Optimize Your Ecommerce Site For Voice Search

Voice Search: 5 Ways Your E-Commerce Business Can Be Prepared

Technology is constantly changing. In order for brands to be successful, they need to be prepared to adapt to technology changes when they happen. Over the past several years, there have been changes in the way web users search, and a lot of those changes can be attributed to the increase of digital voice assistants (like Siri and Cortana) as well as voice search.

In 2015, a survey showed that about 40 percent of smartphones users had began utilizing voice search within six months of participating in the survey. Thanks to the enhancements of voice search and the increase in its adoption, it is predicted that there will be approximately 33 million different devices, such as the Google Home and Amazon Echo, in circulation in 2017.

For those unfamiliar with the term, voice search is defined as a search made by talking to a digital assistant. So, instead of typing your search into a search bar, you are speaking your search query to a digital assistant.

Now, there are a few differences in how users are utilizing voice-based search over text-based search. For an e-commerce brand to be successful, it is critical to be aware of these differences and to fully understand how to adapt those differences. With that being said, here are five ways you can get prepared for voice search:

1. Make Sure You Understand Your Customers.

Prior to making any adjustments to your SEO strategy, you need to first know why you have your strategy in the first place. To know this, you must conduct research. As you research, you need to pay particular attention to your target audience’s preferences, habits and desires. You want to gather as much information as you can, as this will help you see how they shop and determine how your brand will be able to sell to them.

Devices with voice have really transformed the way people shop, as people don’t even have to look at a screen anyone to compare prices, book an Uber or order a pizza. For that reason, your brand needs to position its products in a simple way and in a way that is easily accessible for consumers. You also need to anticipate customer needs with more customization and personalization of the overall shopping experience. You can do this by offering recommendations of products based on a customer’s preferences and remember previous orders.

2. Go Back to the Way People Naturally Speak.

Statistics show that 20 percent of mobile users are utilizing voice search to find the information they seek, but how exactly are they searching for that data? As a general rule, people use search phrases like “best amusement parks” when typing. However, with voice search, searches are similar to how we naturally speak, so they’re likely to be in question format like “what are the best amusement parks?”. Year over year, research has shown that there is a growth in question searches.

As a result, when you are optimizing your site, you need to make sure that you are focusing on conversational long-tail keywords to ensure that you include web users that are using voice search.

3. Don’t Forget to Follow SEO Best Practices.

It is important to keep in mind that there are certain things that you can do to accommodate voice searchers you don’t want to go overboard and make overly-drastic changes. You want to ensure that you continue to follow the SEO best practices that you have always been following, as these should continue to be effective.

These best practices have always been and should continue to be your starting foundation for your strategy – even for voice search. You should make sure that you have relevant content and links, well-labeled images, etc. – all of which will help ensure that you have a solid foundation for success regardless of the type of search that people are using.

4. Make Local Search a Priority.

More often than not, consumers that are utilizing voice search are going to be looking for things locally. They could be looking for a nearby gas station or maybe a good pizzeria. So, if you have a storefront, this is going to be a big opportunity for you. Statistics show that voice search is three times as likely to be local; therefore, it is an absolute must that you make optimizing for local a priority. Aside from following standard SEO best practices, you need to ensure that all of your local business citations are claimed and current.

5. Give Voice Search a Test Run.

In order to fully understand how this whole voice search works, you need to give it a go yourself. Grab your smartphone and test it out. Observe your behaviors – how you use the search and what type of query you make. Look for any opportunity where you can insert your brand.

Voice search is only going to continue to grow, so the best thing you can do is to understand and optimize it now so that you can set your business up for success down the road. For any questions or guidance on how to get things started, don’t hesitate at all to reach out to us at WebDetail.