3 Simple Tips for Optimizing Your 

Website for Mobile and Voice Search

Unless you’ve been doing your best to avoid technology within the last few years, you’re probably aware of the rise in mobile use. Consumers are using their phones to do everything —from finding a dinner recipe to banking to buying a vehicle.

From apps to personal digital assistants like Siri and Alexa, people are finding more ways than ever to make their lives more efficient, with the bulk of that assistance happening through a mobile device.

According to OmniCore Agency, people access 69% of their media on their smartphones. In response to this flood of mobile traffic, many businesses have effectively optimized their websites for mobile searches to improve their user’s experiences and to get quickly provide consumers with the information they seek.

Creating mobile-friendly websites is especially crucial for sales conversions – if your audience has issues accessing information and contacting you for more information because pages are taking too long to load or because they’re not formatted for their search preferences, you’re likely to lose them in a simple click.

In fact, OmniCore reports that 57% of all mobile users will not recommend a business if their mobile website is poorly designed or unresponsive, but mobile websites that load in five seconds or less will have a viewing session that’s 70% longer. Take a good look at your website from your own phone and tablet if possible to help identify any major problems from the perspective of a consumer. Would you find the layout and information useful?

If you feel comfortable with how well your website is optimized, you may be looking for ways to take your SEO tactics a step further. In addition to adding widgets and creating apps, ensure you optimize your website for voice search, which has grown exponentially over the last few years.

Consumers can now search for information while waiting at doctor’s appointments, in line at the grocery store, or even in their cars simply using their voice, and they want fast and relevant results to their questions.

Voice searches aren’t new. Back in 2016, Google noted that 20% of mobile searches were voice searches. Now, with the increase in the use of devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home, Neil Patel reports that a staggering 71% of U.S. smartphone users aged 18-29 and 59% of smartphone users aged 30-43 now use mobile personal assistants (which rely on voice searches).

There’s no doubt that voice searches are now heavily used, and our reliance on voice activated devices is expected to grow. According to OmniCore:

• 55% of teens and 44% of adults use voice search on a daily basis
• 2 in 5 people say voice activated devices are essential to their lives
• 19% of people use Siri at least once a day
• By 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches.

If your website isn’t optimized for voice search going into 2020, such statistics should cause you to rethink your strategy. Here’s how you can reap the advantages of voice optimization in the coming years.

Key SEO Tips for Website and Voice Search Optimization

1. Test and improve your mobile experience

It sounds simple enough but if you haven’t tested how your website operates on a mobile device recently, now is the time to review and check for things like page load time or broken links. Keep in mind that Google favours websites that load quickly, as well as being secured and certified. If you don’t have those basics down now, do so first and foremost.

Additionally, if you’re revamping your user navigation or other website features, now is also the time to build a mobile experience that demonstrates a good understanding of how visitors will interact with and convert through your website.

2. Optimize Your Location 

Many voice users are looking for products and services nearby. Utilize keywords in your website SEO strategy that include the phrases “near me” or “near (your business city)”, including in your meta description and anchor text, to capture people who are looking for results close to them. Include information such as your address, contact info, directions and hours of operation, if applicable. It’s a simple addition that’s valuable to real users who want instant access to this information.

3. Develop long AND short form conversational content ​​​​

Like you, Google wants to provide useful and relevant content to people who are searching, and this includes well thought out articles that answer real questions – the kind that people are asking their voice search devices. This can range from more complicated questions and topics to very short and succinct questions; a good variety will ensure you have a better chance of standing up to the rest of the search results for your content and keywords.

Along these lines, think more generally about how your audience talks about your brand, what questions they have asked and what would be most useful to answer, and what kind of language they use. This is what’s more likely to end up in voice search results. If you’re unsure where to start, Neil Patel recommends a great research tool call Answer the Public which, based on your top keywords entered, will generate insights into consumer’s mindsets.

Overall, to stay ahead of the voice search trend, you need to make modifications to your SEO strategy now that incorporates more human language and fulfills consumer’s expectations. Focusing on boosting your Google ranking through the above tips will also help ensure that you get more website traffic.

If you’re looking for assistance with your SEO strategy and optimization, contact the experts at Digital Envy for advice and more information.