What is Voice Engine Optimization?

6 min readAug 12, 2020

Have you ever wondered why so few people actually visit your website? While I can’t tell you exactly why that is, I can explain what you can do to improve your site's total number of visitors or, in other words, increase and drive website traffic. Despite how much of an impact Voice engine optimization or VEO has, not many people actually know what it is.

If I were asked, “what is VEO?” I would likely respond by saying that VEO is what we call optimizing your content to first results in a voice search. Voice searches can be done on almost any Voice-based search engine. These Voice-based search engines include things like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, etc.… Search engines are important because as technology progresses, more and more people will have access to the internet and technological devices.

A study done in July 2020 has shown that about 4.7 billion people use the internet. This is nearly 59 percent of the global population! As technology progresses, more and more companies have begun to develop different ways to market their content or product over the internet. One of the reasons that Voice optimization is so important is that people are nearly 3 times more likely to use a voice search than those who would use a text search. People use voice searches because of how much easier it is to quickly find information by asking their questions out loud compared to typing it out.

What is SEO?

Before we go over the different aspects of VEO, we need to understand something called SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization; SEO is a term used for increasing the traffic, or visitors, to a particular website by making it appear at the top of the “results” on a search engine. SEO is one of the most well-known and efficient digital marketing strategies used to help small businesses succeed.

For those of you who don’t know, digital marketing is a general term for advertising content, services, or a product over the internet. For example, online marketing can be via advertising or simply by creating informational videos.

Going over all of the different aspects of SEO would be extremely tedious and time-consuming, so here are the steps for an SEO strategy that I would recommend. The primary SEO strategies that should be included are:

Create a list of keywords
Analyze existing websites as well as competitors.
Create quality content.
Implement on-page SEO and off-page SEO (backlinking).

How are SEO and VEO related?

The relationship between SEO and VEO is clearly seen even in their names. Both SEO and VEO are methods we use to optimize our content for search engine results and rankings. SEO is used to promote your content by making it appear at the top of a results list on any search engine such as Google, Safari, etc., whereas VEO does the same but for voice search engines such as Siri and Alexa. Although they are a little different, they have their similarities as VEO can be built on top of SEO. both SEO and VEO are used to promote your content by making it a top result for a search. One thing to remember is that while SEO and VEO are extremely similar, they are not the same.

Who Needs VEO?

The best way to understand if you need a VEO strategy is to think of the aspects that are important to your business and what your business actually does. If you are selling a product, if you need to advertise your location or offer in-person services such as indoor activity places or a restaurant, you may need a VEO strategy.

These are most definitely not the only types of businesses that would need a VEO strategy. In fact, if your company or business is not similar to these, then you can ask yourself one question,

“Are the services I offer something that people would need on the spot?”

By asking this question, you can think of situations like this,

“It’s late at night and you need a thermometer, you get in your car and ask Siri if there are any 24-hour pharmacy open at this time. The first result shows a nearby pharmacy.”

This situation shows that you will most likely need to implement a VEO strategy if your company offers a service that people will need immediately. VEO is mostly used for a business that offers an immediate service because of how most people use voice searches when they are either on the go or in a rush.

Voice search statistics

Here are some voice search statistics. There is about 40 percent of adults use a voice search at least once every day. Furthermore, about 50 percent of people use a voice search to search for information on a product they are interested in. 25 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 24 use a voice search on a mobile phone. These statistics are important because there is about 42 percent of people believe that voice-activated devices are growing and important. Voice searches are essential for companies, especially because about 50 percent of voice searches are inquiring about certain companies' services or products.

By implementing a good VEO strategy, there is a high chance that you can improve your website's traffic, and in-turn you can increase the number of customers for your company.

What are the technologies that VEO uses?

Just as the name implies, VEO was created to allow marketers to implement, optimize, and help with Voice search results. If you want to understand VEO's inner workings fully, you need to have some basic knowledge of voice search engines.

The different voice search engines include Siri, Alexa, google assistant, and many more. While the technology and software behind all of these may differ, they all have a similar result. Going through each of the different Voice search engines would not do you much good, so for now. Hence, we will focus on how Siri works.

Needless to say, Siri is a personal assistant that comes on all iPhones starting from the four S and every iPhone released after it. Siri works by recording “the frequencies and sound waves” from your voice. It then cross-references the patterns and keywords to its own database to determine what you are trying to ask.

How Does that help?

You might be wondering how exactly does a voice search engine works impact your VEO strategy. The key aspect of search engine optimization, as well as Voice engine optimization, is keywords. This is important because a major part of your VEO strategy has to do with the keyword or phrases you would use when asking.

If your keyword or key phrases are too general, then your website will get lost on the results page, but if they are specific and targetted, you can reach your customers, however, while your keyword or phrase is important.

How to make a VEO strategy

The best way to make a VEO strategy is first to understand SEO. You can think of a VEO strategy as an add-on to a pre-existing SEO strategy. Subsequently, you can apply the knowledge from basic online marketing practices and apply them to your VOE strategies.

Here is one VEO Strategy that I believe is extremely well thought and easy to implement. The first step is to update your business's information continuously. Most people don’t edit their web page until necessary. While this is not absolutely mandatory, it is recommended that you do so. Update the address, name, number, and all the other information about your business. Next, you want to optimize your content for mobile phones as they make up a large portion of voice searches. Use multiple keywords or a good key phrase that answers a question that might be asked about your business. In particular, your content should be well structured with a combination of synonyms based on your primary keyword.

Next, you want to ensure that your content is readable by the average person. Don’t use extremely complicated words or phrases and avoid needless jargon. Finally, you want to ensure that your content answers any questions that might be asked.

An additional step would be to test your website from the perspective of a potential customer. Do multiple voice searches, including a few specialized ones and more generalized searches. By doing this, you can confirm whether or not your VEO strategy works.

Takeaway

VEO strategies can be thought of as extensions we add to an SEO strategy. VEO strategies should be used primarily by businesses that offer services that people would need spontaneously, such as food, maintenance, and others.

VEO strategies are becoming more and more important as more people begin to use voice search. By creating and implementing a proper VEO strategy, you can increase the number of people who end up on your web page, and by doing so, you can grow your business.