How to Optimise Your Website for Voice and Visual Search

The world of search engine optimisation (SEO) is continuously changing, and the last few years have seen a few seismic changes that have shaken up the industry. It is important to keep pace with these changes so that you can adapt your strategies and find the most effective ways to improve your visibility online. One of the most notable changes has been the ways in which users search for information online. Standard text-based queries remain the standard, but emerging technologies have led to the rise of voice and visual search. This post will explore the rise of voice and visual search and reveal how you can optimise your website for the future of SEO. Sound good? Let’s get started.

The Rise of Voice & Visual Search

First, it is important to highlight the rise of voice and visual search.

While many still use standard text-based queries to find what they are looking for, many are now using voice search powered by virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa, smart speakers, and smartphones. Statistics show that 27% of people use voice search on their mobile devices, and 58% of consumers use voice search to find local businesses. Voice search is growing in popularity as it adds convenience with the ability to perform queries hands-free, which is ideal when on the move.

Visual search, meanwhile, is also changing the way that people perform searches and find products online. Instead of using text-based queries to find a product, consumers can use images to find a match. Platforms like Google Lens, Pinterest Lens, and Bing Visual Search are proving to be popular and integrated into many ecommerce websites, which allows customers to search for similar products.

How Voice & Visual Search are Changing SEO

Voice and visual search are transforming the SEO landscape, so it is important that you are aware of their impact and how you can optimise your site to improve your visibility online.

Traditional SEO focuses on keywords and short phrases people use when searching for products/services, but voice searches are more conversational and typically framed as a question. This means that there is a shift towards natural language processing (NLP) and context-based queries, such as “what are the best digital marketing agencies in London?” As opposed to “best digital marketing agencies London”.

Visual search is particularly prominent in ecommerce SEO as it allows consumers to search for visually similar products. This relies on machine learning and image recognition technology and means that SEO now encompasses images, video, and other multimedia.

How To Optimise Your Website for Voice Search

So, how can you optimise your website for voice search? Here are a few of the best practices to follow:

Use Natural Phrasing & Long-Tail Keywords

The most effective way to optimise for voice search is to use natural phrasing and long-tail keywords. Consider the kind of search terms and questions that your target audience will use when searching for your products/services, and naturally integrate these into your website content.

Enhance Featured Snippets

Content from featured snippets is often used to answer voice search queries, so you want to get your website in this section to enhance visibility. The best way to do this is to structure your content in a Q&A format - Answer the Public is a handy tool for finding commonly asked questions relating to your sector.

Optimise Local SEO

Keep in mind that many voice searches are location-based, with users trying to find local businesses. Therefore, you want to optimise for local SEO by using local keywords, ensuring accurate business information, and claiming your Google My Business listing.

Optimise for Mobile

Voice search is also commonly used on a mobile divide and mobile-first indexing is used by Google. Therefore, you should optimise your website for mobile and ensure that it loads quickly to rank in voice search results.

How to Optimise for Visual Search

There are a few best practices to optimise your website for visual search, which is particularly important for e-commerce websites:

Use High-Quality Images

It is always important to use high-quality images on your website, but this is key for visual search SEO. This is because image recognition is used, so images need to be clear and well-lit. You should also add descriptive filenames and alt text that will communicate to search engines what the image is.

Use Scheme Markup

Schema markup can also be used to help search engines understand the content of your images. This will help search engines associate the images with user search queries.

Create Visual Content

In terms of content creation, it makes sense to prioritise image-based content. This can include photographs, product images, visual guides, animations, and infographics.

Optimise For Mobile

As with voice search, visual search is mainly used on mobile devices. Therefore, you want to make sure that your website is optimised for mobile and that images load quickly.

The Future of SEO

It is intelligent to focus on voice and visual search in 2025, with both of these changing the way in which people search for information online. It is also important to stay abreast of the latest developments in the world of SEO so that you can adapt your strategies and stay ahead of the curve. SEO is changing, so you want to make sure that you are changing with it and not falling behind the times. You can also use the services of an experienced SEO agency to utilise their experience and expertise to ensure that you are always easy to find online by your target audience.

It is fascinating to see the ways in which SEO is evolving, but it understandably causes a great deal of stress for those looking to improve their visibility online. In 2025, businesses should focus on voice and visual search as these are becoming prominent ways that users search for information online. The information in this post should help you get started with optimising your website and content for these new ways of searching so that you can boost your visibility online and stand out from the competition.