With the growing internet searches from traditional desktop to mobile based one, a big change has been noticed in how users search via voice assistant solutions. Be it Siri, Amazon Echo or Google’s Home, voice search devices are grabbing attention of people who seek hands-free solution to make online searches. This article talks about various aspects of Voice Search to make SEO practitioners understand its value and why they should take it seriously from today itself.

What Is Voice Search?

So, the question is obvious for a person who is new to this technology. Well, voice search revolves around a technology for speech recognition. This technology enables individuals to make searches vocally by speaking terms aloud in contrary to typing something in the search field. The propagation of numerous internet-enabled small mobile devices and smart phones has given a rise in the popularity and adoption of voice search.

There are numerous applications that support voice search for users. The leading applications are making voice search based queries from the search engine, voice dialing, asking for certain information like sports score or stock quote, explaining specifics for certain request, launching any program or service and also choosing options and seeking video or audio file content.

Usually, Voice Search is designed as a software, but you can also get voice search service. The popular voice search applications like Vlingo for iPhone and Google Mobile app with Voice fully depend on speech recognition solutions.

Why Is Voice Search So Important?

The growing adoption of various personal assistants like Cortana, Ok Google, Alexa and Siri, the voice search feature is highly popular in the web world. As per a research, by 2020, there will be over 50% internet searches will made via voice search. It serves the direct results or answers to the queries of customers by communicating with various devices like home assistant devices, personal assistant applications and smartphones.

Though there are so many people around who believe that why invest in voice search when very few customers utilize it. But, it is actually a wrong assumption because few statistics show how valuable this technology is in the upcoming years. Let’s have a look as following statistics –

• 40% adult users now prefer to make voice searches at least once in a day.

• 50% users presently make voice search while browsing for products.

• ComScore Estimates - 50% online searches will be made via voice search by the next year – 2020.

It is predicted with survey results that by the next year, from all online searches, half of them will be based on voice search technology. That means, of 40 thousand per second searches on the web, 20 thousand will be via voice search. These statistics clearly show the power and potential of this technology and for this reason, businesses should start implementing their SEO strategies and optimize websites and applications for voice searches.

Who Can Take Benefit from Voice Search Applications –

Voice search technology was primarily introduced to simplify the web browsing process by enabling users to get answers of various queries without the use of keyboards or typing on any mobile devices. But, today, individuals love applications integrated with voice search technology. Following mentions key benefits of voice search for users:

• Voice search makes multitasking easier and better.

• With hands-free technology, one can complete tasks faster

• The voice search applications present great benefits to blind people who find it difficult to type on mobile or desktop devices. Now, by instructing vocally, they can get answers of certain things from voice search solutions.

• Multi-lingual support is the best attribute of voice search technology as it enhances the accuracy in local search results.

• Supports illiterate people who can get knowledge on any subject by interacting over voice search applications.

Why Voice Search SEO Matters to Business Owners?

As voice search smartly enhances the experiences of users, it will reign the business world in the upcoming years. Because of the productive usage of this technology, the leading search engines like Google give more importance to websites optimized for voice search. As the main focus of SEO practices is to improve website ranking precisely and present the most relevant information to users for what they ask in the fastest way. Ultimately, the experience of users come at the forefront in SEO practices for every business. Voice search exactly do the same and helps businesses to satisfy customers with the best solutions of their queries.

As per January 2018 statistics, one billion searches on an average for a month were based on voice search and this thing shows the growth of voice search trend in business world.

Impact of Voice Search on the Future of SEO in 2020 –

The growing adoption of voice search among users, the future of SEO in 2020 will be highly influenced by this technology. Especially, the estimation of ComScore clearly shows that there will be hardly any SEO practitioner who would prefer SEO strategy without optimizing for voice search. Following mentioned key effects –

• Website Content Should Serve Customers In Their Tone –

Talking about website content, it has to be optimised for users in their understandable tone. So, there will be no use of keyword-stuffed and boring content in voice search era. Just write for users and focus on what is their tone when they talk to you during interaction with your business over social media or reviews. Pay attention to the top queries of customers and concentrate their wording and language as it will help creating customer friendly content for you.

• More Focus To Semantic Search –

Google does not only trust keywords, but many other factors like previous searches of certain users, search patterns for presenting the best results etc. This kind of approach is called semantic search. So, the future of SEO in 2020 is going to follow and value to semantic search as it is an attractive way to state that Google has a great understanding of users’ perspective.

• Reaching To Zero Position Will Be Complex –

As per research, voice search supposes to stand with features snippet results which are also known as position zero. These position zero bring in a remarkable online traffic and the growth of text to speech would make it imperative for SEO practitioners to optimize content to attain this position and serve users a quality experience on the web.

• Crucial Need Of Optimizing Content For The FAQ –

A big portion of online searches are based on question based queries. So, search terms beginning with how to, what is, why do etc. are gaining more popularity in voice search trend. This trend leads Google and other search engines to give more weightage to FAQ section in the websites.

Strategies you should adapt to benefit from voice search –

• Present customer-oriented answers

• Follow an interactive and conversation tone

• Utilise the structured date for search engine

• Include certain locations to optimise content for local audience

• Always give value to context

How to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search and Siri –

• Proper conduct a research on target audience or customers

• Testing is imperative

• Create a strong content strategy

• Focus on conversational content copy

• Mobile-first approach to be prioritized

• Featured snippets

• Local mobile voice search