The recent SMX West conference featured an energetic discussion about optimizing content for voice searches. Google’s increasing demand for online responses to voice queries has lead to what one speaker claimed is a rapid shift from GUI to LUI, i.e., from graphical to linguistic user interface. Another speaker advised that SEOs understand ins and outs of Google’s voice processing technology (did you know that Google sometimes favors speed over accuracy?), while another offered practical advice about length and formatting of content snippets.
Key Takeaways:
- Google utilizes many metrics in voice recognition applications including word accuracy, vocal quality recognition, complexity of language, unknown words, and time to search.
- Vocal search responses tend to work well as paragraph snippets and account for the majority of these responses with lists and table snippets being much less utilized.
- Chatbots or other voice searches can also be utilized to provide FAQs to the customers by optimizing metrics, technology, user interface, and leveraging the type of language used.
“Overall, the message was that Google is actively devouring online content to serve up in response to voice queries, and yet there’s still quite a bit of competitive advantage to be gained in an atmosphere where SEOs may not yet have caught on to the range of opportunities for voice optimization.”