Voice search continues to rise and is something that cannot be overlooked. According to Search Engine Land, 50 percent of all searches will be voice searches by 2020. With half of searches accounted for being voice, it is important for businesses to begin optimizing their websites for voice search, or else they will be left behind. So, what distinguishes the websites that are chosen by voice search? Here’s a list of what you should pay attention to when it comes to optimizing your website to rank for voice search.
High SERP Placement
Search Engine Land states that 80% of answers delivered by Google’s voice assistant comes from the three top results in search engine results pages, 60% of the results come from featured snippets, and 70% overall come from SERP features. It is clear that it is not enough to show up on the first page of search results for voice search, you must rank very highly in order to be heard by your target audience.
Site Speed
SEMrush found that web pages which loaded significantly faster than the average page in the same SERP were chosen as the most relevant answer to the search query. In this case, slow and steady does not win the race. If you want to be heard in voice search, you need to make sure that your page loads as quickly as possible. One study from Backlino found that the average time to first byte (TTFB) for websites ranking for voice search is just .54 seconds, while the average TTFB is 2.1 seconds.
Content Readability
Voice search likes results that are short, sweet, and to the point. When optimizing a paragraph for voice, 42 words or less is the magic number. Ideally, answers should be less than 30 words to give your website the best opportunity to rank for voice search.
High-Quality Backlinks
The importance of high-quality backlinks cannot be stressed enough. SEMrush found that backlinks, anchors, and title keywords were more common in voice search results.
Optimizing for voice search is not too different from what websites are already doing for SEO. However, you should still be mindful of how important voice search has become and how much it is still growing.
Need a jump start when it comes to optimizing your website for voice search or online marketing? Let our digital marketing agency help!
