Understanding user intent is key to optimizing for conversational search.
In the previous article, Google Assistant and the internet of things, we introduced you to the new Google Assistant and how it will impact conversational experiences in the next generation of search.
We briefly touched on some basic tips on how developers can build websites for conversational experiences from a more technical SEO perspective, and emphasized the importance of mapping and creating content that matches the user’s identify, intent and content by building out detailed personas and mapping your websites content to address their specific needs through meaningful conversational experiences.
” Google says 20% of all android searches are coming from voice!”
To add more substance and context to optimizing your content for voice search, we share some of the insights from Benu Aggarwal, Bryson Meunier, Greg Sterling and Purna Virji who discuss some of their tips and suggestions on how to optimize your content and user experience for voice-driven search at SMX West’17.
Top tips to optimise for voice search, Google Home and Google Assistant:
1. Find out what your visitors are searching for
Analyse the queries to your website using the Search Queries report on Search Console and your Search Terms report from Google AdWords to find out which searches can be assumed to be voice queries. These queries are usually 5 words or longer and appear to be natural, conversational type searches. They are often question based and include ‘why’ (most popular), ‘what’, ‘how; and ‘when’ in the query.
2. Identify additional questions people are seeking answers to
Using your Keyword Research tools, identify additional search queries that could be used as part of your strategy. Keyword Planner, Answer the Public, What Google People Also Ask and Moz Keyword Explorer are some great tools to assist you in doing keyword research..
3. Find out if your competitors are answering these questions
Find out what your competitors are offering users who enter these search queries by looking at what comes up for the target search terms. Identify which questions don’t have a suitable answer and prioritze your content strategy around these questions – including both commercial and information type questions.
4. Create content to answer these questions
Create content to provide answers to questions that people are asking by incorporating these search terms in your content, including the Heading (H1) and Title (Title tag) and in the content itself. Be sure to write content in a natural, conversational tone at the average readability level of an 8th grader.
5. Apply Structured Data Mark-up
Optimize every single question on a page by wrapping it with Schema mark-up (schema.org) by giving users what they want, to ensure that it can rank in zero ranking (i.e. Rich Snippet & Rich Answer) position (which is a ranking above the number one conventional result. Schema mark-up is the Holy Grail to obtaining Featured Snippet visibility which is a fundamental component to ranking for voice search.
6. Optimize your content for location-based searches
Optimize your content for NAP (Name, Address & Place) and claim your business in Google My Business as search engines like Google take this information into account when determining which companies to show for geo-targeted searches.
7. Leverage Conversational Agent
Getting slightly more technical, once all of the above is in place, leverage Conversational Agent and train your website’s conversational agent to learn, understand and build up a database of common questions and best results to display for the question.
8. Leverage Web Speech API
Finally, leverage the Web Speech API to allow the API to convert spoken words into text. The API will go onto your website and find the best answers to the questions driven by voice queries.
*Google Home is a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant. Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. It’s your own Google, always ready to help. Learn more about Google Home.
Contact us for assistance with voice search optimisation.
Author: Gillian Meier, CEO at BlueMagnet
