How Voice Search Affects Lead Generation

In today’s information-driven world, most people turn to an online search engine, like Google, to quickly find answers to questions or perform basic research. It usually works by typing a search term or phrase into Google and viewing the search results. But there is another, sometimes more convenient, way to get results from a search engine: voice search. Voice search uses the power of speech recognition to search the web. Instead of typing a query, you can use your voice input to quickly and easily get results from a search engine.

You may have a basic idea of how Google and SEO work, but voice search has made significant changes to the game. Especially for local companies, voice search can be an invaluable dynamic to pay attention to.

Many large companies have made major investments in voice search technology, resulting in products called “intelligent assistants.” Consider products such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant. Google Voice Search, or Search by Voice, is a Google product that allows users to use Google Search by speaking on a mobile phone, computer, or smart home device.

What Is a Voice Assistant?

Voice search and smart speakers are a type of technology that allows users to perform a search on the Internet by asking a question verbally on a smartphone, smart device, or computer instead of using the traditional method of writing the query in a search box. The query is then answered by a search engine or a digital assistant.

Users’ favorite voice assistants are as follows:

• Google Home
• Amazon Echo/Alexa
• Google Assistant
• Siri
• Cortana
• Bixby

Among the main devices on the market, Amazon (Echo/Alexa) leads the sales of smart speakers with a market share of 22%, according to Strategic Analytics. It is followed, by Google Home, and then Alibaba, Xiaomi, and Apple (with their assistant Siri).

The growth will not be so exorbitant in the coming years, although, according to Kantar, voice searches will account for up to 40% of global searches in 2022.

How Many People Are Searching via Voice Search?

Over 41% of American consumers own a voice-activated smart speaker, which translates to about 43 million decision-making adults in the U.S. alone. A study by Smart Audio Report showed that by December 2018, 118.5 million US households have smart speakers, a number that increased 78% from December 2017 with 66.7 million. A survey revealed that most users of a voice-activated assistant said that they would not go on in life without one.

52% of people who own a voice-activated speaker say they keep their device in a common room, such as a family room, living room, etc.

In the Google app, 20% of searches are now by voice.

Based on studies, the rate of smart speaker adoption by consumers is outpacing that of smartphones. By 2020, at least 50% of all searches are expected to be done through images or speech!

User Intent and the Context of a Voice Search

“Humans can speak 150 words per minute vs. type 40 words per minute.” – Katherine Watier

Users today tend to shorten their phrases when typing. As a result, when searching Google from a browser, you may search for a plumber by typing “plumbers near me,” but through voice search, you would be more likely to search for a plumber by saying “Find top-rated plumbing companies near me.” Although similar, these render different results on organic listings and the “Google My Business” map listings. The shorthand search results literally show the closest plumbing companies near you regardless of rating. The longer, natural language search results show a different list of plumbing companies near you, and they all have five-star ratings.

“Mobile voice-related searches are 3 times more likely to be local-based than text.” Source: Search Engine Watch

How Do You Optimize Your Website for Voice Search?

If you have already been using search engine optimization (SEO) best practices, you should be in good shape, but there are tactics you can use to improve your results with voice searches. If you are not using SEO best practices, you need to start making major changes to your website and its content.

Longer Long-tail Keywords

As mentioned above, users searching via voice will use much longer keyword phrases with three to five more keywords than by text. This means you need to start thinking about and doing your research on longer long-tail keywords. Essentially, this boils down to identifying specific phrases your target market may use in a search. For example, if you sell high-end sofas, you may use a long-tail keyword of “velvet tufted chesterfield sofa” as part of your SEO efforts instead of a simple keyword of “sofa.”

Trigger Words

When users search by text, they tend to leave out trigger words like “the,” “top,” “best,” and “how.” Start including these words within your long-tail keywords to capitalize on voice searches that are more likely to use these terms.

Gain Placement on Google Featured Snippets

When a user performs a Google search, they might see a search result in a special featured snippet block at the top of the search results page. Google programmatically detects pages that quickly serve up the best answer to the user’s question, and displays a top result as a featured snippet in the search results. For example, if a user enters the search term “Top mobile app development companies in Virginia,” a Google Featured Snippet would look like this:

This is not something that is easy to achieve, but multiple studies confirm that the majority of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords.

Start Taking Advantage of Voice Search Now

There is no doubt that voice search is becoming more popular, so the time to get your website on board is now. Google is even considering adding voice query data to the Google Search Console. This would allow you to gather more data and analytics related to your business and industry.

Consult with your digital marketing team to make sure you are taking full advantage of this growing market, and start incorporating SEO strategies that will increase your chances of showing up in voice search results. By staying up-to-date with the latest and best SEO practices, you can help your prospects find you online, which raises your chance of converting them to lifelong customers.

Having an SEO-responsive website can make a huge difference in how much traffic will find its way to your site. If you’re not too sure just how important an SEO-responsive site is, take a look at these benefits.