Voice search is here to stay, and it continues to explode in popularity as voice-search devices and personal assistants such as Siri, Google, and Alexa dominate the market. Additionally, cars with voice-activated search are practically becoming standard. These days, if your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy doesn’t involve voice search, you are missing out–big time. As this market continues to expand at a rapid rate, your business will need to shift its focus to ensure that you are properly adjusting your SEO efforts to accommodate these types of searches. Below, we break down the need-to-know statistics, trends, and strategies behind optimizing your digital marketing for voice-initiated searches.
What is voice search?
Voice search is a technology that enables consumers to surf the web and perform queries on any search engine through verbal commands. For many voice-first devices, the answer to the question is then relayed by a virtual assistant. This type of experience prioritizes search results differently, as this technology desires to provide quick, relevant, concise answers to extremely common questions.
As we predicted in 2018, these devices aren’t just a fly-by-night trend. With Google Assistant, Google is furthering its push to become wholly integrated into our daily life. Voice assistants can help us with more tasks than we ever imagined. Amazon Echo, or Alexa, comes with access to over 25,000 capabilities, such as ordering coffee, making a shopping list, or checking our account balances.
Voice Search Statistics
- In 2020, the majority of smartphone users around the world are using voice search technology.
- Experts estimate that 30% of web browsing across search engines will be completely screenless in 2020.
- Voice search using the English language has an accuracy rate well above 90%.
- Amazon Echo sales reached 146.9 million units in 2019.
Voice Search SEO Statistics
- Voice search results prioritize pages that load faster. Typically, a voice-search result loads 52% faster than the average page.
- Social trends play an important role in voice-search. The more social shares a webpage has, the more likely it is to be selected as a voice-search answer.
- Short and concise answers are more often selected for voice-search queries. The average voice-search result is 29 words long.
- If your page is already in the top 3 in search engine results pages (SERP), there is a 75% chance it will rank the same for a voice search.
Optimizing for Voice Search in 2020
If you are not careful, voice search can significantly offset your 2020 SEO strategy. As users continue to lean toward voice-activated searches, the competition for high ranking SERPs is cutthroat. Voice assistants typically only provide a solitary answer, so it is essential to earn and maintain those top rankings. Local search is more prevalent than ever before, as most search queries have local intent. Also, users today are getting more and more comfortable with voice assistants, and they want their answers fast. Accordingly, this shortened interaction time has a significant influence on the type of results that rank well.
Here are a few things you can do to improve your SEO strategy with voice search in mind:
- Create Authoritative, Topical Content: Search engines want to show the most authoritative results first, as they’re more likely to be backed by experience and expertise. Your website content should concisely answer your consumers’ most common search queries.
- Optimize Your Site For Mobile: Smartphones are far too integral of a platform for you to gloss over. Sites that fail to optimize for mobile responsiveness are pushed much further down in SERP rankings.
- Focus On Local: As voice search continues to gain popularity, you’ll want to ensure that your local SEO is optimized as voice-search results favor local results.
- Elect Specifically Targeted Keywords: Determine your most desired and essential keywords and focus all your SEO efforts and content on them.
- Follow The Trends: A growing voice-search market means constant change. It is imperative to stay on top of the latest industry trends so you are always ready to adapt.
In summation, you will need to put a lot of energy into local SEO, targeted keywords, and authoritative content if you want to come out on top in voice-search results. As with all growing markets, nothing is a lock, so be sure to analyze your results and adjust accordingly.
Looking to optimize your voice-search strategy? Contact Bearpaw Partners today to get going. Let’s talk.
