Everything You Need to Know About Voice Search
A known way of searching that has been with us for over 10 years, voice search has influenced many people’s ways of approaching the search market.
It’s hugely important to building a successful strategy as well, just like mobile searches should be of high importance to your website plans.
Having a clear layout of your plans that involves voice search is the way forward in 2022, but what do you already know about voice search? And what should you know before beginning?
We break it all down for you in this guide.
What is Voice Search?
Searching through voice delivers exactly what it does on the tin: provides search results through the power of voice. It uses automatic speech recognition to convert voice signals into text that will appear in the search bar.
This technology creates a platform where users can simply speak into their smart device and the results will appear in their text form.
This is helped through the process of machine learning, a form of technology that continues to adapt and learn from human responses and commands.
What are the most common forms of Voice Search?
The ones we often talk about are Alexa, Siri and Google (or Hey, Google) which can be in either smart speaker form or from your smart device (phone, tablet, even your TV).
Most voice searches still occur through our phones, but the Amazon Echo is still the popular smart speaker out there and is in most homes.
When was voice search introduced?
Google introduced the form of voice search we know today in 2011. At the time it was seen as a new but fun way to look up new searches, but this has clearly grown in the past 10 years.
86% of people in the UK aged under 54 now interact with voice search on their smart device each month. This is only going to continue to grow in an upwards trend as it becomes more accessible and easier to use.
The technology continues to be improved upon and will help millions complete searches in a more accessible way.
How does voice search change my SEO strategy?
A lot of digital marketers scratch their heads at the thought of making their content friendly for voice search, but it involves much of the processes they already know.
Rich snippets are a good thing to explore if your site doesn’t already appear for some of these. Rich snippets, structured data or featured snippets are the small information boxes you will often find at the top of the search results.
With voice search in mind you should be prioritising question-based keywords. Users often ask for searches like “where can I find a good Chinese restaurant?” and other conversational terms. Keep this in mind when you’re planning your SEO strategy.
Local SEO is also incredibly important. Voice search is often used for location-specific searches while on the go, from the weather in a new city to where the nearest car park is.
Build out for your Google Maps, Apple Maps and other location profiles to help your business stand out.
Having an FAQ page is also incredibly important, which will help people know exactly where to go and what to look out for. These will basically answer a lot of people’s individual questions, which is great for people looking for an answer straight away.
Summing up
There’s a lot to consider with voice search, and we can only recommend you keep an eye on what’s happening in the world of search as it changes constantly.
What we do know is that voice search is here to stay, with new technology and adaptive changes coming all the time. And it’s a new accessible way for some people to use search engines without typing.
If you haven’t set up your site to focus on voice search, maybe today is the day you make those changes.
