What does Voice Search Mean for the Future of SEO?

voice search 2020 | DigiDir

Have you anytime heard about Voice Input Child Identification i.e., VICI?

Yes. You guessed it right. It is a famous American sitcom named “Small Wonder” in the year 1985.

It resembles the digital aid of today, where fiction has become fact, and now you can expect a human-like answer when you ask any robot a question. The strength of voice search is such that the way people communicate with apps and brands has created a change. According to Gartner, it is indicative that 30% of web browsing will be screenless. Besides, the eMarketer expects nearly 100 million users of voice search.

What is Voice Search?

The technology which allows the users to conduct internet searches just by verbally asking the question on the smartphone, a computer or any smart device is known as Voice search. It’s quite different from the traditional way, but the problem is typed into a search box. A search engine, or a digital assistant, will answer a question.

google assistant
google assistant

Is voice search growing?

Voice search is growing exponentially, bases year after year, and is becoming popular with all age groups, especially the younger generation. The type of voice search areas being served is not limited to basic tasks such as navigation, questions, and answers, playlist management, or cell location.

Activities such as shopping, email management, calendar management, and many others are also supported daily with more added. Voice search is not just a question of the future, but the current and statistics show that it is becoming part of daily life.

Is Voice Search a changing behavior?

Traditionally, the way people searched is so different from those they seek by voice search. The voice-based quest is much more intuitive and conversational. Let’s presume you want some details on the SEO audit. Traditionally, you will open the search engine tab and type along the lines SEO Audit, Website Audit, SEO trends, etc. 

Voice Search Adoption
Voice Search Adoption

But, with voice search, the search process would be something like Hey Google, what is an SEO audit? For the time being, the use of voice search is much easier and more practical as the public catches up. This is not so, and the voice technology cannot manage complex questions or commands. There are always more SEO services being added every day. It will take users a bit of time to adapt and accommodate just like any new technology.

Why should one optimize for the Voice Search?

Voice search is the main transition of today’s technological times. The change is, in fact, already underway. We are approaching, and the expectation is that the search will move away from online searches toward voice search.

The voice search can disrupt the digital marketing strategy. Traditionally ranking in the search engines in the top 10 of the search queries is an example of great going if all of the search engine optimization and content marketing strategies went well. It means we still had relatively good traffic coming towards our website, even if we are not at the top of the rankings or featured snippets or Rank Zero.

voice search optimization
voice search optimization

Now imagine if there is only one response, a search engine will only pick that, and that will be the ultimate answer to that particular search question. For most companies vying to Google traffic, it is certainly not something of great news. It’s one or none with voice search. This means if you are not ahead of your rivals, you are a loser automatically if you are not a winner. You’re part of a quest for words, or you’re part of nothing.

Another way to look at it is that, if you’re not part of the voice search, you’re not part of the 50% of the searches that you’re doing, and that is just a starting point.

If we see the patterns in voice search trends, it would seem that voice has a lot in store for brand engagement and customer experience. Voice-enabled communication with appliances has become a part of the daily life of consumers. Sixty-five percent of people in the age group 25-49 years perform voice searches at least once a day, according to PwC. 

voice search stats
voice search stats

Adding to that, the growing use of voice assistants like Siri, Google Home, Amazon Echo, or Alexa would have the most significant impact on the search industry. This indicates an increase in the use of smart speakers where each in six Americans will, in the future, own a digital assistant. Let’s see how the voice search future looks, and how you can adjust to it:

1) Voice Search would be linked to the local search directly

Local voice search accounts every week for 76 percent of smart speaker users, which indicates that voice search will be three times more local. It means that people in their local area will be looking for something and would ask questions directly on Google. It is beneficial in the long term to optimize the title tags, Meta descriptions, and anchor text with easily accessible telephone numbers and addresses, and to add “near me.” Additionally, it would be better to create in local listings such as Google My Business and Yelp, since sometimes people ignore the website entirely and call directly from the search results.

voice search linked to local search
voice search linked to local search

2) The long search queries with the conversational tone

Unlike most search queries, there will be more voice search on the conversational side, and people will either say full statements or ask questions. The voice will overtake the text, and the search pattern will also change as people shift from typing specific keywords to longer search queries that mainly need to be called into question.

Besides that, it would be more comfortable and practical to converse with the digital assistants. Recently, two big tech companies, Google and Amazon, announced that without using repetitive’ wake’ terms, one can start a new line of conversation.

One used to ask, for instance, “Alexa, what time is this? “And I had to say again,’ Alexa,’ before launching a new dialog thread,’ wake me up at 6. PM. Now you can have a more comfortable and simplified discussion by removing repetitive wake-words. You might say, “Alexa, what time is that? “And can start with” wake me up at 6 PM “without allowing Alexa to be used again.

Furthermore, it would be of great help to match your keyword research with the pattern of questions put to digital assistants as this may open your website directly on Google snippets. Always use as many long-tail keywords as possible in your content to leverage them in the best possible way.

The right time for voice search optimization has come Where is the potential voice search heading? Looking at the developments in voice search, we can conclude that every single day, artificial intelligence and technology evolves. Additionally, the “Internet of Things” will use voice searches to monitor the digital environment. Conclusively, we may say the voice is going to be the next big thing in the future, but the only question is, are you ready to adopt?