The Rise of Voice Search and What It Means For Your Business

Stats related to voice searches

Have a look at some fascinating stats about voice searches

• Close to 50% of people are now researching products using voice search.
• Klein Perkins suggests that the number of voice searches increased by 35x from 2008 to 2016.
• Nearly 10% of voice search queries begin as actual questions – who, what, when, where, why, how – as compared to only 3.7% of text-based searches.
• Voice searches on mobile are 3x more likely to be local-based than text searches.
• 20% of mobile queries are now voice searches.
• 25% of searches on desktops with Microsoft Windows 10 are through Cortana voice search.
• Of American adults who have access to a smart speaker (Google Home, Apple HomePod or Amazon Echo), 11.5% claimed to use them to buy something at least monthly.

What is voice search?

Voice search is an act of giving a speech command or asking a question to devices capable of recognizing speech and converting them to text. Our smartphones and smart speakers like Echo and Google Home are capable of doing that. Users give voice commands to such devices and then they search on the internet. There’s no need to open up a browser or an app and type the text in search engines.

How does the technology work?

• First of all, it recognizes human speech, processes and transcribes it into text.
• After that, it analyses the text, finds keywords, questions and commands.
• Then it connects to external sources like search engines and finds the relevant information for the users.
• Finally, it translates the information collected into a digestible format- either text or speech and then delivers it to users.

What do people mostly do with voice search?

• Search on the internet
• Get directions
• Check weather
• Call someone
• Play music

Voice searches are taking off

There are endless possibilities for the future of voice searches and surely, this technology will continue to grow. It is quite necessary for businesses to use it effectively to attract the audience and make it a vital part of their SEO strategy.

In the near future, voice searches will change the digital marketing arena, and businesses will be forced to reoptimize their online platforms. Consumers have seen two of the most popular search engines- Google and Amazon launching devices dedicated to this technology. This has immensely raised the craze and credibility of voice searches.

Because of the increasing number of people using the technology, a lot of search engines have increased their word recognition accuracy rate in the last few years. For Google, it was below 80 percent in 2013 and after 2015, it went up to more than 90%. In the year 2017, Google announced that their speech recognition had a 95?curacy rate.

What is its impact on Search Engine Optimization

The way people search for information has changed. Therefore, businesses have to change their SEO strategies to be on top of SERPs. There are several differences between a text search and a voice search. A user generally uses keywords while doing a text search. For example, “Capital of Australia”.

However, the voice searches are different. People use natural language while doing a voice search. The searches are conversational in nature. The users communicate with the technology as they communicate with a human being.

For example, while using a voice assistant, most users say, “Okay, Google! What is the capital of Australia?” Or “Hey Siri! Please tell me what the capital of Australia is.”

The voice searches are much longer than the text searches. But people use it because it is easy and they have to put minimum effort.

As people use natural language while searching for information on the internet, robotic keywords are becoming outdated. Therefore, until the trend of voice searches grows, the use of natural language for SEO will increase. SEO experts will see a boost in the use of question-based, natural language keywords.

How to optimize content for voice searches?

We have discussed the importance and potential growth of voice searches in the future. However, it is equally important that we find several ways to optimize our business content for voice searches.

Small shifts in your SEO strategies can help you a lot.

Use a conversational tone for all the content

It is preferable to write all the content in a conversational tone. Use the words you commonly speak. Complex sentences, flowery words won’t work if you want to optimize your content for voice searches.

Complicated words like “Agast”, “Amalgam”, “Ironic”, “Divulge” won’t help you. Such words can make it harder for the search engine to find your website. Search engines focus on commonly used data, words and dictions to match the searcher’s context.

Work on local SEO with Google My Business

As mentioned earlier, voice searches on mobile are 3x more likely to be local-based than text searches. Also, a lot of people use voice searches for navigation.

Therefore, it is necessary to optimize your business for local SEO. Google My Business is a game-changer when it comes to local SEO. Did you know that 80% of all searches happen on Google? This tells a lot about Google’s authority and credibility.

Imagine you are driving your car and you feel hungry. You ask, “Hey Google! Can you please find a good restaurant for me?” Google will do the job for you and pick the best ones nearby.

Now, think of those restaurants. They appear in the search results only because they have listed themselves on Google My Business.

You must have a Google My Business profile if you own a business. It reduces a lot of the cost that you spend on local advertisements. It is possible that soon we see AI voice assistants making reservations for several businesses. So, it can immensely benefit the business owners as well the consumers.

Long-tail keywords can do the magic for you

The voice searches are comparatively longer than the text searches. As we discussed earlier, AI converts speech to text. Therefore, it is the text that goes into the search engines, not what you speak.

It is necessary to use long-tail keywords in the content that we use for our business website and other SEO-friendly platforms. People do not use normal keywords during voice searching. They use a conversational tone that is longer.

For example, if you sell organic vegetables, it would be better if you target keywords like “farm-fresh organic vegetables,” “organic vegetables near me”, “organic vegetables home delivery”, rather than just “organic vegetables”.

If you want to find long-tail keywords related to your business, type the primary keyword that you target and then see the related searches at the end of the page. You can find a lot of long-tail keywords from there. Other than that, you can use the Keywords Everywhere extension for Chrome.

Focus on FAQs

“FAQs” on a website is the only section that is purely conversational. You answer the questions that are being asked to you related to your business.

Voice searches are generally questions being asked to the search engine. For example, people search, “What is the right time to invest in social media marketing for business?”. “How does Google My Business works?”. “Why should I consider SEO to boost my website?”. You see, a lot of searches are interrogative.

Do some research and find question-based keywords related to your business. Make a dedicated page for the FAQs and write answers to questions like these. The more, the merrier.

It sometimes happens that you appear in the search results for one question, but your competitor is on the top for another. This happens because of incomplete answers to the questions. Add descriptive answers. The search engines always provide the users with complete and most relevant solutions to their voice searches.

Other than that, try to answers the questions that your competitors have not answered. This can help you get ahead of them.

Make your website mobile-friendly

Most of the voice searches happen on mobile devices. Therefore, you must focus on making your website mobile-device friendly. Not only for optimization for voice searches, having a mobile-friendly website can do wonders with the overall SEO.

Easy to navigate, mobile responsive websites are essential for every business as most of the voice searches are local searches. Time and again, audit your website to check if it works fine on different mobile devices. Rectify the issues immediately if you find any.

Other than that, upgrading your website is necessary as it helps to make it responsive. Also, make sure that your website’s content looks good and appealing.

Use multimedia on your website

If you use rich media on your website, crawling robots will boost your website and it rank higher in the SERPs. Search engines are not only focusing on the content of the voice searches but also the context. Most of them are putting efforts to make their voice assistants understand what users are saying, how they are saying, and where they are.

Local searches are the best examples of it. If you search for a particular restaurant, the search engine will show you restaurants near you instead of all the restaurants in your country with the same name.

This happens because voice assistants understand your accent, and most importantly, know your location. You must add multiple videos, photos on your Google My Business Profile, your website with the right descriptions and alt tags. It makes it easy for search engines to verify the location and the information provided. They are not left in any grey shade as they get enough information.

Focus on technical SEO

Technical SEO improves the overall ranking of your website. You can never ignore it if you want to grow higher in the SERPs. Focus on the backlinks of your website.

Try to acquire backlinks from websites having high domain ratings. Guest posting is one of the best methods to improve the number of backlinks to your website.

Other than that, focus on the load speed of your website. The users do not wait for more than five seconds and leave if the website does not open. Also, they expect results immediately when they conduct voice searches. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the load speed.

Conclusion

Voice searches are the future of businesses. As the users find several ways to conduct their searches on the internet efficiently and easily, the trend of voice searches will continue to boom. It has changed the dynamics of SEO and digital marketing. The business can not afford to ignore the optimization for voice searches.

Seeking help from experts can help, and if you really want to grow your business online, you must consider contacting Tabscap.