With the rise in voice technology, the future is filled with opportunities with the usage of voice search. Siri, Alexa, Echo is just a start. Voice search applications are endless for different devices.
For those who don’t know what a voice search is, it’s a voice-enabled software that recognizes the user’s voice and follows their command for search-related queries. You can either click on the voice command button or set up the virtual assistant for voice search.
For example, for Apple users, the command is- Hey, Siri, for Google, its- Ok, Google. The voice search can be set up in different languages, accents, and dialects.
How Does Voice-Search Technology Works?
The voice recognition technology is based on the sound packets that we project when we speak the words. For example, if we say a word man, the technology will read all the alphabets one-by-one, ‘m’, ‘a’, ’n’ as phones. Phones are individual letters, and phonemes are the blocks of the sound of that word being said.
The voice search and recognition technology combine both phones and phonemes to understand users’ queries to answer them. Our voice-searches are based on this voice recognition technology.
In a nutshell, voice search works by reading the result that is pulled into a featured snippet, and when you ask the question, this information is used to answer your query.
What Is The Top Voice-Search Devices Available?
The topmost voice-search devices that are available right now in the market are as follows-
- Google Home
- Amazon Echo/Alexa
- Google Assistant
- Siri/iPhone
- Android Phones and Devices
- Microsoft Cortana
Why Is It Important?
Having a strategy for voice-search could improve customer experience and help build brand loyalty. By differentiating between voices, brands could provide customers with an experience of uniqueness and personalization.
Texting takes up much more time than just speaking up. It’s like having a conversation with machines. For example, while driving its more accessible and much safer to ask Siri for directions or for playing music, rather than typing it.
Voice-searches being available in different languages makes it easier to recognize the users. And it helps users too by providing them options to speak in their language. In a way, voice-search is benefiting both the customers and the brands.
Voice search not only speeds up your search, but it also helps reduce the negative signals like high bounce rates. Users can correct their spelling mistakes, if any, and get the answers they want.
Voice search can help multitask your work and enables you to do job work even faster.
With technologies on the rise, people are looking for more and more ways to make there works easier. And it is essential to stay connected with the world. If you don’t adopt new technologies, your competitors might win your customers.
In simpler words, to retain your customers, your brand should always stay updated with the world.
Let’s state out some facts about the importance of voice-recognition software’s-
- 40% of 13-18 years of age of people say that they use voice search more than three times a day.
- In the US, 71% of the population between 18-29 years of age use the voice-search in mobile phones.
- 50% of users with age 65-plus, claims that they use voice-search 1-3times a day.
- Around 22% of people use smart home speakers.
- 50% of the population worldwide has started using voice-search for general queries.
- Voice-enabled shopping is expected to rise to $40 Billion in revenue by the year 2020.
- Google reported that 72% of people who own the voice-activated speaker, use them for their day-to-day work.
- Google Assistant is currently the most popular voice-based software supporting up to 30 languages.
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When Do People Generally Uses Voice-Search Devices
According to a survey conducted in the US, India, Europe, Canada, and a few other countries-
- 42% of people use voice search when they are at home or in their offices.
- 30% of the users prefer voice-searches when they are on the go.
- Only 27% of the people use voice search applications everywhere, whether they are at home, or office or when they are going out.
- 56% of these people use their mobile phones for voice-searches.
What Are The Problems Faced By People While Using Voice-Search?
The younger generation is always concerned for their privacy issues and its keen to understand that users need these issues to be tackled very carefully by the brands. Youngers might be open to newer technologies, but they are also very aware of its implications.
The most common problem faced by users is voice-search not always understand what they are saying. This issue is the primary concern for the voice-technology and the industries are trying to reduce this problem by introducing more languages and making the tone more conversational for users.
How Can You Rank On Voice Search
You can rank using voice search technology. Google Home is one of the devices through which you could probably rank the search. It’s mainly about creating relevant data.
According to Google, if you are looking for a local service provider, results will be focused more on these three factors-
- Relevance- How precise the local listing is about users’ search.
- Prominence- How commonly searched and well known the location is.
- Distance- The closeness of the listing to the user.
For example- If you are using your smart assistant device, and say ‘Hello Google, find me an electrician’, Google will use your current location and pull out the nearby restaurants from Local Services by Google, HomeAdvisor, or Porch. And, you will have a list of nearby electricians in your email.
Optimizing Your Website By Creating A Voice-Search Strategy
To optimize your website for voice search, you should keep few things in mind-
- Keywords
The website must have specific keywords so that every time they are searched for your website shows up. It is the most crucial marketing strategy, and it is not limited to typing, it goes for voice search as well.
You can use the Google Analytics tool for tailoring your keywords to voice-based queries. Implementing long-tail keywords is also an excellent way for a more semantic search.
A combination of 25 words triggers more than 20% of voice search queries.
Those trigger words are-
HOW
WHAT
BEST
THE
IS
WHERE
CAN
TOP
EASY
WHEN
WHY
NEW
RECIPE
GOOD
HOMES
MAKE
DOES
DEFINE
FREE
I
LIST
HOME
TYPES
DO
WHO
- Tone
The tone of the voice-search should be more conversational and informal types, rather than a formal one as most people speak casually.
- Questions And Answers (Q & A) Section
A different section should be created for Q & A, which includes standard questions asked by the customers. Matching the user’s query improves the presence of your brand and creates more awareness about it.
- Understanding Your Audience
Content should be made, keeping in mind what the users might ask. Therefore, understanding your audience is a must before you start. Make the questions answered in more of a conversational way so that users will feel more involved.
- Seo And Mobile Friendly
Voice-searches go through SEO optimization and its essential that your website is SEO friendly. Therefore, it will take up seconds to load the pages on your website, whether users are surfing from there mobile or desktops.
Being SEO friendly helps make the optimization for mobile users much easier too. You can use Google’s Lighthouse tool for this, as it works for both desktop and mobile versions.
As voice-searches are rising, updating SEO strategies time-to-time is a must.
- Structured Data
The structured data appears beneath the URL of your website. It is used to understand your website better for the search engines by mapping them according to the content of your website. It includes items like rich snippets, breadcrumbs, and site links.
You should make your content as relevant as possible to Google for specific queries. Products, places, people, organizations, reviews, recipes, etc. are some of the information through which Google bots could better understand your content’s relevance to search for users’ queries.
Although structured data doesn’t affect your rankings, it can help boost the voice-search results by illustrating the relevance of your content for specific queries.
Applications like Schema.org, SchemaApp, and Google’s Structured Data Mark-up Helper could be beneficial for the brands by attracting more traffic to your website.
- Location-Based Searches
22% of voice-queries look for location-based content and 80% of all the searches are location dominant. Marketers should update their strategies considering both voice-search and location-search queries.
How Will It Affect SEO?
Voice-search will help transform your approach towards technology. But what impact will it have on SEO? Let’s see!
Voice searches allow 29 words in length on average. SEO strategists would have to go with long-tail keywords. The longer the keyword phrases, the higher the probability of conversion of people.
Smartphones are the most used devices for voice searches. And this could help change how Google handles search indexes, making mobile-first indexing a reality, and the fact that most of the marketers should realize that mobile phones should be taken as a priority over desktops.
Google’s RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system created to recognize words or phrases to improve internet search outcomes. The independent thinking quality of RankBrain helps it take query handling to the next level, and by using such a system, could help your brand a lot.
Similarly, you can use Hummingbird, which is another Google technology that helps with the natural language queries.
With the help of the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) feature, around 75% of voice search results comes under the top three positions. Featured snippets, which are the extracts from any website on the first page of SERPs, and brands will be given credit in voice searches.
The most common SERP features are-
- Rich Snippets will help add a visual layer to an existing result.
- Paid Results that could be bought by bidding on keywords.
- Universal Results will appear in addition to the organic results.
- Knowledge Graph data will appear as boxes.
Increasing domain authority will help with the search statuses and could be done by including high-quality links.
The voice technology specifically impacts e-commerce. Consumers are much likely to use voices to make purchases. Digital assistants are the best way to optimize them, so online sellers should make a note to prioritize this voice-search technology.
Let’s Check Out Few Companies Who Have Adapted The Voice-Search Technology
Voice technology is still very new, but it is an excellent opportunity to attract more and more customers to your website.
Let’s see which companies have adopted the technology-
- DOMINO’S- You can order your pizza online without even touching your phone.
- PAYPAL- You can send money to anyone by sampling asking Siri to do it.
- ZURICH IRELAND- They developed a set of Google actions and Alexa skills, which will find out parents, the cost of their children’s education.
- NESTLE- Nestle created expertise providing voice cooking guidance.
What Is The Future Of Voice-Search?
Today, voice search tools are not only limited for navigation, Q & A, or calling purposes. It has also started touching different sectors like shopping, e-mail or calendar management, and more.
Voice technology cannot handle complex queries or commands yet. There is a hope that in the future it will be able to handle them as well. It has the potential to take digital marketing to its next level with the adding features coming out daily.
For example, Google has plans to add voice query data to Search Console in the upcoming days. It means you will have actionable, personalized insights into how users will reach your website through voice search.
Google also stated that their goal is to make their technology seamless, which means that all their devices being cell phones, watches, digital assistants, etc. will have a unified solution.
To be able to compete with such a competitive market, your business needs to be on top of the latest technological advancements.
How To Decide Which Voice-Search Technology Will Be Best For You
For a great user experience, you should choose the best voice-search technology available. Here are some factors for you to decide-
- Awareness of your brand- Which voice-search technology will best suit your brand?
- Interesting facts- What existing features are available in the device?
- Evaluation- Which one is the smartest device?
- Purchase- How much do they cost?
- Customer Support- What type of customer support is available to help you with the problems one might face in the future?
- Loyalty- What other products support your device?
Before stepping up into the world of voice technology, one must check out all the relevant information available about the product and how well suited it will be for you.
Considering all these strategies into your overall optimization efforts could ensure that you are prepared to capture newer traffic to your website and will eventually help you grow.
Conclusion
Do you want to make sure that your business appears accurately in the voice-search queries? You could look in voice-searches through a listing management product, such as Listing Sync Pro (powered by Yext) product. This product pushes out data to voice applications, just like Amazon’s Alexa to make it easier and accurate for consumers.
Marketers need to pay attention to how voice queries would reflect brands. Age factors are also a significant factor to target the type of audience you want. It could help stay you on the right marketing strategy.
The impact of voice technology on businesses is undoubtedly going to be huge. Brands who can anticipate the change, they will reap the benefits in the upcoming years.
Until you don’t the voice-search technology yourself, you will never understand how much it could help your brand. There’s no harm in trying out newer things. So, don’t wait for your competitors to eat you up. Try it!
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