According to voice search statistics, 50% of all searches are voice-based while 20% of mobile queries are currently done with voice search. This clearly shows the rise in voice search queries. Most people prefer performing a voice search because it is much more convenient as compared to performing a traditional text-based search.

You don’t have to type everything and worry about correcting spelling and grammatical mistakes in your search queries. As the technology behind voice search matures, we will see more and more use this method to search for information. How can you take advantage of this boom in voice search and ensure that your website and content pop up in the results of voice searches? That is exactly what we will discuss in this article. 

In this article, you will learn about six strategies you can use to rank higher than your competitor.

6 Ways to Outrank Your Competitors On Voice Search Queries

Here are six ways you can use to rank higher than your competitors on voice search.

1. Understand the Customer and Devices

Search engines have become smarter these days. They look at the different data sets to understand the context of your search query and provide a fitting response. Since different people use voice search differently and on different devices, you can not apply one size fits all formula here. You will have to understand the needs of your target customers, how they are using the search and which devices they are using to perform a voice search in order to effectively optimize for voice search.

2. Optimize for Different SERP Features

Did you know that 70% of all answers returned after performing a voice search grabbed a spot on any of the SERP features? In fact, 60% of those results managed to grab the spot on the featured snippet. That is exactly what a voice search study revealed.

Before you can take advantage of this opportunity, you should be aware of different search engine ranking page features. Here is a brief overview of some of the SERP features.

Knowledge Graph – It compiles different facts about people, places, and things and presents them concisely

Knowledge Panel – The knowledge panel is a small box present in the right-hand corner of the search result page. It usually appears when you search for a business. All this information presented in the knowledge panel is extracted from the knowledge graph.

Featured Snippet – Featured snippets appear on top of search results. The information presented in featured snippets usually comes from third-party sources. The core purpose of featured snippets is to provide users instant and relevant answers to their queries on the spot so they don’t have to click on any other result on the search engine ranking page. 

RIch Answer – Whenever a search result contains the aforementioned SERP features, it is known as a rich answer. These rich answers usually pop up for queries that have grown in search volume over the years.

3. Target Conversational Keywords

Voice search does not work the same way as traditional search does. The way users search using their voices is completely different from textual searches. Voice searches usually contain long-tail and conversational keywords while traditional searches contain short or medium-tail keywords. If you want to rank higher for voice search queries, you must target conversational long-tail keywords. This strategy also works for on-page SEO analysis.

4. Create Persona-Centric Content

There are three key characteristics that your content should have in order to rank higher for voice search.

• Relevance
• Context
• Brevity

Create persona-based content which highlights key questions and provides answers to those questions. You can either answer these questions concisely or create in-depth content pieces in order to address the issue. Irrespective of which method you choose, make sure that the content is relevant for that target audience it is created for. When the searcher’s intent matches the results, that is when customer satisfaction increases.

5. Answer Questions

When users performing a voice search looking for some information, they usually use a question that starts from, what, why, how, who, when and where. If you want your website or content to show up in voice search results, you will have to incorporate WH questions and not just any WH questions but questions that your target audience is finding answers to. If your page answers the questions which are bothering your target audience, your chances of showing up search results increase manifolds. Try to answer questions concisely and it will give your content change to get featured in featured snippets or people also ask box.

6. Focus on Mobile and Local Search

Did you know that 31% of smartphone users use voice search once every week and  58% of people have used voice search to find information about local business? Both these statistics clearly show the importance of best alcatel phones and local searches in voice-based search queries. That clearly shows that when people are performing voice searches, they are usually looking for local business information and do it usually through their mobile devices.

Instead of looking at mobile search and local search differently, you should treat both as one when optimizing for voice search. Add an XML sitemap that makes it easy for search engines and people to find your business location and visit your brick and mortar store. You can also claim your business listings on Google My Business and increase your chances of showing up in local search results and location pack in Google.

7. Use Schema Markup for Added Context

Search engines use crawlers to crawl content on your website and understand what’s it is all about. You can simplify this process for search engine crawlers by adding schema markup. This makes it easy for them to understand the context of a page. As a result, search engines can decide which pages are relevant for which search queries and display them. This can also increase your chances of showing up in voice search especially if your pages provide answers to questions users are asking.

How do you optimize your website for voice search? Share it with us in the comments section below.

Author Bio:

Mohammad Ali is an experienced digital marketer and a search engine marketing specialist who is currently associated with HostNoc, as senior digital marketer and brand strategist.