SEO
Tips For Leveraging The Power Of Voice Search Optimization
Imagine two businesses competing for the same customers.
Let’s call them Store A and Store B.
They are identical except for one thing: Store A has a location that’s easier for 7 out of 10 customers to access.
Which company will do more business?
You don’t need an MBA to figure this out – Store A offers more convenience and will therefore grab more market share.
Now, consider one convenience you can add to your website that will make a similar impact: voice search.
According to Statista, there will be 8 billion voice assistants in use worldwide by 2024.
That’s a lot of people speaking into their phones or smart speakers.
And if you’re not optimizing your web content to account for it, you’re leaving a lot of opportunities on the table.
Why are so many people using this functionality? Why is it important for search engine optimization? And more importantly, how do you claim your share?
Read on for answers to these questions and more.
How Popular Is Voice Search?
We’ve already established how many people prefer to use the voice search capabilities on their devices, but let’s look at some other relevant statistics, just to drill home the importance of taking advantage of this trend:
- In 2022, 35% of Americans over 18 own a smart speaker (up from 32% in 2021).
- 62% of Americans over 18 use voice assistants on their devices.
- One of the top three reasons consumers want a smart speaker is to ask questions without needing to type.
- 80% of smart speaker owners find it easier to use to discover new content and events.
- 57% of voice assistant users use it at least once per day.
As you can see, smart speaker and voice assistant usage is growing more popular in the competition for search traffic, and is only expected to rise.
And there are two key things that we haven’t even mentioned yet – accessibility and UX (user experience).
Voice Search Improves Accessibility
The US Department of Justice has been clear: Websites fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
And non-compliance can cost you more than potential traffic – you can be fined as much as $75,000 for a first offense.
Voice search plays a big role in ensuring your website can be accessible to everyone.
This includes those with physical limitations that restrict them from using the keyboard and mouse, those with repeated stress injuries who need to limit their time using keyboards and mouses, and people with cognitive issues who prefer to use voice search.
A lot of this functionality relies on speech recognition technology, but you may not realize the way your website is coded can also have a big impact.
According to the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative), there are several best practices your site should adhere to in order to ensure accessibility, including reading order corresponding with code order, the use of alt tags for images, and adding markup to convey meaning and context.
For a complete list of the WAI’s recommendations and information on implementing them, click here.
Voice Search UX Outcomes For Users
The link between good UX and improved search engine results has been well demonstrated. And the growth of voice search means designing your UX around voice interaction is becoming more important.
How your brand interacts with different voice search-enabled devices can significantly determine whether users have a positive or negative experience.
But before addressing this, you need to understand how people use voice search.
One of its main uses is informational.
Say you’re elbow deep in pasta dough, making tortellini while a red sauce simmers away in a pot on the stove.
You can’t remember how long the sauce is supposed to be on, so without taking the time to wash and dry your hands, you call out to your smart speaker, “Hey Google, how long should tomato sauce cook?”
Or you’re hanging out with some friends when one of your buddies refuses to believe Willie Mays ever played for the Mets.
A quick voice search can help you, once again, demonstrate your superior baseball knowledge.
In addition to settling arguments, many people also use it to check the news and weather.
Another common use is “near me” searches.
For example, you’re on a road trip in a state you’ve never been to. Your car is running on fumes, and you must find a gas station as soon as possible.
Without ever taking your eyes off the road, voice search can direct you to the nearest place to fill your tank.
And of course, there’s voice shopping, which was briefly touched on earlier.
From making shopping lists to ordering pizza to purchasing products with voice alone, more and more people are initiating and completing purchases without ever looking at a screen.
The uses for voice search are growing right alongside its increasing popularity.
So, that raises the question: how do you get in on it?
Prioritize Your Voice Search Efforts By Channel And Audience
When developing your voice SEO strategy, you must understand the capabilities and limitations of the platform you’re designing for. There are two approaches here:
- Screen-first devices like smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs.
- Voice-first devices like smart speakers.
Each of these offers different strengths.
Screen-first devices (when the screen is being utilized) offer an efficient output for information.
Visual scanning is faster than listening and can be used to convey more info in less time. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Voice-first devices, on the other hand, provide an efficient input.
Users can give commands quickly and easily on their own terms.
Of course, this relies on the device understanding natural language, a technology that has vastly improved since voice commands were in their infancy.
Depending on your website’s content, your user demographics, and a host of other factors, your users may be more inclined to prefer one type of device over the other.
You also need to understand at which stage of the buyer journey voice search is used.
More people are using voice assistants to research products than buy them, with 44.4% of U.S. consumers using them to browse new products, but only 24.2% using them to complete a purchase.
Most of these purchases are small items that don’t require being looked at, such as toilet paper or dog food.
Take all these factors into account, then tailor your voice strategy to your specific audience and channel.
Once you have that done, it’s time to get down to the nuts and bolts of optimizing your content.
Optimizing Your Content For Voice Search
If you don’t have much experience designing vocal user experiences or VUI (vocal user interfaces), don’t worry – this is fairly new ground.
While these are different from GUIs (graphical user interfaces), the UX/UI principles still apply, as does the effect user experience has on your search ranking.
Here are some important elements to consider when designing your VUI or converting over existing content to optimize it for voice search:
Start With A Plan
Rather than tackling your VUI and/or voice search optimization piecemeal, you should spend time developing a flowchart explaining how voice search users will navigate through your site.
Doing some upfront planning will save you lots of headaches, hassle, and duplicate work on the backside.
Make Interaction Natural
Voice searchers use natural language to find things, often using more words.
Whereas a desktop searcher might type [Chinese delivery nearby], someone using voice search is more likely to say, “Where’s a good Chinese delivery place near me?”
The same long-tail keywords used for ordinary SEO purposes will come into play in voice search.
Try to use full phrases and queries, which are even better than long-tail keywords. And make sure you’re always thinking about user intent.
Design For Flow
Earlier, we mentioned how your HTML, CSS, and other code should be structured the same way a person would read your site so it tells the same story in voice search.
You also need to take this sequential approach to structure your content.
Make sure the content follows a logical course.
Create verbal tags that can be easily navigated by voice alone (e.g., “select option #2″).
Improve Your Domain Authority
Here’s where your regular SEO efforts can pay dividends for voice SEO.
Voice search almost always selects the first search result to answer a query.
That makes it crucial to have your site fully optimized for ordinary search.
Check your backlinks, maximize your keywords, boost your local search, and do all the other tasks that come with SEO, and it will also reap rewards in voice search.
Grab Featured Snippets
Featured snippets aren’t just great for mobile and desktop search – they’re also used to answer voice search results.
In fact, 60% of all voice search answers come from featured snippets.
So, if your content claims this valuable real estate for a query, you will get the lion’s share of voice traffic.
Get Local
Because so many voice searchers are looking for local answers, your content needs to be optimized for it.
If you’re not already, get listed in Google’s local rankings.
If you’re already there, work to improve your results.
The goal is to be the answer when someone searches Google to answer queries like, [Where can I get a dress altered near me?]
Voice Search Is Only Going To Grow
Some technologies burn bright for a few years and then completely fade away – remember HD DVD?
Voice search is unlikely to be one of them.
Instead, it’s finding new uses and an even larger niche as technology becomes more advanced.
If anything, it’s the keyboard and mouse model we’ve grown to know and love that is more likely to become obsolete, especially should Elon Musk’s futuristic Neuralink catch on.
The most important thing in this sci-fi-come-to-life world will be user experience.
It’s not farfetched to imagine AI-powered search learning our likes and dislikes and providing answers customized to our unique intent.
The best way to ensure you’re prepared for this brave new world is to harness the existing cutting-edge technologies to ensure you’ve future-proofed your position as much as possible.
And that means leveraging the power of voice search.
It’s the foundation upon which much of the future of search will be built, which makes it crucial that you get on board.
Your targets are speaking. Make sure your website is listening.
More resources:
Featured Image: Prostock-studio/Shutterstock
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
SEO
Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome
Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.
The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.
Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025
Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.
Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The statement reads:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”
Continued Engagement With Regulators
Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.
This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.
The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.
Transition Period & Impact
In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.
However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.
The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.
While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.
Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.
Publisher & Advertiser Implications
The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.
Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.
However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.
With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
SEO
How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results
ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.
However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.
To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.
Writing Prompts For ChatGPT
What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?
A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.
The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.
Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.
ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.
How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT
Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”
ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.
Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.
If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.
For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”
Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.
However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.
Must-Have GPTs Assistant
I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.
This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.
It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)
For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.
With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.
Master Reverse Prompt Engineering
ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.
By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.
One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.
This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.
Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.
Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts
First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.
- Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.
- Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.
Go Deeper
Prompts and examples for SEO:
- Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
- Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
- Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”
Important Considerations:
- Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
- Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
- Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.
Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.
Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.
Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques
Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.
Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.
Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.
This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.
More resources:
Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock
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