The voice-based search revolution is a tectonic shift in the local search space. In fact, according to Google, almost a fifth of Google’s mobile searches were done using voice. The growth of Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, and other voice assistants will only make voice-based interactions more prevalent.

Meanwhile, the shrinking screens will leave less room for lower ranked businesses to get seen and clicked on. Still, this doesn’t make SEO impossible. In fact, one increasingly valuable part of your content strategy is likely the gateway to optimizing your company’s content for voice-based search.

Google’s Rich Answers, also known as Direct Answers, are the blurbs cropping up at the very top of Google’s search engine results page. They are a click-free way for Google users to get succinct answers to their most common searches. Google has been busy leveraging third-party content to find and integrate Direct Answers to questions of all kinds. Their brevity lends itself perfectly as a scripted vocal response for AIs, giving you the opportunity to get some “word-of-AI” marketing for your business.

Currently, there is no guaranteed way to ensure that Google selects any of your content for Rich Answers. However, Google doesn’t discriminate based on Google rankings when it comes to which content it chooses to feature. So, if you have a company website, you have the potential to gain a voice in search.

Here are four tips for using Rich Answers to strengthen your business’s digital presence today while preparing for the prevalence of voice search tomorrow

Find Your Long Tail Search Keyword Niche

Larger national brands have likely beat you to the punch when it comes to optimizing for short keywords and frequent inquiries of interest to audiences across the country. Luckily, small businesses have more specific offerings and a more narrow audience in mind. Plus, according to a Hitwise’s study, long tail keywords comprise the vast majority (70%) of local search traffic.

Once you define your niche expertise and geography, you can create content responding to questions that have yet to be answered in this budding Direct Answer format. Try going beyond general categories and get into product models, unique circumstances, and location-based details. And don’t forget to include those long tail phrases in your questions and answers.

Turn Customer Service Into Content

What hours and days are you open? Does your company accept reservations? These types of questions are already filling search boxes even as it pertains to small businesses. As Direct Answers becomes more common and certainly as speech interaction gains traction, users will expect to get even more precise types of information from a company without browsing its associated website.

It will become increasingly essential that frequently asked questions be formatted in a way that could get picked up as a Google Rich answer today and be recited by an AI tomorrow. Scanning emails or customer service conversations is a great way to discover other FAQs that you ought to address online.

Brief Answer, and Expound in Detail

Direct Answers should be only a few dozen words in length. Although businesses don’t have to be highly ranked on Google to get their content featured, it would be a waste to let this content stand alone when you have an opportunity to expand upon the facts and improve your web rank and conversion rates.

First, if searchers click on your website and discover no additional information, they will search elsewhere thereby raising your bounce rate and lowering your web rank. Second, web clicks are the beginning of your buyer’s journey; anything you do to get viewers to browse the website and contact you will enhance your conversion rate.

Get to the point early on by answering the question as succinctly as possible while maximizing the SEO juice. Then go deeper into the matter and satisfy all the related curiosities that searchers would likely have. What’s the history, purpose, and reasoning behind the answer you gave? Draw not only on your expertise but research as well, anything to create thorough and compelling content for your readers.

Consider Formatting

There isn’t a guy at Google reading all the web content in the digital universe personally to distinguish the potential Rich Answers from other content. Google’s algorithms are doing the heavy lifting. So, you’ll have to format your content so that it flags the system and shouts more loudly than your competitors. One researcher found that a particular “flag” appeared in the HTML code of most Rich Answer featured text. The header tag “<h1>” often enclosed the question that the content intended to answer.

The local search space is as seismically active as Silicone Valley itself with a landscape constantly shifting as innovations change the way consumers connect with others. But, as digital moves towards voice-based technology, smaller businesses don’t have to be on shaky ground when it comes to their marketing strategy. By building on existing digital content, SMBs can create a digital presence that’s poised to join the speech technology age.