Every effort put into optimizing your bank website has one sole purpose – to make it visible to your potential customers. Or even make it their first choice when they need banking services. Therefore, it’s a good idea to be on the lookout for all the new trends in the digital world that constantly arise and find ways to introduce them into your business. One such trend which isn’t even that new is the voice search. Many people use virtual assistants on their smartphones or other devices in order to access a website and get what they need in the fastest possible way. For that reason, optimizing your bank website for voice search should be on your list of priorities in your digital marketing strategy.
Why Is It Important to Optimize Your Bank Website for Voice Search
Based on the latest research, astonishing 58% of people have used voice search with the purpose of finding information about a local business. This means that voice search is becoming without a doubt one of the top methods of online search by users. In that sense, it’s important for every banking or financial institution to optimize their websites for the most common voice search queries and make them visible to potential customers.
Moreover, optimizing your bank website for voice search will greatly help with your ADA compliance efforts. As it’s already widely known, since March 2022 it is mandatory for bank websites to be ADA compliant, and voice search is a valuable search option for improved accessibility. This option will allow people with disabilities or impaired eyesight to access your bank website easier and potentially make them your customers.
5 Tips for Voice Search Optimization of Bank Websites
It makes sense that people like to use voice search, especially when performing multiple activities at once – driving, cooking, or doing some housework because it’s easier for them. And due to the fact that most smart devices have voice search implemented already you simply must optimize your website for voice search. Here are a few tips on how to do that.
Get Local Listings – Take Advantage of Local SEO
One of the most important parts of any digital marketing strategy for bank websites is local SEO. Some of the most common banking voice search terms are “where is the closest location of a certain bank” or “banks near me”. Therefore, it’s only natural that your website should be optimized for those terms as part of your local SEO strategy. However, that’s not enough.
Taking a step further would be to get some local listings. In that way, when your potential customers would perform a voice search to get some information about the nearest bank your business information would most likely appear on the first page of search engines.
Start with Mobile Devices and Page Speed Optimization
It is a well-known fact that mobile devices are the preferred choice for many users. Hence the mobile optimization of your bank website should be a top priority. Simply put, when users perform voice searches through their smartphones if they land on a page that loads slowly or they can’t easily navigate through it, it’s very likely that they will leave. For that reason, pay attention to the responsiveness of your website and its mobile version in order to keep your potential customers interested.
Use FAQ Pages
Most of the voice searches are in the form of a question, so it makes sense to provide an answer. One convenient way to optimize your bank website for voice search is to create FAQ page, which in its essence is a page that contains frequently asked questions and answers. The featured snippet section of the Google pages picks up these kind of pages, so if you optimize them you have greater chances to show up in search results. For best results, create short and concise questions and answers that explain the matter in the simplest way possible.
Optimize the Bank Website Content
As part of any website optimization, content is the section that has to be optimized and rich with relevant keywords. Having voice search optimization in mind, it’s wise to use long-tail keywords that are in the form of a question rather than short terms. For example, it is more natural for a person to search with the sentence ‘what bank has the best interest rates for student loans than to use the short keyword “interest rates”. Especially due to the fact that when using the voice search people have a tendency to use longer queries. In that way, they can perform a more detailed search in a shorter period of time than typing that question into their keyboards.
Implement Metadata and Schema Markup
Don’t forget about the technical SEO when doing the website optimization for voice search. The best approach is to use schema markup which is a structured code that helps search engines better read the content on your bank website.
Another way of optimizing for voice search is implementing meta tags, meta titles, and descriptions on every page on your website. Make sure to use relevant keywords in the metadata which will help with a better page ranking. Add as many long-tail keywords as possible in the meta description of your product pages, FAQ pages, blog articles, and location pages.
Ultimately, be sure to take advantage of the alt text which represents the short description of the images. Alt text should provide an explanation of the content of the image and help search engines to recognize it and read it. This can also greatly help your bank website’s overall ranking.
To sum up, optimizing your bank website makes it more accessible to your potential customers and anyone who is interested in getting some information about your bank. Whether they are using voice search or traditional keyboard search, search engine optimization will position your website higher and make it available for everyone.
