear on the voice search results pages, you might lose out on precious organic traffic. And yes – voice search optimization can be useful to brands of all kinds. Whether your objective is to answer queries, create a community, or sell your products and services, voice search should not be neglected.

With that being said, in this guide, our WordPress Agency for Development will give you some pointers for enhancing your website so that it appears in voice search results. Ready? Let’s see how to make Alexa, Google, and Siri prioritise your content when retrieving voice search results! But first… a quick dive into the basics.

Voice Search Explained

Put simply, voice search is a speech recognition technology that enables users to search the Internet by using voice commands. This eliminates the need for typing, thus giving people a quicker and more convenient way to find answers to their questions.

People employ a variety of techniques while conducting voice searches. For instance, voice search may be activated by:

Clicking on a voice command icon from a device’s screen.
Pushing a button on a smart speaker.
Calling out the name of a virtual assistant such as “Hey, Siri”, “Alexa” or “OK, Google”.

Our WordPress development agency reminds you that activating voice search allows users to dictate a query. Depending on the device being utilised, a user’s query response may be delivered in a different way. Here are some examples of how a response might be delivered after conducting a voice search:

Smart speaker users receive the response spoken back to them.
Smartphone, tablet, or laptop (i.e., a device that has a screen) users may get both an audible and text-based answer, enabling them to read and hear the results at the same time.

Nowadays, more and more devices have voice assistants built-in, including laptops, TVs, speakers, laptops, phones, and even refrigerators. As a result, our WordPress Agency for Development has noticed an increased interest in optimising websites for voice search. Web developers and web owners alike want to make sure that their content is the “chosen one” when a user says “Hey Google”.

Obviously, this whole thing is a significant benefit for SEO strategies and for anyone trying to rank better on search engines like Google. As we already said, the voice search trend continues to grow, with 48% of “general web searches” online done via voice searches (according to research published by Adobe).

Why Is Voice Search Relevant to WordPress Website Owners?

Now that you know what voice search is, you’re probably wondering if this trend is relevant to you as a website owner. The short answer is “Yes, voice search definitely deserves your attention and effort in the context of website development and optimization.”.

Here, our WordPress development agency will list some of the top things that make voice search optimization a worthwhile consideration for website owners:

Optimising for voice search might improve your rankings on search engines like Google.
Optimising for voice search can put your products, articles, etc. in the spotlight, as they can come up first in the search results.
Optimising for voice search helps Google and other search engines to better understand the content of your website (not only in the context of voice search), which can help you get to page one of the search results.
For website owners who are advertising locally, optimising for voice search can help them get discovered on Maps, YouTube, Google Business Listings, etc.

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What Are Voice Searches Usually Characterised By?

Our WordPress Agency for Development wants you to remember that voice searches give search results based on a highly specific set of parameters. This means that the results users get are filtered out by processing some specific characteristics that are typical for voice searches.

We believe it’s vital to discover as much as you can about these characteristics in order to comprehend how to use your content and website to better suit the expanding trend that is voice search.

Here are the main characteristics of voice search that our WordPress development agency advises you to have in mind when optimising your website:

Voice Search Users Want Instant Results

Voice search users usually search for simple facts, directions, contacts, birthdays, and addresses. What’s more, they want to get an immediate answer (result). This is why, when filtering out results, search engines prioritise websites and sources that provide the most pertinent and accurate information.

The search results returned by Google’s voice search algorithms are frequently brief and to the point (the information is usually contained in one or two sentences).

Voice Search Users Use Conversational Words

Our WordPress Agency for Development reminds you that “talking” to a voice assistant is no different than talking to a friend. This means that people who use voice search tend to ask their questions in a conversational way.

This, in turn, leads to search engine algorithms returning results that also use a more conversational approach. In terms of website optimization, this translates into the usage of long-tail keywords for both short and long-form content. These types of keywords provide Google with the needed context to process and return the information in a conversational way.

Voice Search Users Are Mostly Interested in Local Content

Like our WordPress development agency already said, the majority of voice searches are often focused on asking for directions to the closest restaurant or beauty parlour as well as asking about the company’s opening hours, etc.

This indicates that local search results are actually more prevalent in Google Voice Search results. So you’ll have to update your information and metadata, notably your location, business hours, phone number, addresses, etc. in order to optimise your website for voice search. Updating your business listings on well-known websites like Yelp and Google My Business Listing is another must.

Best Practices for Optimising Your WordPress Website for Voice Search

And now for the main course of the meal, here are some of the most effective and proven to work practices that our WordPress Agency for Development recommends you follow when optimising your website for voice search. Read on!

1. Make Good Use of Long-Tail Keywords

When compared to individuals who type their questions, voice searchers have different search behaviours. Because people speak to their phones, voice searches, for one, tend to be more authentic and conversational. This means that instead of trying to rank for something like “best WordPress agency”, it will be better to focus your efforts on a long-tail keyword such as “best WordPress agency for high-traffic enterprise websites”.

Our WordPress development agency reminds you that the monthly search volume (MSV) for these search phrases (commonly referred to as long-tail keywords) is considerably lower than the MSV for general searches. As a consequence, ranking for them is significantly simpler than for short keywords with larger search traffic.

Long-tail keywords are more targeted and can also help your website rank higher. People who use these types of keywords are usually well-informed about what they’re looking for. They are more likely to convert if they feel that your content meets their demands and using long-tail keywords will indicate precisely that to them.

Our WordPress Agency for Development advises you to use such keywords everywhere throughout your content. For instance, you may employ them as content headings and subheadings for maximum efficiency.

2. Featured Snippet Optimization

Question-based voice searches predominate. By immediately responding to inquiries like “what is…?” or “how to..?”, you have the highest chance of being found using a voice search.

This is why our WordPress development agency suggests you add an h2 or h3 header to your pages and posts. Make sure you include any relevant long-tail keywords (that you think your target audience might use) in those headers. Then, in the paragraph that immediately follows, you can answer the question at hand.

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By doing this, your likelihood of showing up in the featured snippet section of a Google search results page increases exponentially. We remind you that a featured snippet is a concise piece of text that is displayed at the top of Google search results pages. In a nutshell, Google pulls the top answer from a relevant website to respond to a user’s inquiry.

This is why our WordPress Agency for Development believes it’s important to provide content that closely resembles the user’s natural way of speaking. If you manage to match the user’s voice search query, you have a higher chance of showing up in the featured snippet for that particular search.

3. Use Schema Markup (Structured Data)

Schema markup (also known as structured data) helps search engines like Google to better understand the content on your website. For instance, schema markup may be used to classify an article as a recipe, a job posting, a FAQ, and more. In a nutshell, schema markup is the context for your website. Consider it similar to the inventory description you put on your products.

Our WordPress development agency can assure you that by properly using structured data, your site will be better optimised for voice search. It’s important to remember that SERPs display more than simply the top-ranking URLs for a given search query.

The Internet is full of content that is almost exactly identical in meaning, so forget about being one-of-a-kind. The real winners are those who manage to optimise their content in a way that ranks them high on SERPs. And schema markup can be great for that.

By using embedded code tags throughout the HTML of your webpages, you’ll basically provide Google with answers to the following questions:

Whom are you trying to reach with your content? (target audience)
What kind of content does your website provide?
Will a user find the information they need on your page?

Our WordPress Agency for Development wants to stress once again that schema markups can be used to distinguish between various content types on your site, such as:

Articles
Products
Reviews
Events
People

4. Prioritise Local SEO

Various studies have shown that the majority of voice search users look for a nearby company. So if you run a local business, optimising your Google Business Profile listing is a must.

A free tool called Google Business Profile enables you to add your company to Google Maps and local search results. The details that are displayed on your profile include:

Name of your business
Phone number
Address
Operating hours
Reviews
Questions and answers

Our WordPress development agency reminds you that your chances of being found via voice search will rise if you fully fill out your Google Business Profile listing. If you have completed your Google Business Profile, Google will be able to readily answer questions from voice searchers about different things related to your business (like your business hours).

The following advice will help you make your Google My Business page voice search-friendly:

Be precise when filling your relevant business category. If, for example, your business is a WordPress Agency for Development, make sure to include that info.
Provide additional subcategories that are also pertinent to your business. For instance, if you are a WordPress agency that offers Headless WordPress development as a service, add “Headless WordPress” to your subcategories.
Make sure to include the URL of your WordPress website as well as your phone number. The user will then be able to access your website or give you a call with a voice command.
Encourage your leads to leave reviews on your Google My Business page.

Pro tip: Did you know that after creating your Google My Business account, Google provides you with free ad credit? We advise you to use that credit to launch PPC ads.

5. Create Conversational, Easy to Read Content

One of the best pieces of advice our WordPress development agency can give you is to write your blog posts and pages in a manner that resembles conversational speaking. Writing in a conversational style that directly responds to a user’s query is a great way to optimise your site for voice search.

Notice how we’ve written this article in a highly conversational style. This format is friendly and human and makes it easier for users to connect with the content. Search engines also pick up on this.

Making pillar pages, or high-level pages that extensively cover a topic and then branch out with links to in-depth articles about certain subtopics is another method of optimising for voice search.

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Now our WordPress Agency for Development will give you some more ideas for creating interesting and simple-to-read content that is also suitable for voice search:

Use a tool like Grammarly to make sure the grammar in your content is accurate and coherent.
Use a conversational style appropriate for your intended audience.
Keep your paragraphs short. Break up long sentences into shorter, stand-alone paragraphs or bullet points.
Use visuals to increase engagement (images, infographics, and videos perform really well).
Always edit and proofread your content.

6. Enhance Site Speed and Performance

When it comes to voice search optimization, our WordPress development agency recommends you focus your efforts on improving the speed and performance of your website. As we said, voice searchers expect to get immediate answers to their questions. Because of this, Google gives priority to websites that load quickly.

Remember that you might lose prospective clients to websites that load pages 0.01 seconds faster than yours. As you can see for yourself, every millisecond matters since there are hundreds of websites competing for the same keywords as you. With every additional second that the website takes to load, conversion rates decrease on average by 4.42%.

Our WordPress Agency for Development suggests you focus on the following to make sure your website loads quickly:

Choose a good hosting service: The type of hosting you choose will affect how quickly your site loads. You can check out our expert picks for the best hosting companies for high-traffic WordPress websites to find a suitable solution.
Choose a lightweight theme: The coding that is utilised to create and activate your website might produce either a pleasurable or a slow-loading experience. This is why we recommend you pick a theme that loads quickly and is lightweight.
Use a content delivery network: Our WordPress development agency reminds you that utilising a CDN will ensure that users receive a consistent loading speed regardless of where they are located.
Compress images: Your pages take longer to load when you upload large photos and lengthy videos on your site. So it is best to compress those files.
Use fewer files: The number of HTTP requests will increase with each file in your website’s source code. The number of HTTP requests on your website will affect how quickly it loads.
Test your website’s speed: Our WordPress Agency for Development recommends you check your page load time using a tool like Google PageSpeed or GTmetrix. This will help you learn how to make your site faster. Additionally, these tools may also be used to see how you compare to your rivals.

Not only will the load time impact the experience of your visitors but it will also impact your search engine ranking. Faster WordPress sites are more likely to appear higher in search engine results.

7. Optimise Your Content for Search Engines Other Than Google

The truth is that pretty much everybody optimises their websites for Google and Google only. This is not surprising as it is well-known that Google obtains a great bulk of the Internet’s traffic. However, our WordPress development agency believes optimising for other search engines might be quite beneficial.

Sure, this will double your work as you’ll have to update the same content on Bing, Yahoo, etc. and you will also have to get familiar with these search engines’ ranking algorithms.

Still, it makes sense to put that little extra effort, especially if you know that your target audience is actively using search engines different from Google. This practice will guarantee that your website will appear at the top of voice-activated searches on search engines like Bing or Yahoo.

Hey Google, My WordPress Website Is Now Fully-Optimised for Voice Search!

One of the most popular ways to search the web right now is through voice search. No matter what kind of website you have, you better optimise it for voice search. Our WordPress Agency for Development reminds you that optimising your site for voice search will help your content be discovered by the increasing number of voice searchers.

Use the strategies listed above to make sure your WordPress website is fully-optimised for users who prefer to search the net via voice commands. Remember that voice search has a broad variety of uses, including obtaining information about local businesses, news, trivia, and online shopping. So it’s absolutely worth it to optimise your site for voice search! Hey Google, did we do that right?