How to Optimize Your Health Website for Voice Search

Why do you need to optimize for voice search?

​Because, voice assistants and other voice search-enabled mobile applications are available on most electronic devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart speakers, smart TVs, wearables and even cars. And by 2020, 30 to 50% of all searches will occur via voice.

More than two-thirds of people using mobile or embedded voice assistants are performing voice searches daily or weekly. Of these voice technology users, 50-60% are conducting online searches, finding out information on products, or asking questions with their voice assistants.

Almost half of Americans are using digital voice assistants -- and mostly on their smartphones. In fact, almost half of Americans using voice assistants on a smartphone report using them sometimes or all the time. They are using voice assistants to browse the internet, make calls, and send texts, and prefer using voice search to find things online versus typing.

​​In a survey by Zion & Zion, about 1 in 4 people reported using voice search for health-related information seeking.  Of those people:

• About two-thirds were searching for information about symptoms and treatments for health conditions,
• ​About one-third were searching for a medical provider (e.g., a doctor or specialist), and
• Over one-fourth were looking for a health facility (e.g., a clinic or hospital).​​

Text search optimization is no longer adequate. You need to optimize for voice search as well.

How do you optimize content for voice search?

​The previous question is an example. Voice engine optimization, or VEO, can include the following steps:

1. Writing content in a Q&A format.

Question - Switch from using keywords to key question phrases that your target audience are likely to use when searching for information.

• Tip: Check out Google Trends for common search phrases.
• Tip: Try surveying your audience to see how they ask questions​.

Answer - Provide answers in your content.

• Tip: Try adding FAQ-style content throughout your website.
• Tip: Create a dedicated webpage for FAQs.
• Tip: Answer questions in any reviews or audience feedback sections of your channels (e.g., Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp).

2. Keeping your brand/organization's information updated and consistent.​

Make sure your brand/organization's name, phone number, address, hours, and other information is correct and consistent across your different channels and listings. Conflicting information will get your content ranked low in search results.

• Tip: If you have a physical (brick-and-mortar) location, think local. Forty-six percent of voice search users are trying to find local businesses daily. Claim and verify your organization on Google My Business, and then optimize your content for location-based search queries.

3. Building non-branded keywords into your content.

Voice search queries are longer than text-based searches and are much more conversational in tone and style. For example, people aren’t asking their voice assistants to search “XYZ Clinic”. They are asking, "Where is XYZ Clinic?". Or "How far away is XYZ Clinic from me?".

In fact, more than two-thirds of impressions on local searches are from non-branded keywords, so they are really asking something like, “What’s the closest STD clinic near me?”. Or they're asking, “Is there free HIV testing around here?”.

Including non-branded keyword phrases (like “free HIV testing near you,” “local STD testing,” or “free health clinic in X neighborhood”) versus branded keywords (like "XYZ Clinic hours") throughout your website and your other listings is key to driving people to your organization and its services.

• Tip: You can find potential keyword phrases in the Q&A section of your Google My Business listing or by doing some keyword research.

4. Enhancing your website's HTML.

You could have the best Q&A content embedded throughout your website, but if your HTML isn't marking that content for search engines to find, you're doing your brand/organization a disservice.​​

• ​Tip: Submit a sitemap to Google Search Console to make it easier for Google to crawl (index) the data on your webpages.
• Tip: Use structured data (also referred to as schema) to help search engine bots better understand your content's relevance to search queries.
• ​Tip: Make sure all questions are marked up with <H2> headers.​​
• Tip: Add the speakable schema specification to highlight sections on your webpages that are best suited for text-to-speech audio playback on voice technology. ​​

5. Getting your content into a featured snippet on Google.

Almost 41% of all voice search answers come from a Google featured snippet. Featured snippets are those answer boxes that appear below the paid results and above the first organic results on Google search engine results pages. By earning a spot as a featured snippet, you increase the likelihood of your content being selected to answer a voice search query.

• Tip: Steps 1-4 help increase the chances of having your content as a featured snippet.

​Additional Resource: Optimize your content for Google's Featured Snippets with this guide from Moz.com.

Get the Guide

6. Distinguishing your brand audibly.

​With voice technology, people's interaction with your brand is via sound only. There aren't visual cues, such as logos, to help users connect content with your specific brand. Don't get lost in the voice mix. Explore ways to distinguish your brand audibly.

• Tip: Identify unique sounds and tones to accompany your audio content.
• Tip: Establish a tone of voice/personality and guidelines for implementing that tone/personality across your channels and content types.​​

7. Taking advantage of voice technology features early.

​​Amazon allows brands to own key phrases by building custom "Skills" in Alexa. Alexa users can subscribe and access brand content by searching the specific skill phrasing. Apple allows brands and users to create shortcuts to perform actions with brand apps. Siri users can use shortcuts to send messages, create lists, initiate calls, conduct searches, initiate a fitness routine, and more. Google allows brands to build "Actions" in the Google Assistant directory that respond to and fulfill user requests. Google Assistant users can interact with brand web or app content by issuing a command or starting a conversation. ​Microsoft is improving conversational computing so that Cortana can understand the context of questions and better integrate into the routines of workers (e.g.,  managing meeting invites, weather, contact information, and more).

• ​Tip: As new voice technology features are developed, explore if/how they could enhance the connection between your content/services and your target audience.

How are health-related brands/organizations using voice technology?

Here are a few examples of how health-related brands and organizations are using voice technology to achieve their goals:

• Providing instructions for CPR and information about the warning signs of stroke and heart attack: People say, “Alexa, ask American Heart…” and they receive vital health information.
• Automating clinical and administrative tasks for physicians: Clinicians can use voice devices to access EHRs, retrieve patient lists and search patient charts for lab results, medications, etc. This automation of tasks could provide clinicians with more time to interact with their patients.
• Promoting and facilitating aging in place: Several startups are exploring how voice technology can help older adults with contacting family, scheduling appointments, remembering medications, finding local activities to participate in, and more.
• Supporting people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes: Voice assistants provide sensitive and responsive health education and support meal planning, blood glucose level tracking, and care plan adherence.
• Engaging people in screen-free meditation and mindfulness practices: Users of the Headspace mobile app can use their voice assistants to participate in meditation and mindfulness exercises without having to use their smartphone's screen.

These brands/organizations have optimized their content for voice. If your goal is to reach your target audience in the digital space and to engage them around your health information, resources, providers, and/or services, you need to optimize your health website for voice as well.

Share your experiences with voice search and voice technology in the comments below. And sign up for our newsletter to get updates from us!
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Additional Resources:

• https://www.chatmeter.com/blog/optimize-keywords-veo/​
• https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/314874
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/voice-search-optimization-changes/259975/

Last updated: May 31, 2019

By: Monique Thornton, MPH

About the Author

Founder and CEO at Let's Talk Public Health. I'm a public health communication and marketing professional fusing creative writing, health communication, public health, and behavior change theory. Let's talk social and digital media, edutainment, product development, and digital health.