Is Your Small Business Optimized for Voice Search?

Optimizing for voice search can improve the quality and quantity of traffic to your website, and draw more customers to your physical business too.

"Voice search optimization can help you increase brand awareness, boost sales, and outpace the competition by meeting your target audiences where they already are," explains a blog by Shopify.

The Basics of VSO

The process of voice search optimization, also referred to as VSO, is like your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts for text in that you're working to fine-tune content to increase visibility of your business in searches and direct more traffic to your website.

The pursuit is similar, but the approach for VSO is different.

Optimizing for voice search includes targeting local searches and ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, but VSO also requires adapting content to a conversational tone, incorporating keywords and phrases commonly used by consumers in voice searches, and including long-tail keywords that target a specific audience.

"When people use voice search, they tend to speak more naturally, almost as if they're having a conversation," says a digital marketing article by online training provider Simplilearn.  "They ask questions in complete sentences and use everyday language."

Here are three reasons why your small business should optimize for voice searches.

The Rise of AI Voice Assistants

Voice search usage continues to rise as more people turn to their AI-enabled voice assistants to help with everything from shopping to curating playlists.

About 40 percent of U.S. adults use voice search on a daily basis, according to statistics shared by Synup, a New York-based marketing software company. Voice search is even more popular among people between the ages of 25 and 34, with 60 percent saying they use voice search every day, Shopify says in a post.

"Voice queries are poised to represent an increasingly large share of search volumes in the future," the blog says. "Analysts expect the voice assistant market to add more than 20 million users by 2028 and reach a value of nearly $32 billion by 2033."

By the end of 2025, 75 percent of all U.S. households are expected to have a voice-activated smart speaker, reports a blog by NetGuru, a digital acceleration company with expertise in AI adoption.

Helps Direct Customers to Your Local Business

In one poll, 55 percent of consumers said they rely on voice search to help them find local products and businesses, according to a Shopify blog. 

Further, nearly half of all voice searches have local intent, according to statistics shared on the news site Search Engine Land.

"Successful businesses make it easy for customers to find them," exclaims Shopify.

Marketing experts have long advised small businesses to complete their Google My Business listing, and the rise of voice search makes that advice even more important. 

Businesses that have a completed Google My Business profile are 70 percent more likely to attract location-based inquiries via voice search, says the Uberall Voice Search Readiness Report.

"Optimizing for voice search enhances local discoverability, fosters customer engagement, and offers real-time information delivery," explains Synup in a post on its website. "This technology amplifies the impact of positive customer reviews and ratings, ultimately contributing to a local business's success in the local market."

Pay-Off for E-commerce 

Optimizing for voice search can help e-commerce businesses enhance customer experiences, improve conversion rates, and increase their sales.

Ecommerce businesses have the opportunity to capture a larger share of voice-driven search queries (which are growing) and increase visibility in search engine results, explains a post by Tech Funnel. 

"By understanding the nuances of natural language queries and conversational search patterns, you can optimize product listings, content, and website structure to align with the preferences and behaviors of voice search users.

"This optimization improves organic search rankings and enhances discoverability, which drives qualified traffic to your e-commerce platform."

To learn more about SEO and your business, see these best practices and actionable SEO strategies.