Voice Search has a direct impact on eCommerce.
In fact, online shopping via voice search has grown at a rapid pace in the past few years.
According to Official Google data, voice search is already being used by over 27% of the online global population on mobile.
The OC&C Strategy Consultants report also revealed that the money spent on online shopping via voice search will reach up to $40 Billion USD in 2022.
The above report also found that around 36% of people who own a smart speaker use voice search to place orders online.
Now, there are two primary reasons for this:
- Increasing mobile traffic
- Growth of smart speaker sales
The point is, if you want to survive in the eCommerce market in 2022, you’re going to have to adapt to this new trend.
And for that, you will be required to change your approach to your Magento 2 store navigation & SEO.
In this post, we’ve shared 5 practical tips to help you optimize your Magento 2 store for voice search in 2022.
5 Practical Tips to Optimize Magento 2 Store for Voice Search
Believe it or not, hundreds of proactive Magento 2 merchants have already started voice search features to their online stores.
And if you don’t add voice search features to your Magento 2 store as soon as possible, your competitors will soon gain a competitive advantage over you, resulting in losing traffic & sales.
Fortunately, it is fairly easy to optimize your Magento 2 store for voice search.
So without any further ado, let’s get right into it.
1 – Mobile Optimization
According to Statista, the global mobile retail commerce sales have already reached over 70% of total global eCommerce sales in 2021.
And if you want to get a piece of that pie, you need to make mobile optimization the number one priority in your Magento 2 store.
You see, Google has already been following the mobile-first indexing approach.
So, if you want to keep your Magento 2 store at the top of voice search results, you need to start taking necessary steps starting with:
- Develop a mobile-first version of your Magento 2 store.
- Test your Magento 2 store design for UX.
- Test mobile speed loading and make required improvements (if any).
- Make sure all mobile pages are included in your sitemap.
- Ensure that the desktop content & metadata are the same for mobile devices.
Besides this, we also strongly recommend you consider embracing the PWA technology.
With Magento PWA Development, you can transform your regular Magento 2 store into Magento PWA Store and gain higher rankings in voice search results.
2 – Aim for Google Zero Position
The zero position was mainly created by Google to let internet users see the answer to their question without clicking on the website, which also saves Google from indexing millions of pages.
But, being at Google’s zero position in search results also means Google considers your answer as the best and it will be directly read to all voice searchers.
And here are a couple of things to keep in mind for getting to zero position:
- Use requests and keywords that have zero blocks
- Include the main keyword in the question you’re planning to answer
- Write a clear, relevant, and concise answer using either list of bullet points
3 – Use a Semantic Strategy Instead of Keyword
Ever since Google released the Hummingbird update, long-tail keywords & the context became more popular & valuable for ranking higher in Google search results.
This is mainly because the Hummingbird update emphasizes more on the natural language and focuses on making online interactions more human.
Therefore, you need to prioritize visitors’ needs instead of text search keywords.
The voice search queries often include question keywords like what, why, how, etc., which is why it’s best to prioritize & use a semantic strategy.
4 – Speed Optimization
Speed optimization is another necessity that must be addressed if you want to rank higher for voice search queries.
A study has already shown that over 50% of online shoppers abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
And when it comes to voice search, people expect even faster results.
However, here are some steps you can take to optimize the speed of your Magento 2 store & attain higher rankings for voice search queries:
- First of all, test your Magento 2 store in the Google PageSpeed Insights tool
- Analyze the list of issues as well as recommendations provided for speed improvement
- Take necessary action to improve the speed of your Magento 2 store
- Test your Magento 2 store again to ensure the actions you performed had a positive effect
Usually, Google recommends deferring offscreen images, resizing images, minifying JS & CSS files, etc.
5 – Structure Your Store Navigation As Per the New Customer Journey Map
In order to create a new customer journey map and abide by it, first, you need to analyze the behavior of voice search users and their sales funnel.
Analyzing the behavior & sales funnel of voice search shoppers will help you figure out how they come to one of your product pages and what actions they perform before placing their orders.
Through this process, you will also discover at what stage voice search shoppers abandon your store without placing their orders and why.
All of this, in the end, will help you to create a new customer journey map and structure your Magento 2 navigation accordingly.
Ending Thoughts…
Voice Search is soon going to become mainstream for shopping online. Therefore, it’s absolutely essential for online store owners to optimize for Voice Search as soon as possible.
Hopefully, these tips will help you to optimize your Magento 2 store for voice search and gain a competitive advantage over your competitors.
That being said, if you still have any questions regarding voice search optimization, please ask them in the comments below.
And if you need our professional assistance with Magento PWA Development to make your store voice search ready, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
