The year 2019 is passed, and we have just entered the year 2020. As more businesses and consumers place a greater emphasis on mobility and automation, voice search usage is anticipated to reach an all-time high this year. Voice search is widely used by customers to identify local companies, ask questions, make decisions, and more.
Many small and large organisations are incorporating speech into their customer care to enhance the experience for their clients. You won't be shocked to learn that 65% of millennials and members of Gen Z only use voice for internet searches at least once each day. The use of voice search will continue in the future. According to 71% of smart device owners, speaking rather than typing would be their preferred method of search.
Because voice assistants are now used by over 93% of people, voice search is gaining popularity day by day.
However, there are still some people who are unaware of what it is, its background, and the reasons behind its rapid growth and anticipated future growth.
Let's start by defining it.
Voice-search is essentially a cutting-edge technology strategy that employs voice-enabled commands to conduct a search on the phone, the web browser, or any application. To practically retrieve any online information, it comprises an open-domain short keyword query. Among the voice assistants that conduct voice searches are Alexa, Siri, and Google Voice search.
In essence, it is a form of dialogue system with rounds of dialogue. Additionally, you can tell the system more about your search. This enables you to obtain more precise findings.
In other words, search by voice is a method where technology use an audio recognition system to accurately grasp what the speaker is saying. Although it may seem like a recent development, the technology has actually been around for some time. Text-to-speech programmes are excellent illustrations of voice search.
Any gadget with a voice assistant or dialogue system can be made voice search-friendly. Speech assistants, on the other hand, use search by voice capabilities and streamline your procedure.
When Bell Laboratories created the "Audrey" in 1952, the speech search or voice recognition technology was born. The limited number of words in the English language might be understood by this apparatus. Additionally, it has a 90% accuracy rate for recognising numbers from 0 to 9.
After that, in 1962, a sizable computer company called IBM created "The Shoebox." Using a text-to-speech conversion method, this device was capable of understanding 16 English words.
Harpy began to exist after 1976. More than 1000 English words may be recognised by this DARPA technology. Voice recognition was developing at this period. More than 20,000 spoken words in the English language may be recognised by the TANGORA technology, which was made available by IBM.
The most significant development in this field was made by IBM, which created MedSpeak in 1996, a device that could comprehend continuous speech from the speaker.
Voice recognition and text-to-speech technology became so popular in 2002 that Microsoft included it in some of its own products.
The growth of artificial intelligence during this time period gave rise to personal voice assistants. Not any longer, as Apple introduced Siri, a personal voice assistant, to every product after Google released a voice search app.
There is increased interest in voice search, and you are not the only one who has noticed this. There are reasons why this movement is being embraced by everyone. For its rapid success both now and in the future, three factors are responsible.
It is 3.7 times faster than typing, therefore that is the first benefit. Searching more quickly would lead to finding answers more quickly.
In fact, 60% of mobile phone users conduct the majority of their searches by voice, therefore it works great with portable electronic devices like mobile phones, tablets, and other similar ones. Thirdly, it is easier to use. Compared to using a keyboard, it is better. In other words, voice search isn't as popular as it once was. It is a trend that will not go away. In fact, it has started to have an impact on search engine SEO ranks as well.
You may be trying to figure out why the majority of individuals find this trend to be noteworthy. Look at the below-market numbers even if you are not currently using it. These statistics will help you understand why everyone is choosing it and why it's time for you to start using it too:
• Voice searches would account for 50% of all web queries by 2020.
• When looking for products, 50% of individuals utilise voice search on browsers and social media sites.
• Voice search is used for routine online searches by 40% of adults worldwide.
The Google search bar has a microphone icon right inside it, which you may access by typing. You can actually use keywords to speak for your question by clicking on this icon. But allow me to elaborate further with a specific illustration.
Following a search on the Google bar, prominent boxes would appear. In essence, Google refers to them as featured snippets.
When you type a question, Google uses the keywords to find the most relevant response from the articles and displays it in the snippets. There are three types of featured snippets. A one-word response ranks first, followed by a data set or list, then a paragraph in third place. Simply because it is exceedingly challenging to extract specific data from the data collection, Google typically displays paragraphs and lists instead. As a result, the user's search is constrained and he is rendered uninformed of the current online information.
The main benefit of featured snippets is that you can incorporate sentences from your website even if you are not rated top. If you are among the top 10, you can surpass other websites and take the top spot.
Many online professionals refer to this space as Position Zero.
The operation of voice search is rather straightforward. It only reads the conclusions drawn from the information in the featured excerpts taken from the articles. As a result, anytime you ask your voice assistant a question, it responds with information from the featured snippets.
Businesses that interact with other businesses generally benefit from it. Your website's SEO ranking rises after it appears in the highlighted snippets because both desktop and mobile users now primarily utilise voice search.
If you have a website, voice search has many advantages, including the following:
• Brand recognition and awareness.
• An increase in website traffic.
• Outstanding click-through rate.
• Using voice search is rather easy once it has been enabled. Open the Google App on your Android tablet or phone.
• You could see "More" in the bottom right corner. Click it, then "settings," and then choose "Voice."
• Enable voice matching so that the help can use your microphone.
To disable voice search, take the following actions:
• On Google App, find the "settings" section.
• Select the tab labeled General.
• The Input and Language choice can be found under the "Personal" option. Just click it.
• Next, press the "GOOGLE OK" indicator.
To turn it off, slide the slider to the left.
• You've successfully disabled your Android phone or tablet.
Basically, voice search optimization is search engine optimization for voice. It now has a significant impact on the SEO market and the SEO rankings of every website.
The goal of voice engine optimization is to improve your SEO ranks through the results of voice searches. To do this, you must optimise your services, content, location, website, and corporate information.
The rise of search by voice optimization began in 2017. These days, quick answers are used with it. Similar to SEO, but with greater opposition.
Unlike regular searches, there are only 3 outcomes. You are the last one standing if you are not one of them.
In order to maximize the potential of search marketing, voice search optimization is crucial. People are anxious to learn about unique ongoing offers, packages, products, news, or any other type of information as soon as possible, and fortunately, they have discovered how to do so. Obviously, using voice search.
In order to optimize for voice search, you would wish to consider the following 5 significant changes:
You must first understand that everyone speaks differently. One person may use a word that the other person does not. Particularly when asking verbally, people have diverse ways of doing so. Therefore, you should come up with a list of all the questions relating to your company or product for which customers would be looking for answers.
You can use a variety of methods to find the best brand-related question. You can use the tools provided by Answer the Public to help you generate as many questions as you can using a specific keyword.
A nice Google feature that gives you additional question inspiration is People Also Ask.
You must be accessible throughout the entire search by voice customer care process. Any question a person has regarding your business should be able to get an answer from you. The following are some areas you can concentrate on when creating and curating more effective content for voice search:
Awareness.
Evaluation.
Interest.
Customer Support.
Purchase
Loyalty.
Try classifying the inquiries and questions you came up with after brainstorming. You may then map out your customers' journey more effectively.
The best way to handle this issue is to include FAQs on each page of your website.
Making your material as relevant to the query as you can is the key to optimizing. Make sure Google can readily access the pages of your website. Create a website map for this as soon as you can, then upload it to the Google Console. Bots are another area you might concentrate on. To ensure that Google bots can best grasp your material, use the schema markup technique. Describe your brand, product, location, contact details, and other pertinent information to Google bots.
You can also disseminate information about numerous publications, groups, seminars, events, menus, and reviews that are relevant to your business.
You can create personalized Alexa or Google assistant skills to make your content more available to personal voice assistants. In order to make Google's operations even more seamless, you must adapt your software to voice assistants.
By enhancing Google activities so that users of voice commands may converse with your content or application back and forth, you can improve the experience for voice command users.
Instead of being desktop-friendly, search engine marketing places a greater emphasis on content and searches that are mobile-friendly. The majority of voice searches do, in fact, originate from mobile devices. As a result, when you optimize for mobile-friendly searches, you are also optimizing for voice searches.
The top 6 gadgets are as follows:
One is Google Home.
2. Echo/Alexa from Amazon.
3. The iPhone's Siri.
4. The Google Assistant
5. Android mobile phones and gadgets.
6. Microsoft Cortana.
Here are some figures to illustrate its significance and applications in 2020:
• 22% of individuals use voice search to make direct purchases.
• 17% of customers who use voice search to place repeat orders.
• 58% of people who use voice search to find local businesses use personal voice assistants to do it.
• The caller rate is 28% greater than the web rate when it comes to retention.
In their living rooms, 52% of individuals have voice-activated technology.
Compared to standard Google web searches, voice search is radically different. Simply putting your query into the search field and browsing through the top search engine results is how you do a web search. But employing certain keywords to ask queries verbally is part of voice search. Modern search engines that have voice assistants can understand what users are seeking for and respond with featured snippets that have been taken from reliable sources.
You should be aware of the following key distinctions between voice search and text search:
• Voice Search Users Make Different Queries Differently
Voice search users speak in a variety of ways. They can use a variety of terms and sentence patterns when posing inquiries concerning their personal voice assistant. They inquire differently as a result, and they receive responses very differently.
They frequently anticipate one-word or one-line responses, which is what voice-optimized search engines respond with. The voice assistants select the optimal response based on keywords, featured snippets, and Google crawling.
• Location Is More Important
If you utilize voice search, location is very important. Typically, queries are asked informally. For instance, if you asked your voice assistant, "Tell me the greatest restaurant nearby," it would conduct a location-based search and return an appropriate result.
• Mobile Predominance
The voice search platform that is most widely used is on a mobile device. Regarding text search, this is highly unlikely. Now that voice search is widely used on mobile phones, text search used to typically be a PC activity.
The website must be both mobile- and voice-friendly. If it isn't, it doesn't meet the requirements to be included in the excerpts.
• Makes use of Natural Language
You don't speak computer language when you ask questions utilising a voice search. You converse in a native language, or more precisely, a human language.
As a result, voice searches take substantially longer than text searches.
• More question words are used.
More inquiry words like "why," "what," "when," "how," and others are used in voice search.
• Voice Search Has One and Only One Response
Unlike text search, which shows the top results, voice search typically returns just one result from the voice assistants.
This is how using voice search affects you:
Technology for voice searches is not new. Ever since Audrey came out, it has been there. However, it is presently increasing. Voice assistants are in use, and 420 million of them have been sold as of this writing. This is expanding swiftly because voice search using artificial intelligence is more effective and efficient than text search.Google claims that its accuracy has improved to 95%.
In a nutshell, it is an antiquated technology that is becoming more well-liked due to the proliferation of voice assistants in cell phones.
You could adhere to the following advice:
The majority of the voice search results are written at or below the ninth-grade reading level, so make sure to include filler and question words as well as to avoid fancy and jargon phrases.
It will be crucial for both big and small firms to incorporate a strong voice search strategy into their digital marketing efforts given the proliferation of speech technology.
Along with the advancement in SEO, it is providing businesses with a chance to improve customer service.
Additionally, it would be a fantastic tool for businesses to raise website traffic and brand recognition.
The following are 3 significant trends to be aware of:
1. The majority of individuals use while driving.
2. A large number of consumers keep their voice-activated technology in their living rooms.
3. The majority of consumers utilise for locations and directions.
If you own an Apple or Android smart device, you don't need to install voice search.
However, you can turn on voice assistance by navigating to settings on the Google app. Just tap on Voice Match to access your voice assistant.
What is the Free Voice Search List?
The following list includes:
Cortana by Microsoft
Use Google Allo
AIVC
Interactive Prometheus
UI Apps
Bing
Magdalm
Voice Search and Assistant
Hound
Vlingo
Bixby
How Can Voice Search Be Removed?
Simply uninstall the voice search app to remove voice search. You must disable voice search for voice assistants in Apple and Android phones, though.
Why does voice search not work properly?
There are two possible reasons why your voice search isn't working. It's possible that the internet is both switched off and not working at the same time.
Conclusion
As voice search has been shown to enhance brand exposure, income, and client base, investing in it has been a wise move for organizations.
Voice search has become very popular, but it's still growing. However, if you voice-optimize your website right away, you'll be one step ahead of the competition.
Looking out for the best digital marketing agency in Navi Mumbai, reach out to us in order to grow your business.
Ayushi Mishra is a content writer and proofreader with a flair to juggle between writing and the vision of curating unmatched content
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