Siri, Alexa, Cortana.  No, they’re not a girl you used to know in college or the name of a new fancy cocktail.  They are some of the most widely known voice assistants on mobile and smart devices used to perform voice searches online.  With voice search becoming more widely used, it is vital to optimizing your content for it.

Voice search became a larger trend in the SEO world recently and the more this new technology advances and its accessibility increases, the more its use will grow as well.  As it stands now, more than half of searchers online use voice search for basic searches as opposed to traditional online searches.

Voice search is much faster.  It’s much easier for users to speak into a device than it is to type.  And they get faster results by being able to hear answers or having them immediately listed on a screen.

It is important to have SEO optimized content for regular physical searches, but it is even more important to have high-quality content that is voice-search optimized.  Having FAQs and answers that are optimized for assistants like Siri can go far in getting your content ranked higher.

Here are a few things to do when optimizing your content for voice search:

• • Conversational Voice – Typically when you do a search online you plugin just a few words without making a sentence to find what you’re looking for. But with voice search, people use conversational phrases since they are speaking to their virtual assistant.  You should use keyword phrases that are conversational and use words like “who”, “what”, and “where” when producing content.

• • Localize – Typically voice searches tend to be local so it’s important to use geo-targeted keywords in your content.  Use phrases like “near me”,  certain local landmarks, and phrases that describe the neighborhood you are in.  This is vital if you’re a local small business or have a target audience in mind that is centralized in a specific geographic location.

• • Rank Higher – Try to rank high as a featured snippet in search results. Users want immediate answers and results so they tend to favor listings that are at the top of the search result list.  Create content in a way to rank high for both answers and questions specific to your particular business topics.  Make sure you have updated information for your business like your address, hours, and services you provide.  It’s also a good idea to have high positive reviews on your page.

Use these guidelines to make your content ready for voice searches and to maximize your visibility and grow your business.  A cocktail buzz may fade away like a memory, but the growing trend of voice search is here to stay.