Voice assistants have quickly become a staple technology, making modern life easier.
But modern voice searches go beyond the typical “Hey Siri, how’s traffic in [town] today?” Users are now keying in more business-related queries, like “Hey Siri, which flower shop in [town] has the best roses?”
Local voice search is revolutionizing how customers discover and engage with nearby stores, enhancing convenience and accessibility through voice-activated technology.
With potential customers using voice assistants multiple times daily, adopting voice search marketing is critical – optimizing your online presence to make your business appear on voice-based queries.
In this article, we’ll tackle this topic, including these key points:
• Importance of Voice Search Optimization
• Local Voice Search Optimization Strategies
Importance of Voice Search Optimization
About 41% of adults in the U.S. use voice search daily. When your website is optimized for voice searches, you gain better visibility and capture more leads, especially those in your immediate vicinity. These are the specific ways voice search marketing benefits your brick-and-mortar store:
1. Generates More Website Traffic
Voice search engine optimization (SEO) involves creating content that aligns with voice-based search queries.
These types of content typically get featured snippets on search results and are read aloud by voice assistants. Securing that prime real estate spot on the search results page increases brand awareness while generating more traffic and click-through rates than competitors at the bottom.
2. Enhances User Experience
Many people like using voice assistants because they’re more convenient than typing search queries. This is especially useful for people who need immediate information, such as when navigating unfamiliar places or comparing the prices of products they want to buy.
It’s also beneficial for multitaskers. The voice user interface design allows users to find information while performing everyday tasks, like working out or shopping.
By optimizing your website and providing quick answers to search queries, you improve user experience. Essentially, it removes barriers in the customer journey, effectively pushing leads to move from interest to consideration to purchase.
Similarly, people use voice search because the interaction resembles a natural conversation.
As voice search marketing involves creating straightforward, concise content that answers local queries, you accommodate the user’s preference for talking to a conversational guide. This frictionless user experience compels leads to consider your business in their purchase decisions, which voice assistants read aloud from their databases.
3. Increases Competitive Edge in the Local Market
An estimated 76% of voice searches are for things nearby or local. They often contain location phrases like “near me” or “in [city or town].”
In addition, 50% of consumers use voice search to find local businesses. For example, users would likely search “Japanese restaurants near me” or “five-star hotels in Fort Worth, Texas.”
Voice search optimization largely involves local SEO, optimizing Google Business Profiles (GBPs) and targeting local keywords, therefore capturing those high-intent, local searches.
4. Improves Accessibility
By optimizing for a voice user interface, you make information accessible to people with mobility impairments or motor skill limitations. This contributes to expanded audience reach, as you include people with disabilities in your user base.
In the same way, the voice user interface design improves information accessibility for non-tech-savvy users by simplifying the search interaction and eliminating manual typing.
5 Local Voice Search Optimization Strategies
Given the prevalence of voice assistants, brick-and-mortar stores must prioritize optimizing their sites to increase visibility on voice-based queries. This requires performing thorough keyword research, completing business profiles and boosting website performance on mobile devices.
Here are five strategies focussed on local voice search for businesses to help turn website traffic into foot traffic:
1. Optimize Your Business Profile Online
Different voice assistants pull business information from online profiles.
Apple Siri primarily relies on Apple Business Connect, while Amazon Alexa uses the popular directory platform Yelp. Google Assistant gets information from Google Business Profile and Microsoft Cortana depends on Bing Places.
To appear on Google voice search for business and other platforms, your company must have a complete online profile.
Claim your business listing and fill out the essential details, ensuring your business name, address and phone number (NAP) are correct. Don’t leave out other supporting details, like business hours, description and category.
In addition, include professional photos of your brick-and-mortar business, such as the establishment’s exterior and interior spaces, products and services offered, your team in action and customers, if possible.
These images enhance credibility and legitimacy, allowing prospects to trust your business and consider you in their purchase decisions.
2. Focus on Long-Tail Keywords and Natural Language
Voice-based queries are often longer than typed searches because they’re conversational in nature. Users complete their sentences or ask specific questions while talking to voice assistants.
Instead of “roses for sale in Fort Worth,” a voice searcher might say, “where can I buy cheap roses in Fort Worth?”
This is why using long-tail keywords and natural language in your content is important in voice search optimization. The benefit of targeting these types of keywords is that they have lower competition than generic keywords. It’s relatively easier to rank higher for these phrases.
• Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to find conversational keywords that reflect people’s natural language.
• Enter a broad search term related to your brick-and-mortar business and hit “Search.”
The software will then display a list of keywords corresponding to your search term. On the menu bar above the list of keywords, you’ll see the “Questions” tab, which shows a list of natural-sounding search queries phrased in a question format.
In the figure below, you’ll see that for the generic term coffee shops, there’s a local keyword you can target: “where’s the nearest coffee shop?”
These types of long-tail phrases should be part of your content strategy.
3. Create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Page
A well-planned FAQ page increases the likelihood of appearing in voice search results as you can directly address common customer questions and naturally integrate the keywords searchers use into the content.
In fact, it’s more likely to appear in featured snippets in search results, as its question-and-answer format aligns with voice user interfaces or the interaction between a searcher and the voice assistant.
When creating the FAQs page, write the questions in the exact way users speak when they talk to voice assistants. Include local keywords and phrases, like “near me” and location names to match local queries.
More importantly, answer directly and concisely to further optimize for voice user interfaces and ensure that smart assistants understand and communicate key information.
4. Improve Website Load Times and Mobile-Friendliness
People performing voice searches for businesses within their area are often motivated to visit physical stores and make purchases.
They demand quick answers.
Voice assistants often prioritize websites that load quickly so they can retrieve information and deliver it to users quickly. If your website takes too long to load, it’s unlikely to be featured on voice search results.
In addition, remember that voice searchers use their smartphones to get information. You should, therefore, optimize not only your website’s page speed but also its mobile-friendliness.
To improve loading time, compress images and videos to reduce their file sizes without affecting quality. Set up caching headers to allow browsers to store images locally and reduce the time it takes to fetch resources.
Meanwhile, to ensure your website is mobile-friendly, choose a responsive web design. This approach enables the platform to render well on different devices, including smartphones and tablets. Run an SEO audit to examine further the user experience elements you must tweak.
5. Leverage Reviews and Ratings
Voice assistants favor brick-and-mortar businesses with higher ratings when serving results for local queries, especially as they analyze user intent.
For example, if a voice searcher asks, “Hey Siri, what’s the best Japanese restaurant near me?” the smart assistant may look at reviews and ratings to serve the “best” restaurant and match the purpose of the user’s search.
As seen in the figure below, a local Google voice search for business “coffee shops in Fort Worth” displayed a map pack that only included businesses with 4-star ratings. Generating positive customer feedback is an essential part of voice search optimization.
Aside from improving the quality of products and services, here are some effective strategies to increase good customer feedback:
• Simplify the Process: Many customers refuse to leave reviews because it’s often a lengthy process involving logging into a platform or filling out too many forms. To avoid this, make the rating process easy for them. Online reputation management platforms simplify the review generation process, automatically sending a personalized text message asking a customer to leave feedback immediately after a transaction.
• Respond to Existing Reviews: This is especially important when you have negative reviews. You want to acknowledge the customer’s experience and offer solutions to rectify the issue raised. When you effectively address the problem, you’re more likely to turn a negative review into a positive one.
• Promote Your Review Link: Share your Google review link on different platforms, such as your website and social media profiles. This effectively reminds customers to submit feedback at their convenience.
Dominate Local Voice Searches With Thrive
As voice assistants facilitate convenience and promote conversational interactions, people are expected to use these technologies to search for valuable information. The continued advancements in voice user interface, particularly natural language processing, enhance smart assistants’ ability to understand nuances in local queries, thereby increasing the accuracy of search results. This further adds to people’s reliance on voice assistants for search.
The rise of local voice searches presents a huge challenge for brick-and-mortar businesses to keep up with user behavior trends and make their brand highly visible in online spaces that matter. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency can help here as we develop robust digital marketing strategies that cover a variety of local SEO solutions, from Google Business Profile optimization to responsive web design solutions.
Our agency is a recognized trailblazer in the industry, proficient in increasing brick-and-mortar businesses’ online visibility amid innovative technologies, including smart assistants. Book a consultation now and let us help you dominate the local voice search.
