Beginner's Guide To Voice Search SEO

Scott Stockdale
Scott Stockdale
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Want more organic traffic? Voice search is changing the way people find information online, and websites that adapt are gaining a big advantage.

The good news? If your site already follows solid SEO practices, you might only need a few tweaks to tap into this growing trend.

In this guide, you’ll learn what voice search SEO is, why it matters, and how to make your website ready for the future of search. Let’s dive in.

Sidenote: If you want to dive deeper into SEO, check out my complete SEO bootcamp:

SEO bootcamp

Updated for 2025, this course is a straight-talking training guide to driving Google traffic to your website using SEO keyword research, link building, content optimization techniques, the latest tools and techniques, and so much more.

And with that out of the way, let’s get into the guide!

What is voice search SEO?

It probably comes as no surprise, but over 40% of adults now use voice search daily, asking everything from technical advice and tool recommendations, to cooking recipes and getting your Spotify playlists to start.

In the past, this used to be the domain of voice assistants such as Alexa or Google Home. However, as more and more people have become comfortable with using voice search, their habits of how they search on other devices has started to change towards voice search thanks to its convenience.

The main difference though? Far more of these searches lead users to websites for detailed answers, actionable insights, or service providers - not just quick responses from their devices.

For example

Imagine you’re driving home after a coffee meeting with a client to talk about their website changes, and they’ve asked for a feature that you’re not entirely sure of, or are perhaps looking for workarounds.

It’s probably on your mind as you drive back right? And so as you pull up to park, you might quickly say:

Hey Siri, What’s the best way to speed up a slow WordPress site on a budget?

Maybe so you don’t have to recode the whole thing from scratch.

Your phone starts to list a few things you can do, and you grab it as you get out the car and click through to the article that it’s citing in the voice response.

This kind of thing is happening more and more frequently, and voice search SEO is how you capture this traffic. It’s the process of optimizing your website to rank for these conversational, voice-driven queries.

And the good news is, it’s fairly easy to do…

How to optimize for voice search SEO

Optimizing for voice search isn’t about reinventing the wheel. It builds on SEO fundamentals you’re probably already familiar with, but it takes things one step further to align with how people use voice assistants.

So let’s break it down step by step.

Step #1. Start with solid technical SEO

Your site needs to load fast and responsive on mobile.

This is because the majority of voice search that gets click throughs is on mobile devices, and people are not going to wait for a slow loading page or deal with a bad UX from screens that don’t fit on mobile devices.

Not only that but Google uses mobile-first indexing which means your site is ranked based on how well it performs on a smartphone. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly or fast, it’s unlikely to rank for either voice or traditional searches.

Use Google’s site speed test to measure load times as well as pinpoint issues like text that’s too small or buttons that are hard to tap.

web site speed test

Fixing these ensures a positive experience for both users and search engines.

Finally, make sure your site has an SSL certificate so that people don’t get security warnings when they try to load the page!

SSL-warning

It’s kind of crazy how many sites have this and then wonder why traffic has dropped, so make sure it’s up and working.

Step #2. Optimize for ‘conversational’ Rich Snippets

Alright so, now it’s time to actually optimize our on-page SEO for voice search. The good news is that if you’re already following good SEO practices, (which you will if you take my course wink wink), then you’re only a few steps away from optimizing for voice search.

This is because the backbone of voice search is rich snippets.

RICH SNIPPET EXAMPLE

If you don’t know what these are, they are those concise, structured answers that often appear at the very top of Google’s search results.

What’s really cool about these is that if you rank for this term, you can show up ABOVE the #1 result - even if your article doesn’t rank on page 1 for its focus keyword. That means free traffic!

Better still, voice assistants love rich snippets. In fact, most voice search responses are pulled directly from them, so if you’re already optimizing your pages to rank for rich snippets, you’re 99% of the way there.

All you need to do now is tweak your snippets to make them more conversational and aligned with how people naturally use voice search. Simple!

But don’t worry if you’ve never done this before. Let’s walk you through how to do these super quick.

Start off by identifying the questions your audience is asking that are relevant to your target article

The first step for adding rich snippets to an article is to simply check that article topic and see what the most common questions people have around it. Then, see if any rich snippets are already showing up.

There are a few methods for this. You could put the top ranking article on the topic into a tool like ahrefs, and then filter it by rich snippets to see what terms it ranks for.

check current rich snippets

This way you know these exist and can target them directly.

Alternatively, you can also enter the focus keyword for your article topic into Google, and then check out the ‘People also ask’ section.

people also ask

Not all of them will be relevant, but some will be and they might also be things you’ve missed that the audience wants to know about.

Add these questions into your content

Once you know the questions your audience is asking, the next step is weaving them into your content in a logical way - where they fit.

Simply:

  • Check out the post - are you answering these questions already?
  • If not, are there parts you could add to so you cover this? Perhaps rephrasing a few words in a sentence?
  • Could you add a new section that would fit and make sense in the article to include these?
  • Or maybe even a little FAQ at the end?

Easy right? The only real difference now from doing this with rich snippets and Voice search is to make your answers more conversational and sound more human.

So rather than "Enhanced for loop explanation” it becomes “What is an enhanced foreach loop in Java?

Once you’ve done that and added these all in, there’s one more step you can take that can help even further.

Step #3. Use schema markup to structure your content

Schema markup is additional code you can add to a page that tells search engines what your content is about. For voice search, this is a game-changer.

I go into far more detail of all the steps to set this up in this guide here, but here’s a mile high look of how to make the most of it:

  • FAQ schema: Mark up your FAQ sections so search engines know they’re formatted as questions and answers
  • How-to schema: If your content includes step-by-step instructions, use How-to schema to make it easy for search engines to feature your guides
  • Article schema: Use this for blog posts and detailed guides. It helps search engines understand the context and relevance of your content, especially for longer informational queries
  • Test your schema: Use Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool to ensure your schema is correctly implemented and visible to search engines

If you do each of these to your new rich snippet added articles, you’ll be far more likely to show up in voice search results. Not only that, but it can also help with rich snippets and even impressions in the SERPS.

Bonus: How to do Voice Search for local SEO

Want to know the good news? Voice Search for local businesses is even easier to set up.

While because while broader voice search queries need to rely on rich snippets or complex optimization, local voice search is all about showing up for local results that include high-intent queries like:

  • "Where’s the nearest coffee shop?"
  • "What time does the hardware store close?"
  • "How do I get to business name?"

In fact, there’s only really 2 things you need to do.

Make sure that you claim your Google My Business (GMB) profile

GMB ensures your business appears in local listings, Google Maps, and voice search responses for nearby queries.

Google My Business profile

Just make sure your GMB listing is complete, with accurate information like:

  • Business name
  • Address
  • Phone number (NAP)
  • Operating hours

And make sure to fill out the category that describes your business accurately. This is the core information that Voice Search will pull from.

Once you’ve done that, you might also want to look into adding a review process to tie into this.

Encourage reviews

User reviews play a massive role in local voice search result and your web traffic and sales:

  • Search engines trust businesses with positive customer feedback and are more likely to feature them
  • Likewise, customers will look at reviews when they click through and decide where to go!

A simple follow-up email or in-store request can help with this. However, you’re probably better off using some referral marketing tools to help with this, as they can automate the process and get the reviews for you.

referral marketing tools

The companies with the stand our review scores all use tools like this. Why? If you're busy, this is one of those things that can get ignored, but it can have a huge impact.

But that’s it for local search. Easy right?

Set up Voice Search for your own content today!

Voice search is here, and it’s changing how people find content online. The best way to take advantage? Start optimizing your own site for this today.

All you need to do is start optimizing for rich snippets (and best technical SEO practices), add some conversational flare and then get it ranked with Schema.

It sounds like a lot but the traffic benefit to each article all adds up. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see the results. Go ahead—take that first step and see how much of a difference it can make!

By the way, if you want to learn both technical and non-technical skills that you need to have a successful career in the tech industry, then come join us as a member of Zero To Mastery.

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