A potential customer is driving home from work. They ask their car’s hands-free system, “Where can I find a highly-rated pizza place near me that offers gluten-free options?“.
In these few seconds, a search happens, a decision is made, and a business gains a new customer.
Voice search is no longer science fiction, but it’s happening, and it’s a fundamental part of the customer journey that’s expanding every day. By 2030, its influence will be a dominant factor in how people find businesses.
For our partners, this shift represents a direct and powerful opportunity.
Helping your clients prepare for this change positions you as a forward-thinking expert and provides them with a decisive competitive advantage. It’s about meeting customers exactly where they are—with the right answer at the right time.
In this blog, we’ll go through the major trends that are shaping voice search: the switch to conversational keywords, the undeniable power of local voice search, and the technical requirements for becoming the chosen answer.
Let’s get your clients ready for the future of search.
- Why Voice Search Is a High-Priority Opportunity for Your Clients
- Trend 1: Master Conversational & Long-Tail Keywords
- Trend 2: Capitalize on Voice-Powered Local Search
- Trend 3: Use Structured Data to Become the Answer (Voice Search Optimization)
- A Checklist to Prepare Your Clients’ Websites Today
- Start Building for the Future of Search
Source: Envato
Why Voice Search Is a High-Priority Opportunity for Your Clients
The ‘why‘ behind voice search’s importance is a story of human behavior. People are looking for the most direct and frictionless path to information.
For instance, in 2018, around 28% of U.S. households had at least one smart speaker. That number is expected to triple by 2030.
Asking a question is faster and more convenient than typing one, especially on mobile devices or through smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant.
From Typing to Talking: A Revolution in Behavior
This isn’t just a minor preference; it’s a large-scale change in how consumers interact with technology and find businesses. The numbers back this up. Billions of searches are already conducted by voice every month, and this figure is on a steep upward trajectory.
More importantly for your clients, many of these queries have high commercial intent. When someone asks, “What’s the best emergency plumber in my area?”, they aren’t just browsing—they have an urgent need. Being the business that provides the answer at that moment is a game-changer.
This presents a clear advantage for you. By guiding your clients with strategies for optimizing for voice search, you can:
- Offer a valuable, modern Search Engine Optimization (SEO) service.
- Deliver tangible results that strengthen client relationships.
- Demonstrate your command of the digital landscape.
- Build websites that don’t just exist, they answer.
Trend 1: Master Conversational & Long-Tail Keywords
The very nature of a search query changes when it’s spoken instead of typed. About 70% to 90% of people believe that voice search is easier and more convenient than typing.
Typing encourages brevity. Speaking is naturally more conversational. This is the central difference in conversational search that you need to help your clients understand.
The Anatomy of a Spoken Search
Let’s look at an example to see the difference in sharp relief:
- Traditional text search: “best coffee Toronto”
- Conversational voice search: “What’s the best coffee shop in Toronto with free WiFi that’s open late?”
The voice search is a complete question—longer, more specific, and structured with natural language. To appear in these results, a website’s content needs to speak the same language. This is where your strategy for conversational keywords comes into play.
Your Actionable Playbook for Conversational Content
- Become a question hunter. Brainstorm the actual questions a client’s customers would ask. Go beyond basic keywords and hunt for queries that begin with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. For a local mechanic, this could be “How often do I need to get an oil change for my car?”.
- Build the ultimate answer page. A well-structured Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page is a goldmine for voice search. It directly answers specific questions in a format that voice assistants can easily pull from and recite to the user. Make certain each question is a clear heading with a direct, concise answer below it.
- Create content that solves problems. Develop a content strategy where every article or page is a solution. A post titled “Five Signs Your Brakes Need to Be Replaced” directly targets a common customer concern and positions your client as a helpful authority.
Trend 2: Capitalize on Voice-Powered Local Search
When people use voice search on the go, their queries are very often about their immediate surroundings. “Gas stations near me,” “grocery stores open now,” and “parks with playgrounds” are all examples of local voice search in action.
Data from BrightLocal reports that 46% of voice search users look for local business information daily. This makes voice search an integral tool for local SEO.
“Near Me” Is the New Bullseye
These searches are geographically specific and signal an immediate intent to visit a location or make a purchase. For any client with a brick-and-mortar presence, mastering local voice search isn’t just an option.
It’s their ticket to the game.
Voice assistants pull information for these “near me” queries from online business listings. If that information is incorrect or incomplete in search engine results, your client is invisible.
Building Your Client’s Local Voice Authority
- Perfect their digital welcome mat. A complete and consistently updated Google Business Profile (GBP) is the number one data source for local voice assistants. It is absolutely requisite that your clients’ hours, address, phone number, and business category are perfectly accurate.
- Become a magnet for reviews. Positive reviews build trust and directly influence which business a voice assistant recommends. Help your clients implement a simple strategy for gathering more reviews on GBP. A steady stream of recent, positive feedback is a powerful signal of a trustworthy business.
- Be the neighborhood expert. Help your clients develop content that is specific to their city or service area. This strengthens their local authority. A local hardware store could write “A Step-by-Step Guide to Preparing Your Garden for a Calgary Winter.” This is incredibly useful for local customers and uses geographic keywords naturally.
Trend 3: Use Structured Data to Become the Answer (Voice Search Optimization)
So, how does a voice assistant decide which answer to read aloud from the millions of webpages available? Often, Google Assistant, along with other virtual assistants, selects the result that appears in “Position Zero”—the Featured Snippet box at the top of Google’s search results.
Speaking the Language of Search Engines
The secret to getting there is a technical component of voice search SEO called structured data. Think of structured data—also known as Schema markup—as a secret decoder ring for search engines. It’s a vocabulary of code you add to a website that translates your content for them.
It clarifies: “This set of numbers is our phone number,” or “This section is an FAQ.” This clarification makes it much easier for Google to feature your information as the definitive answer.
A Partner’s Guide to Implementing Schema
Focus on high-impact schema. You don’t need to be a coding expert. Many WordPress plugins and online tools can generate the necessary code.
We recommend directing your customers to focus on these types for most local businesses (note the lack of space between):
- LocalBusiness: For address, hours, and phone number.
- FAQPage: To mark up question-and-answer sections.
- Review: To highlight customer ratings.
- HowTo: For step-by-step instructions.
Format content for a quick draw. The way you structure content on the page itself makes a big difference. Search engines favour content that is well-organized. Advise your clients to use clear headings, numbered lists, and bullet points.
Always provide a direct, concise answer to a question right at the top of a section before expanding on it. This makes the information easy for a machine to grab and present as an answer.
A Checklist to Prepare Your Clients’ Websites Today
Getting started with voice search SEO involves building on good website fundamentals. Here is a straightforward checklist you can use to launch your clients into the voice revolution.
- Build for speed and mobility. Confirm all client websites are mobile-first and load at lightning speed. Voice search queries are mobile moments.
- Think like a talker. Revamp keyword research to include the long-tail, question-based queries that real people speak.
- Own their digital location. Perform a full audit and update of the client’s Google Business Profile. Every detail must be perfect.
- Become the go-to answer. Develop a content calendar where every blog post solves a problem or answers a burning question for their audience.
- Translate for the bots. Identify and implement the most relevant results with structured data for each client to help search engines understand their content.
Start Building for the Future of Search
The shift to voice search is reshaping the digital space. It’s a move toward a more intuitive, conversational, and immediate way of finding information.
Gen Z, for example, is leading the voice assistant growth by more than 60% of them using voice search to find what they need. Market share-wise, Google commands the voice assistant market, while Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa complete the top 3.
This change presents a massive opportunity for you to demonstrate your expertness and provide high-value services that deliver real-world results. Mastering conversational keywords for voice search users lets you capitalize on local intent, and implementing the right technical foundations, you can help your clients not just compete, but flourish.
You can make certain that when a customer asks a question, your client’s business is the one with the answer.
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is voice search the future of SEO?
It’s not the entire future, but it’s a fundamental and rapidly expanding part of it. Think of voice search as a powerful new dimension in your overall search strategies. While traditional SEO isn’t going away, ignoring voice search optimization means you won’t stay competitive in today’s digital marketing landscape.
What is an example of voice search optimization?
A perfect example of voice search optimization in action is how a local business, like an Italian restaurant, can capture more customers through local voice searches.
Imagine a user asks their Google Assistant, “What’s the best Italian restaurant near me?”. The answers that the Google device provides are not chosen by chance.
What is a conversational keyword?
A conversational keyword is a phrase or a complete sentence that mirrors how people talk in real life. It’s the language of human conversation applied to search queries. This is a major shift from traditional text search, where users often type short, fragmented search terms like “best pizza deals.”
