Two years ago, experts predicted that more than half of web users will use voice search, so preparing your dental websites for voice search makes perfect sense. As we see new technology and trends emerge every year, so too we must shift the limitations of the way we market our businesses and websites. One of the biggest challenges, trends, and changes in the online world is voice search, which started with IBM’s Watson in 2010.
Fast forward to 10 years and such powerful voice recognition software such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Alice, and AliGenie were released for public use. Voice recognition technology has since been improved extraordinarily. Google said its software is 95% accurate while the Chinese iFlytek speech recognition system is said to be 98% accurate.
So, how does this affect dental websites and SEO ranking? How can we make our websites more voice-search-friendly?
Natural Language
People don’t search with the accuracy and directness of how they search online. They don’t say “Siri, dentist near me,” which is the easiest way for Google to come up with relevant links of dental clinics near your location. Instead, people will talk to Siri and Alexa as if they’re humans. They will ask, “Siri, who are the dentists near me?” A study found out that 70% of English voice searches were done using natural or conversational language.
This means that the voice-recognition software you will use for your dental websites should be able to understand questions in the form of inquiries. It should recognize what a user is trying to ask even if it is not coded and doesn’t use the exact keyword.
Keyword Length
Web users are not going to be hindered by having to type their queries when they search for information online. They won’t ask questions in coded and keyword-rich sentences. Rather, their queries will be longer than the three- or four-word keywords that are usually being used to optimize websites. You need to focus on long-tail keywords because the average length of voice searches is 29 words. The longer the keywords are, the higher the chances of getting web visitors to convert.
Question Words
People are going to start their query sentences with who, what, where, why, and how. These are the same words we don’t usually see on written searches. This means your dental websites must be optimized enough to recognize these question words. Your site should be able to come up with simple and complex answers to these voice queries. It is the more comprehensive answers that generate a lot of web traffic. Google mostly provides simple answers through featured search snippets.