7 Ways to Optimize Your Small Business for AI and Voice Search
How to Ensure You’re Positioning Your Business for the New World of Search
The realm of internet search is seeing some major shifts and changes with the growth of AI-powered and voice searches, both of which are altering how businesses and organizations approach their search marketing tactics. And while major corporations can afford to throw entire teams at this issue, what can you – a local, small business owner – do to keep up with the new search landscape?
Let’s break down the basics of AI-powered search, voice search, and the things you can do to make the most of both.
What Do We Mean by AI-Powered Search?
If you’ve performed any kind of Google search lately, you’ve likely seen the effect of AI-powered search firsthand, in the form of a new box at the very top of the results page, called AI Overview:
But while this is a visible effect of AI search, there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. AI-powered searches go beyond the basic search function of matching a keyword to the content on a website. These engines aim to deliver extremely relevant results by analyzing datasets, assessing in-depth content and context, and weighing brand authority, all with the goal of providing users with information that only gets more accurate over time.
What Exactly Is Voice Search
At its most basic level, voice search is exactly what it sounds like: you speak your query out loud to a device, which then uses speech recognition tech to convert it into text and conduct a search. Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant – all of these are virtual assistants that make voice searches possible, either on mobile devices, smart speakers, and more.
The software marketplace G2 compiled some key stats and facts about the future of voice search:
- In 2023, 71% of internet users preferred to raise a query through voice search as opposed to typing
- 76% of voice searches are for local businesses and information
- 88% of people will visit or call a related store within a day after a local search
- 62% of people use voice search to find local businesses while driving
How You Can Optimize Your Small Business for Voice and AI Search
So it’s pretty clear from the above that handwaving voice and AI search optimization isn’t going to be your best move. But what exactly do you need to do as a small business to maximize your potential in this space? We have a few suggestions:
Create and/or claim your Google My Business Page
Google’s My Business tool is a free, simple way to greatly improve your online presence and ensure your service or storefront is discoverable on Google Search and Google Maps. It lets users quickly and easily find key information like phone number, address, operating hours, websites, and more.
As a business owner, your job is to create and claim your business’s GMB page, ensure it’s up to date and accurate, and take a few steps to help you stand out. Check contact information, but also the description, hours, which category it’s listed under, and any other important logistics. Attributes like “WiFi available” or “free estimate” are key to include, as well as high-resolution images of your business and whatever services or products you offer.
Encourage customer reviews
A key part of Google My Business profiles is the customer reviews, a factor important enough to merit its own section in this list. Because the customer reviews for your business play a significant role in where you rank, particularly for voice search. The higher number of positive reviews you have, the higher up you’ll appear on local search results because the AI engine will view you as credible, reputable, and valuable. So it’s not a bad habit to get into to encourage customers to leave a review on Google after a project or sale is complete.
Be aware, though, that the emphasis is on positive reviews. Having one hundred four- and five-star reviews is worth ten times as much as have a thousand reviews that are all two- and three-star.
Use conversational language and target longtail keywords
This flies directly into the face of those of us who remember the days of keyword targeting and “stuffing,” where your place in the results seemed most dependent on how many times you could use a particular two- or three-word phrase in the text. AI and voice search are far more responsive to natural, conversational tones in content; stuff that’s easy to read, uses concise sentences, and offers quick answers.
This approach to content also makes it easier to target longtail keywords – more specific phrases that have a lower search volume but often provide higher click-thru and purchase rates because they help users find exactly what they’re looking for. In particular, because voice search isn’t restricted to what the person types into a box, these users are more likely to speak naturally, in a way that responds well to longtail keyword optimization.
Aim for Featured Snippets
We’ve talked a little about Featured Snippets before – in our blog on zero-click searches last year. They’re a new-ish feature in search results that appear at the very top of the page and provide direct answers to the user’s query. Optimizing for Featured Snippets can be a gamechanger for your visibility, and a lot of that optimization comes down to content strategy.
Your goal with your website should be to outline and answer common questions about your industry, your products, your services using concise, clear answers. This isn’t a college essay where you need to pad the word count; be natural and straightforward. Utilize headings and subheadings to describe and point to the context and significance of the content below them.
A quick and easy way to hit these targets? Create an FAQ page on your site populated with specific questions and short, conversational answers. They’re easy reference points for both voice and AI search engines.
Develop in-depth, insightful content
The era of AI-driven searches is about content that dives deep and proves both your authority and your expertise. Since AI is assessing the context around a query, not just the top-level words used, it’s going to be looking for results that speak to that intent. The overall aim is to offer users access to the particular resources and information they need, so the more detailed insights you have to offer about your business and industry, the more likely AI and voice searches will view your site as valuable and put you at the top of results.
This folds into brand authority as well. The higher your brand authority, the more likely you’ll pull in AI-driven search traffic, and one of the ways you can do that is content that goes in-depth on the hows and whys of your field.
Utilize schema and structured data
If you haven’t already implemented schema markup – a code that you add to your site to help search engines better understand your content and what your site is about – this is the year you should definitely do that. Structured data like schema are an AI crawler’s best friend when it comes to reading and categorizing what your business has to offer.
Remember Featured Snippets? Schema markup can help your pages end up on there.
Remember longtail keywords? Integrating the ones used most commonly by your customers can help voice and AI search get your site out to more relevant users.
See how all of these are folding together into a whole system of techniques? Awesome. We’ve got one more for you that ties closely with schema.
Don’t forget the other technical details
Structured data is a great way to ensure that AI and voice search engines can crawl your content, but it isn’t the only technical aspect to consider.
- Are you optimized for mobile devices and on-the-go viewing? Do you utilize responsive design elements for better user experience?
- How fast does your site load? Are any pages slow to pull up? Are you losing potential customers who are clicking away rather than waiting?
- What about other optimizations, like images? Are the images you’re using high-quality but huge and unwieldy when it comes to file size? Or are they quick to load but low-quality in a way that’s off-putting?
- Have you taken a look at accessibility features recently? Do any videos on your site include captioning and/or have accompanying transcripts? Do images include alt text for low visibility users?
Taking a look at all of these potential technical factors and making sure you’re addressing them in a responsive way can open you up to a new world of users online.
Optimizing Your Small Business for the Future of Search
If it seems we’ve been talking a lot on here about AI and search marketing, you’re not wrong. It’s a new world and a new generation of best practices and effective techniques in order to keep up with the changes we’re seeing due to AI-powered engines and voice searches. It can feel like a lot to handle, especially if you’re a small business owner trying to tackle it on your own. We hope that the tactics above can help you hone in on what you need to do to make things like voice search work for you, but if you feel like you’d benefit from a partner in this space, we’re ready to jump in.
