5 Strategies to Help Voice Assistants Find Your Business

 

The days of typing a search query seem to be almost over amid statistics showing that 71% of people now prefer using voice search instead of text search. 

 

This trend makes the playing field more competitive among businesses. Appearing on the first page of Google won't cut it anymore. Voice assistants won't give you a list of results, unlike search engines. They will recommend the entry that comes up at the top of the search results page. Thus, your business has to optimize its website and listings on voice assistants. 

How to Help Voice Assistants Find Your Business 

Here are five ways to make it easier for Siri, Google Assistant and other popular voice assistants to find your business: 

1. Understand your customer behavior in relation to voice-enabled devices. 

Millennials (51%) are the most avid users, using them mainly for shopping. They're followed by Gen Xers (45%) and baby boomers (34%). Over half of users use them to get promotional information. Nearly 40% use them to find out more about a business. 

2. Get your site included in rich answers. 

Rich answers are the snippets of information that appear above the normal search results. This is also referred to as "position zero." When a search engine finds the closest answer to your question, it takes a snippet of a website's page to the very top of the search results page.  

 

Making it to Google's rich answer box requires:  

 

• Formatting techniques, particularly schema markup 

Schema markup is a computer language that tells search engines what your site is about.  Your website’s source code should include words that search engine crawlers look for. Examples include business address, contact information, operational hours, and so on. This will increase your chances of appearing on Google's answer box.  

 

Add schema markups to your website to help search engine crawlers recognize these bits of information right away. 

 

• Knowledge of common industry questions 
  

Know the questions your audiences ask. Check your social media platforms, Google's "People Also Ask" box, and Google Analytics. Yoast Google suggest expander, and Answer the Public are also rich sources of ideas. 

 

• Long-tail keywords  

Voice searches are conversational. They consist of 29 words on average or about 76% longer than text-based searches. Knowing and including these long-tail key phrases will make your website more attractive to search engines.  

 

• Concise answers 

  

Many rich text answers feature bullet points and lists that are easy to read. Use short, simple sentences with no jargon. 

3. Make your website load faster. 

Search engines abandon their searches on websites that take long to load. You can make your portal load faster by tweaking the design of your site, reducing the size of your images and videos, and so on.  

4. Improve your websites' mobile experience. 

Speed is one of the major draws of conducting a voice search, which is 3.7 times faster than typing. Hence, users believe that voice assistants will provide answers just as fast. 

 

Mobile users have a short attention span and don't read the way desktop readers do. Besides reducing website loading times, avoid using long blocks of text. Instead, divide paragraphs and place them inside shaded boxes. Intersperse them with images to spread out the gaze of your phone reader. 

5. Claim and update your listings on voice assistants. 

Get your company listed on Siri, Google, and other major voice assistants. This will bring you closer to voice searchers, 58% of whom look for nearby businesses daily. Update your contact details, services, and other information regularly. 

Claim and Update Your Listings on Voice Assistants with Voice Command  

Voice Command can claim and update your voice assistant listings through our voice optimization plans. Contact us today to start getting your business to show up on voice search.