You can already tell that voice search readiness is getting your site ready to thrive on voice search from the phrase.
For a local business, voice search readiness means having accurate business information on the most important directories, including Bing, Yelp, and Google, because they are the major players in fueling voice search assistants. However, for several reasons, certain businesses fail at their voice search readiness methodology.
1- More than 50% of Business Locations Have Incorrect Info on Major Search Engines
A recent study conducted on 100s of business locations found that over half of the business locations analyzed either had missing information or errors on their local profiles. This means that these businesses cannot reach consumers fed by voice search assistants connected major search engines.
Today, Google & Bing has developed to become one of the most important directories for voice search. However, beyond that, it has also become an essential directory for local search. If you want your brand to rank online for local search queries, both for text and voice, tow platform you can't ignore are Goggle & Bing.
Recommendations: The best way to go about this is to complete your profiles across different local search platforms. Completing your business listings with accurate information across platforms like Yelp, Bing, and Google will significantly optimize your business for voice search.
Having complete and accurate information that's consistent across different directories is an excellent way to indicate to search engines that they can trust your information. This way, you will get a higher chance of topping the list of local voice search queries.
2- Businesses Managing Their Online Presence Alone
It is expected that businesses have to work with third-party suppliers to get anywhere near the top rank. A 2019 study showed that over 93% of enterprise locations with accurate voice search optimization across directories are doing so with a third-party supplier. The stats are even more revealing when SMBs and mid-markets are included, with 76.5% of voice search ready business locations using a supplier.
These findings indicate that unless a business adopts the use of third-party suppliers, it may struggle at being voice search or local search ready.
As expected, we've seen questions from people on whether SMBs, mid-market, and enterprises need to work on optimizing for voice search.
The truth is that up to 21% of your potential consumers use voice search weekly. 80% of potential customers search online for the local goods and services they may need. If you do not optimize for local search, you might miss out on crucial online searchers interested in your products.
Recommendations
We usually recommend getting a supplier that can engage the online-to-offline consumer journey. Businesses must be ready to efficiently manage the business location information they provide across different directories. They must ensure that all the information is relevant for voice and local search.
This approach gives brands significant control over the transitioning of online searchers into offline buyers. It also allows for a seamless experience among searchers, motivating them to visit your physical location to either make their purchase or make further inquiries about the product.
3- More Locations = More Listings
Let's be clear here - search engines see multiple listings as inaccurate information, and that can be the downfall of your
Voice SEO
efforts. Statistics show that only 4% of all locations have accurate business information across different platforms. The percentage size means that you are very likely to fall into the category of businesses whose locations have incorrect or missing information online.
For instance, a business with over 100 locations will need to list over 100 business locations across all three directories to optimize across Google, Yelp, and Bing.
Multiple locations equal more complexity in management, leading to a higher likelihood of missing information, errors, and inconsistencies. Trying to manage this number of business locations would often mean manually updating hundreds if not thousands of listings. Nobody wants the stress that comes with trying to do these themselves.
Most brands understand how impossible it is to manage this problem alone, so many of them become more interested in finding out the real value of making listings management a priority.
Recommendation
The best way to start is to prioritize reviews and listings when drafting your marketing strategy. Note that incorrect online information will have a negative impact on your local search ranking.
Not finding the correct information about your business can make customers lose trust in you, potentially causing them to leave a negative review about your business. It's not surprising to see that search engines prioritize the accuracy of reviews and business listing information when ranking for local search, considering the impact that information can have on customer experience.
Conclusion
That's it, everything you need to know about voice search readiness methodology. The digital world has since evolved, and unless you make conscious efforts to ready your website for voice search, you may lose potential customers that want speed and convenience in their online search.