While vocalising – rather than typing – search queries is far from new, the popularity of “voice search” has recently been encouraged by the uptake of smart speaker devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Did you know that 50% of all searches are tipped to be voice searches next year?

For this reason, you can’t afford not to optimise your content accordingly – and it might not be a simple matter of replicating what you are already doing for SEO, as the following points indicate.

Make special efforts to catch local searchers

Of course, voice search has long been an option on smartphones – and, with voice-related searches on these three times likelier to take the local area into account, you need keywords to suit.

Include your location in those keywords, such as “painting and decorating in Manchester”, and update your firm’s Google My Business and Yelp listings if you haven’t checked them for too long.

Keep your keyword phrases conversational

When calling on the likes of Siri or Alexa, searchers often speak as though they are conversing with a robot assistant akin to Rosie of The Jetsons fame. Hence, a searcher might not utter just “painting and decorating Manchester”, but instead “find me a painter and decorator in Manchester”.

Google has heeded this trend, and so hands strengthened prominence to websites with content using conversational keyword phrases, though you should be careful to avoid keyword stuffing.

Answer expected queries clearly and concisely

What questions may your target customers want to ask you? For those questions, you might have useful answers which you should articulate in a straightforward, jargon-free fashion.  If you’re unsure how to do this without dumbing down the content, we could strike the right balance for you with our copywriting services, which are available if you phone 020 3070 1959.