Voice search has been available to people for a while now, however it has only recently started to take off. This could be due to improved voice search functionality for mobile and the sheer number of mobile devices that are capable of acting on voice recognition commands. It could also be down to how easy it is to conduct a voice search. With Google recently announcing that they have plans to make it possible for users to purchase products online using voice search, it seems like voice search is going to get a whole lot bigger, so here are 3 ways voice search is impacting SEO.
In May of last year Google began allowing users to voice search within Google. This, along with Siri & Cortana, has lead to a huge increase in voice searches. This means that more and more search engine optimisers will have to semantically match to search voice queries in an attempt to have Google rank your site as a direct answer source.
When people voice search they tend to speak in full sentences rather than just typing keywords, this has resulted in SEO no longer being solely focused on a few keywords, but on whole sentences. To keep on top of the current search trends in your industry you should regularly run search query reports.
A study about voice search usage conducted by Google came back with some staggering results. 55% of teens use voice search every day and 56% of adults use it to make them feel more “tech savvy”. This can have a huge impact on your SEO, if you have been planning all of your optimisation without taking voice search into account you can’t possibly be doing as well as you could be. Audit your SEO and implement whatever changes necessary to become voice search friendly, hopefully you might even get one of Google’s Direct Answer spots.
The world of search engines is always changing, get voice search savvy and gain an edge over your competition.