How To Prepare Your SEO Strategy For Voice Search

SEO has always been a changing landscape.

While the fundamentals of performing well in search remain the same, how we go about each of them changes dramatically on a regular basis. 

Voice search doesn’t change people’s need to search, but what does change is our need to pay attention to our audience’s requirements and adapt our strategies accordingly.

With increasing use of voice search, what do brands need to do now in order to remain relevant and visible for customers when the way they search changes?

Keep complying with Google’s best practice guidelines

It should go without saying, but websites that are speedy and built well for people and crawlers, with content that properly answers users’ needs, backed up by authoritative links and mentions, will always be favoured in search. The advent of voice search doesn’t change this, it makes it more important than ever, as this is simply the basic requirement to be considered for being the correct answer.

Understand your audience and what they actually need from you

Every website should consider what problem they’re solving for their users and how they are doing so. Once you’ve confirmed you are the best choice – and this is an important step – you need to identify how people are finding you. Identifying the highest search volume keywords in your industry is a brilliant starting point.

If you’ve identified the problems that your customers or clients have, you have an excellent springboard for looking at common, natural language queries and creating content to fit those. Use common question keywords, think about what you would ask to find what you’re looking for – in this case, your product or service.

There are huge opportunities to capitalise on voice search, particularly via audience research, natural language content, and featured snippet optimization. Incorporate these requirements into your current audience research and keyword plans to create a strategy that works seamlessly across all platforms.