It often seems that whenever you want to search the Internet for crucial information, you can turn straight to a little helper app on your phone. Whether that virtual assistant is Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Microsoft Cortana, it can frequently direct you to the website you need.
When you do a voice search for products or services like those provided by your company, it might not be your own site you come across first.
This is where the importance of optimising your site for voice search comes into play.
Play the long game: watch out for long search queries
When you type your query into a search engine, a fragment of a sentence (e.g. ‘plumbers in Guildford’) is often enough to get good results. But when you ask a digital assistant to look for the same thing, you might be more likely to say “Who are the best plumbers in Guildford?”
So, when deciding which keywords to optimise on your site, a few words scattered through your web content might no longer cut it. Catching people who search by voice may require a more sophisticated approach.
Set up a Google My Business page for your company
Someone requiring a plumber in Guildford might not be too concerned about the exact part of this Surrey town in which the plumber they choose is based. If they’re looking for a restaurant or someone who can cut their hair, it might be a very different matter.
They might ask their voice assistant “where’s the nearest barber?” or “which restaurants are near me?” If you give your local business a Google My Business page with accurate details of the firm’s name, address and phone number, a digital assistant could bring up those details.
Build great content into a mobile-friendly web design
Drawing attention to your company’s website or listing is only half the battle; you’ve also got to sustain visitors’ interest in your company in the longer term. You can do that by filling your site with informative, relevant and useful content, as you should for other SEO efforts as well.
Our SEO marketing experts can give you that great content – our Bronze, Silver and Gold search packages all include on-site content creation and optimisation. You can learn more about those packages if you phone our Middlesex office on 020 8144 7931.
Edward Solomon has over 30 years’ experience in project management, technical education, computer networking, web design and development and is a Digital Business Consultant for PENNInk Productions Ltd.
