Abstract

In view of the widespread use of virtual voice assistants and/or voice searches on smartphones to find all kinds of information, this article explores voice search optimisation (VSO) and its application in the journalistic sector. To this end, 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts representing different professional profiles in the fields of journalism, search engine optimisation (SEO) and academic research. On the basis of the data, eight semantic categories were created and the experts’ perceptions were correlated to identify response patterns. The results confirm the existence of various degrees of convergence and divergence between these three professional profiles in relation to different dimensions of VSO, such as its definition, its techniques, its current and future strategic role in digital media, and its application in journalistic writing. This study confirms that although the use of VSO in digital news media is still in its embryonic stages, it will be useful in the medium and long term to train journalists in basic aspects of voice searches. In addition, internal SEO departments should be prepared to optimise the visibility of news for virtual voice assistants when they become widespread and when the technology companies that develop these assistants define a viable business model.

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Keywords

Digital news media, Voice search optimization, VSO, Digital journalism, Web visibility, Search engine optimization, SEO, Voice search, Training.

Introduction

Search engine optimisation (SEO), understood as the set of techniques that help position web content in the top results on Google or Bing (among other search engines), has become an important business strategy for digital news media to increase their audience (Carlson, 2007). Such search engines help users select the most relevant content (Machill; Beiler; Zenke, 2008) in response to their searches, and it is for this reason, as well as the increase in hyper-competitive internet news, that digital media are highly dependent on SEO (Lopezosa et al., 2020).

In fact, there is a complex relationship between the media and Google and other technology companies (Lee; Chyi, 2015), characterized by great ups and downs (Marcos-Recio; Sánchez-Vigil; Olivera-Zaldua, 2015)  that  have  caused  conflicts ranging from audience issues and web traffic to financial aspects through accusations of oligopoly among many others  (Guallar, 2015). All of this has resulted in the dynamics between both parties conditioning and affecting the journalistic industry and its readers (Barr, 2014). However, the relationship between Google and the media can be characterized by the term frenemies, since Google ensures that its products are also platforms for the media, e.g., Google News and Google Discover, among others.

This situation has led to a boom in research on web visibility in journalism, with very interesting studies on the application of SEO in digital media, including those by

• Giomelakis and Veglis (2015) and Charlton (2016), which demonstrate that there is considerable room for improvement in the alignment between journalistic routines and SEO routines;
• Dick (2011) and Smyrnaios and Sire (2014), who recognise the need to constantly pursue optimal convergence be-tween the best journalism and the best SEO; and
• Lopezosa et al. (2021) and Pedrosa and De-Morais (2021), which identify practical SEO techniques applied in journalistic writing.

All these studies analyse digital media visibility on digital platforms. However, visibility is constantly evolving, and nowadays users also consume information via other channels, such as voice assistants (also called virtual assistants), physical assistants such as Alexa and Google Home and others integrated into mobiles, such as Siri or Google Assistant.

In the case of voice searches, i.e., queries spoken to a virtual assistant that then returns a result, there are a number of academic studies published in the  social  sciences  (Sa, 2016; Shokouhi; Ozertem; Craswell,  2016;  Mairesse; Raccuglia; Vitaladevuni,  2016; Hurwitzet  al., 2017; Guy, 2018; Lovato; Piper, 2019), several of which include a consideration of journalism (Lochrieet al., 2018; Kischinhevsky, 2019; Jung et al., 2019; Fagundes-Paseet al., 2020; Turow, 2021) but not of visibility, that is, not of voice search optimisation (hereafter VSO). There have also been numerous industry reports and news stories published on the use of voice search technology, both at a general level (Huffman, 2014; Cachón, 2019; Isidigi-taldata, 2020; Rabit and Pork, 2021) and in the context of digital media (Newman, 2018). It is also possible to find technical documentation (Checa, 2020; Makhyan, 2022) with a broad and generalist application, although not directly focused on news. However, to date no academic study has focused on voice search optimisation and its application to digital media.

Likewise, the dynamics of voice-based SEO have not yet been studied by the academy. However, we can find sectoral re-ports and user guides by companies and specialized media (Bonelli, 2017; Gareth, 2019). In this sense, voice-based SEO is understood as the discipline in charge of optimizing content so that voice assistants such as Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and Cortana, among others, offer the most accurate results for conversational queries (Codedesign, 2023). Among the recommendations to optimise websites for voice searches are using interrogative keywords, marking the content with the Schema.org Speakable scheme (Schema.org, 2018), having a frequently asked questions section, and having a website that loads fast, is compatible with mobile devices, and works for local inquiries, among others (Bonelli, 2017; Gareth, 2019; Codedesign, 2023).

On this premise, and based on the assumptions (1) that the use of voice searches is recognised as growing in line with the consolidation of the market for virtual assistants (Sterling, 2016), and (2) that digital media need to know how to programme their news for voice assistants (Newman, 2018), this study offers an analysis of VSO in digital news media. To this end, we use semi-structured interviews, a methodology that has already been effectively applied to the study of search engine optimisation (Schultheiß; Lewandowski, 2020; Lopezosa et al., 2020; 2021).

The general objective of this study is to carry out a diagnosis of VSO in the journalistic sector to identify the extent of its application in digital media and the challenges involved in implementing voice search optimisation strategies in journalistic writing, both on a strategic business level and on the level of training for journalists and SEO teams integrated into digital media. On the basis of this main objective, the specific objectives are:

1) To explore the opinions of search engine optimisation experts working in digital media, consultancy firms and universities in relation to VSO applied to digital media.

2) To determine whether there is a convergence of perceptions among these different professional profiles with respect to the dimensions of VSO applied to digital media.

3) To identify the knowledge journalists and internal media web visibility teams should have about VSO and to propose training recommendations in this regard, whether for editorial staff or in university programmes.

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Citation

Lopezosa, Carlos; Codina, Lluís; Guallar, Javier; Pérez-Montoro, Mario (2023). “Voice search optimization in digital media: challenges, use and training”. Profesional de la información, v. 32, n. 3, e320307. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.may.07 ​​​​​

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