Google’s Panda and Penguin updates have received considerable attention over the past few years. Still, the only update that entirely changed the search engine space is Hummingbird, which was released almost five years ago. This marked the beginning of Google’s efforts to interpret audience intentions.

With natural language processing, this update enables Google to start understanding user intent. It allows users to search using natural language (words and grammar). Without it, we would still enter keywords in the search bar and try to figure out what should be enclosed in quotes.

How Hummingbird Guides Voice Search

Imagine a situation where you tried to use voice search without Google understanding the language of the conversation. You would still be able to find the most relevant search results by altering queries.

You may still have to use the old search in the search results: “Cinema is my city,” “Open now” and “Black Panther.” Hummingbirds lay the foundation that makes voice search possible and very easy to use.

Google’s job is getting deeper now: it does not only understand your requirements based on the words and phrases you use but also learn your voice patterns and accents. Therefore, you need to ensure that the content you have created is optimized for voice search, try these five steps.

1) Think FAQ

Although the natural language is more common than in the past. It is essential to remember that there are still differences between the phrases people use in voice search and traditional online search. 

When performing a Google search, you may have noticed some of these differences:

Typing: cinema time

Voice: Tell me when to watch a movie

Input: Thai food delivery service in my area

Voice: Which restaurants offer Thai food?

Type: Direction of Six Flags

Voice: Take me to six flags

Pay attention, and you will notice a pattern. When you talk to a customer on the phone, they will possibly use the same words and phrases as a voice search.

One option is the FAQ page. After all, when you ask Google questions, what better reflects the voice digest answers you receive? Usually, a short answer to a query.

Don’t become territories about vocabulary or product names. 

Instead, learn the language your customers use when searching for the product you want to offer.

2) Use structured data

Creating relevant content for your Los Angeles  SEO company’s blog is the best way to optimize it for voice search. There are other ways to help search engines better understand your content and how they should be ranked and classified.

Studies have shown that using a framework markup language does not directly affect page ranking. But it can still help optimize your website and blog content for voice search.

If you’ve searched for a specific type of business and you’ve seen search engine results showing business hours, contact details, and other data, that’s because of structured data.

When you search for recipes, you often see another example. When the search results show pictures, cooking steps, and ingredients, it’s because the markup language is used to highlight the information in the content of the site.

To make sure everything is ready, use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to verify that you are working correctly.

3) Make sure the content is mobile-friendly

As mentioned earlier, mobile devices are the primary source of voice search in Los Angeles SEO company; that’s why about 1,000,000,001 of your websites or blogs should be mobile friendly!

Now it may be an excellent time to see if it is as mobile-friendly as you think it is. Fortunately, there are many tools to test whether your website is mobile-friendly. When testing your website, you may be surprised to find that you can make some adjustments.

To optimize your voice search, take the time and resources to clean up any issues you are experiencing now.

If you want to give up using the tools, remember the basics of app-friendly content writing and page layout:

• Use enough white space.
• Break down the content into short paragraphs.
• Use subtitles, bullet points, and numbered lists.
• Do not use poorly performing scripts or images.

Be concise. If you are not suitable will content writing, then it may be time to outsource at least some of these tasks.

4) Goals of featured clips

Sometimes if you ask Google a question, it will get the answer directly from the website and organize it directly at the top of the first page of the SERP. It is called an answer box, and the featured snippet or position is zero.

Use keywords that best show featured snippets in searches, including words such as best, recipe, cost, price, and definition. According to Ahrefs, 99.58% of the time in Google’s feature summary, only Google pages have ranked in the top 10.

5) Own Your Google My Business Information

Voice search is a local search, so the best way to optimize for voice is to optimize locally. 

On your website, all you need to do is add your location and contact information where it’s obvious. Include information in the header or footer of each web page. This way, people don’t have to look for it.

It does not mean you should not have a contact information page. You absolutely should. It needs to include your primary contact and location information, as well as other information, such as an online contact form.

Conclusion: Voice search will grow with the development of mobile technology

As long as mobile device usage continues to surge (and there’s no reason to believe it won’t), users will use voice search more often, so it makes sense to optimize this.

Fortunately, many of the steps you take to do this have a triple benefit: improved overall mobile optimization, better communication of your content with Google, and the ability to increase opportunity. 

Now people can even search using smartphone applications like Google Assist and Amazon Alexa, so make sure your Los Angeles  SEO company is optimized for voice search.