Voice search has recently become more important than ever before. The future of SEO strategies and search optimization in general highly depends on the Internet users’ ever-changing habits, and marketers are advised to take this into consideration.

Reasons for the Growth of Voice Search

There are a few causes for the enormous growth of the popularity of voice search starting from 2013. The main reason may be the usage of mobile phones, as voice recognition programs have become trendy even among older users.

It’s hands-free, fast and futuristic.

As technology improves with each update, the error rate of voice search plummets. Behshad Behzadi, noted during SWSW 2016 that the speech recognition error rate has been reduced from around 25 percent two years ago to just 8 percent today.

voice search

Voice Search is no longer Just Mobile

However, smartphones are not the only devices suitable for voice recognition. Amazon has released Amazon Echo, a hands-free speaker controlled with voice. It can hear the commands even when loud music is playing. At the same time, Google made its own voice-activated speaker, Google Home. Devices like these allow users not only to play music by uttering simple phrases but also to search for information without the need to type, giving answers immediately.

Voice Search Results are Dissimilar to Typed Searches

voice search

It is evident that search queries are different when people say them aloud rather than when they type them. More conversational language is used, replacing accurate keywords with longer, naturally-flowing questions. A user will more likely say “Where is the nearest Chinese restaurant?” rather than “Chinese restaurants London”. This means that your content should be written in a more natural manner and, instead of an abundance of keywords, there should be questions that would resemble the user’s speech (starting with “where”, “what”, “when”, etc.). Try to implement this into your blogs, posts and other written media.

 

Now is the best time to start implementing the strategies that voice search experts suggest using.  As voice search is increasing in popularity, it is essential to optimize your website for it if you want to be a strong competitor in the business market.

There’s no denying that voice search is a one of the biggest trends of the digital age. With massive improvements to Siri, Google Now and Cortana, SEO marketers would be wise to closely examine voice innovation and think beyond text-based queries.

 

 

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