Voice Search

What are Voice Assistants?

Voice Assistants come in the form of Apple's Siri (HomePod), Amazon's Alexa, Google Home or Microsoft Cortana. In the last few years they've become more integral in our lives and homes. A technical explanation and definition of a voice assistant is 

"a digital assistant that uses voice recognition, language processing algorithms, and voice synthesis to listen to specific voice commands and return relevant information or perform specific functions as requested by the user."

Wordstream indicated in an article in 2019 that "In 2017, there were 33 million voice search devices in circulation, with 40% of adults using them every day. In fact, Google’s voice search tool received 35 times more search queries in 2016 compared to when it launched in 2008."

Some Voice Search Statistics in 2021:

• 30% of web browsing in 2021 will be performed only by voice
• 48% of consumers are using voice technology for general search queries
• Google speech recognition now supports more than 100 languages.
• 4.6 seconds is needed to load a voice search result page
• 35% of users use voice assistants to check the weather and news
• 29% of consumers leverage voice assistants to ask quick questions
• Men account for more monthly voice search users than women.
• 76% of smart speaker owners use local voice search at least once a week
• Mobile users are 3x more likely to use voice search.
• Buyers of voice-activated speakers will surpass 25.6 million in 2021

Optimising for Voice Search and Incorporating it into your overall SEO Strategy

With the proliferation of voice assistants it is wise to incorporate this as a factor within your overriding SEO strategy. Some traditional SEO methods need to be reviewed and sense checked.

Short tail vs Conversational keywords

Arguably, when typing it is easier to miss out words. For example, SEO Agency Southampton maybe used when searching on Google by typing. However, when using a voice assistant a searcher may ask "Who is the best SEO agency in Southampton?". It's important to ensure longer tail conversation keywords are not neglected within the site content and overall SEO strategy.