Voice search is rapidly becoming a key part of how people find information online, and optimizing for it is now essential for businesses that want to stay competitive in search. A significant portion of internet users rely on voice assistants every day, making this type of search an important consideration for your SEO strategy.
This guide highlights eight effective tactics you can use to make your website more voice-search friendly. From using natural language keywords to improving technical performance and creating accessible content, each strategy is designed to help you attract voice traffic and rank better in spoken search results.
1. Use Conversational, Long-Tail Keywords
Unlike typed queries, people tend to speak in natural, conversational phrases when using voice search. For example, instead of typing a few keywords, someone might ask a full question.
To capture this type of traffic, focus on long-tail keywords that mimic conversational speech. These keywords often include common question words like what, how, and where. Research tools can help you discover the actual questions people ask in your niche.
For instance, a meal delivery service might optimize content around questions such as “What’s the healthiest meal delivery option?” by answering those questions directly within posts or dedicated pages.
2. Target Featured Snippets (Position Zero)
Featured snippets are short answers that appear at the top of search results and are often what voice assistants read aloud. Securing a featured snippet can significantly increase your chances of answering voice queries.
To target these, provide clear, concise answers to typical questions in your content. Use formatting like bullet points, numbered lists, or brief paragraphs to help search engines easily understand and extract your answers.
For example, a skincare brand could create step-by-step “How to” guides addressing common concerns, increasing the likelihood of being picked up as a direct answer.
3. Focus on Local SEO
A large number of voice searches have local intent, with people asking for nearby services or directions. To capture this traffic, focus on strong local SEO practices.
Make sure your business name, address, and phone number are accurate and consistent across your site and listings. Encourage customer reviews and use local keywords in your content and pages that mention your city or service area.
Local businesses can also implement location-based schema markup and create dedicated pages for specific locations to make it clear where they operate. Try out our local seo services!
4. Improve Website Speed
Voice search users expect fast answers, and slow-loading pages can harm your chances of ranking well. Good page speed is important not only for voice search but also for overall SEO performance.
Improving speed might include compressing large images, reducing unnecessary code, enabling caching, eliminating excessive redirects, and using faster hosting. These improvements benefit all users, whether they search by voice or text.
5. Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data, also known as schema markup, helps search engines better understand your content. By providing additional context through this code, you make it easier for search engines to interpret key details on your pages.
For local businesses, specific schema types like LocalBusiness, Restaurant, or Product can highlight useful attributes such as business hours, menu items, pricing, and reviews — all of which increase your chances of appearing in voice search results.
For a restaurant, this might mean ensuring search engines recognize details about cuisine type, location, and hours so that voice assistants can answer queries like “What’s the best sushi restaurant near me?”
6. Create Voice-Friendly Content
Content optimized for voice search needs to be clear, direct, and easy to speak. People using voice search want straightforward answers, not dense blocks of text.
Best practices include:
- Addressing common questions up front
- Writing in plain language with short sentences
- Organizing content with descriptive subheadings and bullet points
- Using conversational titles that resemble spoken queries
- Keeping paragraphs brief
FAQ pages work particularly well because they naturally structure questions and answers in a way that aligns with how people speak voice queries.
If you run a business with multiple locations, creating dedicated pages for each location — including addresses and directions — helps people find the closest option quickly.
7. Improve Accessibility
Voice search isn’t just convenient — it also makes the web more accessible to users with disabilities. Making your website more accessible helps these users and can also support better voice search performance.
Key accessibility practices include:
- Adding descriptive alt text to images
- Using clear anchor text for links
- Providing transcripts or captions for media
- Using semantic HTML that accurately describes content sections
These steps improve the user experience for everyone and can make your content easier for voice assistants to interpret.
8. Explore Voice-Specific Features
As voice technology evolves, new tools and features are emerging that give you more ways to connect with voice search users.
Consider developing custom features like voice assistant skills or actions that work with popular devices. You can also use speakable markup — a type of structured data that highlights sections of content suitable for audio playback, making it more likely to be read aloud by assistants.
Additionally, as voice shopping becomes more common, optimizing content for conversational queries on retail platforms and shopping assistants can open new opportunities for ecommerce businesses.
Getting Voice-Search Ready
To succeed in voice search optimization, put yourself in the shoes of your audience and think about how they might ask questions out loud. Try performing voice searches yourself to see which content ranks best and learn from those patterns.
Voice search technology continues to grow, so continually testing and refining your approach will help you stay ahead of competitors and reach a wider audience through spoken queries.
