voiceseo-admin

The first speech recognition technology, IBM Shoebox, was first launched in 1961. Fast forward to today, and voice search has evolved from performing mathematical functions and speech to asking Google, Alexa, or Siri to look for the best restaurants in your neighborhood. 

But this is just the start of something bigger and more impactful across industries. Voice assistants will continue to revolutionize how consumers look for answers to their queries, how people go on about their daily lives, how businesses reach out to their customers, and more. 

If you’re a marketer looking into voice search SEO, you need to get up-to-date with the latest statistics and facts about the industry. Use this information to ride along with the revolutionary tech and gain a competitive edge. 

General Voice Search SEO Statistics and Facts

• Voice search is 3.7x faster than typing, with individuals able to speak 110-150 words per minute. In comparison, the average typing rate is 38-40 words per minute. (Bruce Clay, 2016)
• Google started feeding its AI engine with 2,865 romance novels as a way of enhancing its intelligence and conversational skills. (Buzzfeed News, 2016)
• There was an estimated one billion voice searches per month by January 2018. (WordStream, 2018)
• By 2019, the voice recognition market will rise to become a $601 million industry. (WordStream, 2018) 
• From 2008 to 2017, voice search queries rose to 3,400%. (Hubspot, 2018)
• ComScore predicts that by 2020, 50% of all searches will comprise of voice searches. (Campaign, 2016) 
• As per seoClarity, about 20% of all voice searches are prompted by a combination of only 25 keywords. (DialogTech, 2019)
• The top trigger words in voice search queries are “how,” “what,” and “best.” (DialogTech, 2019)
• It’s predicted that by 2020, 30% of web browsing sessions will be conducted without a screen. (Gartner, 2017)
• On average, it took 4.6 seconds to load a voice query result page completely. (Backlinko, 2018)
• Statistics found that the average word count of voice search result page is 2,312 words. (Backlinko, 2018)
• The word error rate for speech recognition is at 8%. (Bruce Clay, 2016)
• A study shows that the average Domain Rating of a voice search result was 76.8. (Backlinko, 2018)
• Pages that rank in the top three desktop results have higher chances to lead voice search queries. Case in point, 74.9% of Google Home results are traced from pages that also dominates the top three results for those particular keywords in the desktop SERPs. (Backlinko, 2018)
• Creating individual pages for every voice search inquiry isn’t an effective SEO strategy since very few voice search outcomes had the exact answer in their title tag. (Backlinko, 2018)
• Direct and easy-to-read content may benefit voice search SEO. The average Google audio query result passes a ninth-grade reading level. (Backlinko, 2018)
• 70.4% of Google Home result pages are HTTPS protected. (Backlinko, 2018)
• The average voice query answer stretches up to 29 words. (Backlinko, 2018)

Voice Search Device Statistics and Facts

• There are currently over 20 different smart voice assistants (i.e., Siri, Bixby, Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana, and others) in the market. (Cognilytica, 2018) 
• By the start of 2018, more than 20% of American households equipped with Wi-Fi had a smart speaker. (ComScore, 2018)
• Smart speaker shipment worldwide grew close to 200% year-over-year in Q3 2018—reaching 22.7 million units in the quarter. (Strategy Analytics, 2018) 
• Apple’s Siri leads the voice assistant usage on smartphones while Amazon’s Alexa tops on smart speakers and Google Assistant is coming up second in both categories. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)
• A survey shows that 65% of individuals who used smart speakers can’t imagine life without their devices. (Digital Information World, 2018) 
• Another survey shows that 42% of smart speaker users say that voice-enabled devices have become “essential” to their daily lives. (NPR, 2017)
• The total number of smart devices in households grow 78% annually. (National Public Media, 2018)
• A report from Strategy Analytics says Google Home and Amazon Echo constitute 94% of all smart speakers presently in use. (TechRepublic, 2018)
• As per a Hitwise report, 12% of all Google queries are mobile voice searches. (Econsultancy, 2018)
• About 88% of all “near me” search queries are performed on mobile devices. (MotoCMS, n.d.)
• 20% of individuals perform voice queries on mobile devices. The more mobile-intuitive a business is, the higher the chances they get to appear on voice search results. (Alphametic, 2018) 

Voice Search via Google Assistant Statistics and Facts

• Based on a digital assistant IQ test comprising of 800 questions, Google Assistant showed the most accurate answers with a score of 86%. (Loup Ventures, 2018)
• Google projected that Assistant will be available on one billion gadgets, an increase from 500 million last May 2018. (Google, 2019)
• Active users of Google Assistant grew 4x over the past year. (Google, 2019)
• Google Assistant currently speaks nearly 30 languages in 80 countries. Also, the voice assistant is now multilingual. (Google, 2019)
• Google Assistant now works with more than 10,000 smart home devices from 1,600 well-known brands. (Google, 2019)
• The Assistant now comes with eight new voices, including British and Australian accents, in the U.S. this year. (Google, 2019)
• In the Google App, 20% of searches are by voice. (Google, 2016)
• Google Assistant will be intelligent enough to distinguish what language the user speaks, just like Google translate. This should be enough to service 95% of Android users. (The Verge, 2018)

Voice Search via Apple’s Siri Statistics and Facts

• Based on the same test mentioned above, Siri answered 79% of the queries correctly. (Loup Ventures, 2018)
• Survey shows that 44% of virtual voice assistant users on smartphones are utilizing Siri. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)
• Apple’s Siri takes over the U.S. market for virtual voice assistants on smartphones with 45.65%. (Statista, 2018)
• In June 2017, Siri had 375 million monthly active users. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)
• 19% of individuals interact with Siri daily. (Hubspot, 2018)

Voice Search via Amazon’s Alexa Statistics and Facts

• Based on the same test mentioned above, Alexa delivered 61% accurate answers. (Loup Ventures, 2018)
• Amazon’s SVP of Devices and Services stated that over 100 million devices installed with Alexa have been sold. (The Verge, 2019)
• Amazon executive Daniel Rausch shared at Berlin’s IFA tech show that Alexa has told more than 100 million jokes and has sung Happy Birthday millions of times to customers. (CNET, 2018)
• Alexa is now connected with more than 20,000 devices. (CNET, 2018)
• Alexa’s catalogue of skills – what Amazon calls its voice apps – has now grown from 130 upon its launch to a massive number of 80,000 as of December 2018. (Statista, 2019)
• There are hundreds of thousands of developers in more than 180 countries working on Alexa. (CNET, 2018)
• According to a report, 20% of consumers that own a device equipped with Alexa have used it to find deals or track what they’ve bought online. (The Next Web, 2018)
• Amazon has sold around 50 million Alexa devices. (The Information, 2018)
• 85% of consumers using voice search end up choosing the items Amazon suggests. (Quora Creative, 2018)

Voice Search via Microsoft’s Cortana Statistics and Facts 

• Based on the same test mentioned above, Cortana showed 52.4% accuracy of answers. (Loup Ventures, 2018)
• In 2017, a report gathered that Cortana saw a 350% increase in monthly active users. (Windows Latest, 2017)
• 25% of searches on Windows 10 taskbar are via voice—on a desktop. (Edit UK, 2018)

Voice Search via Samsung’s Bixby Statistics and Facts

• 4% of smartphone users use Bixby. (Voicebot.ai, 2018)
• Bixby is currently available in U.S. English and Korean. (Samsung, 2017)
• Bixby’s voice search capabilities now reach over 200 countries worldwide. (Samsung, 2017)
• The voice assistant garners 10 million active users globally. (Samsung Mobile Press, 2017)
• Users can ask Bixby to “take a selfie” and allow Bixby to edit and enhance the image, and even share it on social media. (Samsung, 2017)

Voice Search Usage Statistics and Facts

• 56% of new smart speaker users have also started using voice command searches on their mobile devices more often. (Convince and Convert, 2018)
• One in five adults uses mobile voice commands at least once a month. (MotoCMS, n.d.)
• A survey of 1,200 adults in the U.S. found that 26.1% of people who owned a smart assistant-enabled device used it to make a recent purchase. The same survey revealed that 16% of those consumers used it for shopping every month. (The Next Web, 2018)
• Smart speaker owners use the device to perform an average of 7.5 out of 28 task types regularly, from playing music to getting flight information. (NPR and Edison Research, 2017)
• Research shows that people use voice assistants in the car (51%), at home (39%), in public (6%), and at work (1%). (Cognilytica, 2018)
• Individuals under the age of 24 are 33% more likely to utilize voice search queries in public compared to older people. (Go-Gulf, 2018)
• Roughly 50% of smart device users rely on voice assistance when looking for products. (Go-Gulf, 2018)
• 23.3% of smartphone users are very satisfied with voice search. (Go-Gulf, 2018)
• A study found that willingness to engage by voice with smart gadgets even in public places continued to rise for the past three years,. (Stone Temple, 2019) 
• In 2017, 35.6 million Americans used a device equipped with voice assistance at least once a month. (Digital Information World, 2018)

Voice Search Demographic Statistics and Facts

• A Global Web Index 2018 Insight Report shows 27% of the global online population is using voice search assistants on a smartphone. (The Webmaster, 2019) 
• Research shows that 42% of U.S. adults use voice assistants through their mobile devices. (Pew Research Center, 2017) 
• Survey shows that around 53 million U.S. adults over the age of 18 currently own at least one smart speaker. (National Public Media, 2018)
• 25% of people aged 16 to 24 utilize voice search technology on their mobile phones. (MotoCMS, n.d.)
• A survey found that 57% of people who use smart audio with children in the household said one of the reasons they wanted a smart speaker was to entertain their kids. (NPR and Edison Research, 2018)
• 80% of smart audio owners agree that Alexa or Google Home “has made it easier to entertain the children in the household.” (NPR and Edison Research, 2018)
• Baby Boomers (22%) are less likely to use voice assistants when driving compared to Millennials (37%) and Gen Xers (41%). (Higher Visibility, 2019)
• 19% of Baby Boomers use voice assistants while watching TV, more frequently than Millennials (7%) or Gen Xers (5%). (Higher Visibility, 2019)
• People between 25 to 34 years are more likely to feel comfortable interacting with voice-enabled devices. (Stone Temple, 2019)
• Baby Boomers and Millennials are equally likely to ask their voice assistant to find recipes, more likely so than Gen Xers. (Higher Visibility, 2019)
• Voice-enabled speaker owners wish to receive deals, sales, and promos (52%) as well as event and activity information (42%) from brands. (Think with Google, 2018)

Voice Search by Gender Statistics and Facts

• In 2018, voice search statistics found that 66% of male smartphone owners use voice-enabled technology at least once. Additionally, there are 53% of male desktop and laptop users, 49% tablet users, and 46% off smart audio users that utilize virtual assistants. (MotoCMS, n.d.)
• On the other hand, there are 55% of female smartphone owners, 30% of desktop and laptop owners, 31% of tablet users, and 26% of smart speaker owners that have used voice assistants. (MotoCMS, n.d.)
• Research reveals that 42.5% of women are prone to using voice assistants more likely than men (37%) when it comes to asking for directions. (Higher Visibility, 2019)

Voice Search Behavior Statistics and Fact

• 55% of people who use voice assistants say the major reasons why they utilize the feature is because it allows them to interact with their gadgets hands-free. (Pew Research Center, 2017) 
• Meanwhile, 23% cite “fun” as another major reason why they use it, claiming that it feels more natural than typing (22%). (Pew Research Center, 2017)
• 25% of voice-activated speaker owners keep their devices in their bedrooms. (Quora Creative, 2018)
• 41% of individuals who have voice-activated speakers say using the technology feels like talking to another person or a friend. (Think With Google, 2018) 
• Individuals who engage with smart speakers interact with it as if they’re human, expressing courtesy words such as “please,” “thank you,” and even “sorry.” (Quora Creative, 2018)
• Survey shows that consumer spending via digital voice assistants is predicted to rise by 18% by 2020. (Quora Creative, 2018)
• Two-thirds of individuals who utilize digital voice assistants end up using their mobile devices less often. (Hubspot, 2018) 

Voice Search Commands Statistics and Facts

• A survey shows that most people use their smart audio to play music (68%) or check the weather (58%). (NPR and Edison Research, 2017)
• 17% of respondents in a survey say they regularly use voice search to help them set, cancel, and manage their alarms. Meanwhile, 10% of participants use it to add or manage appointments and events in their calendars.  (Higher Visibility, 2019)
• Roughly 10% of voice search questions start with who, what, when, where, why, and how. (Bruce Clay, 2016)
• In a study that asked respondents which situations they’re more likely to use voice assistants on their smartphone, the top answers were when their hands are full (50%) and while driving (42%). (Stone Temple, 2019)

Local Voice Search Statistics and Facts

• 76% of smart speaker users conduct local voice queries at least weekly. (BrightLocal, 2018)
• A 2018 study found that 58% of consumers have used voice search to look for local business information in the past 12 months, while 46% of voice search users find local businesses regularly. (BrightLocal, 2018)
• People who utilize voice search most likely use the feature to look for restaurants, grocery stores, and food delivery services. (BrightLocal, 2018)
• 72% of buyers who find local businesses through voice search ends up visiting the stores within a 5-mile radius. (WordStream, 2018)
• 27% of consumers visit the website of a local business after performing a voice query. (BrightLocal, 2018)
• 54% of voice search users also want to be able to place a restaurant or bar reservation using the technology. (BrightLocal, 2018)
• 46% of consumers would prefer to hear local business’ rates in voice query results. (BrightLocal, 2018)

Prepare for the Upswing of Voice Search 

Smart voice assistants are already becoming a part of our daily lives. For businesses, this opens a vast majority to be more in touch with their target audience in a way that matches their search behavior. 

Getting into the voice search train as early as possible can help your business elevate your online marketing tactics. Voice-enabled search is here to stay and evolve. Either you adapt to thrive or ignore to flop. 

In the not-so-distant past, people would conduct a search on the internet by typing their query in the search box, but that has since changed when voice search technology and smart assistants emerged.

Now, digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant make it possible for people to discover content and find answers to queries without physically typing on their keyboard. Instead, users speak into their device to perform a search on the web.

This technological shift presents some major implications for the search engine optimization (SEO) landscape. Check out these quick stats and facts:

• In a PWC report, 90% of respondents look at their device’s voice assistant as an easier way of searching online compared with speaking to an agent or typing their queries through their smartphone.
• Approximately 33% of the 3.5 billion queries that Google receives every day are voice searches.
• Google’s speech recognition supports 119 languages.
• By 2020, 50% of online search will be coming from voice search.
• Former head of Baidu AI Group/Google Brain Andrew Ng says “As speech-recognition accuracy goes from 95% to 99%, we’ll go from barely using it to using [it] all the time!”

All these data show that voice activated search is fast becoming the hottest technology that search engines and consumers prefer to use. This only means that optimizing your website content for voice search should now be a major component of your digital marketing strategy. Through voice search SEO, you’re increasing your chances to attract more highly engaged visitors to your site.

What is Voice Search?

Voice search pertains to when people speak into a device to look for something online as opposed to typing keywords into the Google, Bing, or Yahoo search box.

Voice activated search is possible thanks to advanced speech recognition systems, which help digital devices and assistants understand what users are saying with utmost precision and accuracy.

Why You Should Care About Voice Search Optimization

Programs like Alexa (Amazon), Cortana (Microsoft), Google Assistant, and Siri (Apple) all support voice search. Although they are powered by different technologies, the principle is the same—users ask their device and the smart assistant will provide them with the best answers.

Keeping your website optimized for voice search gives your business a better chance to be part of the top results when these smart assistants receive voice queries. To optimize for voice search means making your content more conversational, natural, contextual, localized, and accessible for mobile users. Remember: people don’t speak in the same manner they type.

Paying attention to voice search SEO can help you reap a number of benefits, including:

• Better ranking opportunities. With more and more people taking advantage of voice search capabilities, Google and other search engines are favoring websites that provide information or content quickly and conveniently.
• Higher visibility through featured snippets. When your content shows as a featured snippet on Google, it’s an indication that you’ve addressed search queries well enough to be given the top spot in SERP.
• Meet query intent based on context. As you’ll learn later, voice search optimization strategies include creating locale-focused content to make it easy for your website to serve timely and relevant response to users.

Top Voice Search Optimization Strategies

1. Use the right keywords.
2. Create FAQ pages.
3. Use structured data.
4. Focus on local SEO search intent.
5. Make sure your website is fast.

Be sure that your business is ready for the voice search revolution. Follow these strategies to make your business website well-optimized for voice search.

1. Use the right keywords.

The way people process their thoughts through writing is different from how they verbally express what’s in their mind. Similarly, those using a keyboard to type in a search query will phrase it differently than if they used their phone’s voice assistant. One searcher will ask a question using umbrella terms, but another will be including more words that provide context to the search.

In traditional SEO, top-ranking keywords are used. But in voice search SEO, the same keywords are structured as a question, and sometimes even rephrased into relative terms. For instance, a tourist in New York is looking for top restaurants to visit in the city. When using their browser, they may type in “restaurants in New York”. But if they’re using voice search, they will simply say, “What are the restaurants near me?”

How to Optimize for Voice Search

• Go for long-tail and conversational keywords in your content, using standard language that people use in real-life situations. This is in contrast to using short keywords that are best suited for desktop search.
• Include question phrases, focusing on the types of questions that customers ask when they want to know more about a business, product, or service.
• Start question phrases with interrogative pronouns (Who, What, Where, When, How, Which, Whose) to make it easier for you to answer natural language questions.
• Use question phrases to determine a user’s search intent. For example, when people start asking “When/Where” questions, it might be a signal that they’re ready to act or buy compared with those asking “What/Who” questions, which might signal that someone is still on the early stage of the buyer’s journey.

2. Create FAQ pages.

Your daily interactions with customers can be a good foundation for creating your website’s frequently asked questions (FAQs) page. Each time a customer contacts you to ask questions, it gives you an opportunity to understand their chief concerns and how they want to conduct business with your company.

Here are specific ways that having an FAQ page can benefit both you and your customers:

• It allows you to educate people about your business policies.
  
  Tip: Use the FAQ section to assure customers that you won’t be storing their credit card information after they’ve submitted it for a particular order that they’re trying to place.
  
• It enables visitors to find answers to specific questions they might have about your website, product, or service.
  
  FAQs are a great way to empower customers to solve their questions or concerns on their own without having to go through customer service. This also means your system won’t be flooded by customer support tickets.
  
• It can help you lead customers toward the path to conversion or purchase.
  
  With all their questions answered, you can eliminate any obstacle that may dissuade customers from choosing your business.

How to Use FAQs for Voice Search

Traditional FAQs are those where companies list information about their business in the typical question-and-answer format. This format isn’t effective because it limits the type or amount of information that you provide to customers.

With the emergence of voice search technologies, you have an opportunity to use FAQs to address common customer concerns. This makes it important for you to review your FAQs to make sure they’re comprehensive enough and that they match the way people are seeking information online. These ideas may help you:

• Use long-tail phrases to make your FAQ pages sound as natural as possible. This helps search engines distinguish your FAQs from your site’s content when serving search results to users.
• Create different FAQ categories by grouping similar questions on the same page. Your categories may be based on a central theme, specific stages in the buyer journey, or relevant keyword phrases. This way, voice search assistants or tools will find it easier to pull the right information for your site’s visitors.
• Break down complex pieces of information into more digestible texts. Ideally, content for your FAQ should be written in short paragraphs using simple words, much like how you would write for a 9th-grader.
• Expect highly specific searches from voice users. This will help you tailor your FAQ pages’ content to provide more direct answers to customers.

3. Use structured data.

Another way to optimize your website for voice search is by using structured data—a form of metadata that you can embed into your website’s HTML code. Also known as schema markup, this data contains secondary information about your content, helping search engines classify and contextualize your content better.

What are the benefits of using structured data on your website?

You can add structured data on your web pages to help bots understand how your content matches search queries.

For example, a recipe page will add structured data, such as user ratings, calorie content, and cooking time, among others, to help search engines decide if that recipe is relevant to what users are searching for, and therefore, should go to the search results page.

Using these schema markups can also enhance your content’s visual appearance in the search engine results pages (SERPs) or transform your meta descriptions into snippets, making your content look more attractive for users.

In the same manner, structured data helps you set up your web pages for voice search SEO by looking for context clues that match specific queries.

How to add structured data

There are different ways that will allow your webmaster to add specific information about your site and its content using tags or microdata.

• Through a plug-in. Your content management platform comes with plugins that allow you to create and add schemas to your web pages.
• Through Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. This is a free tool that lets you mark up your content—from blog posts to product pages or reviews and business listings—with different properties to help Google understand your content and offer richer search results to users.
• Through schema.org. Tech giants Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex founded this online hub of schema vocabularies that you can use to help your site’s visitors see the different elements of your content when viewing search results.
• Through manual addition. This is for when you want to be more specific in creating or generating schema types, which your tools aren’t able to support.

4. Focus on local SEO search intent.

Mobile devices are proving to be useful for people who are conducting an online search, including voice search. Out of voice queries, 22% pertain to local search. This means that people on mobile are asking questions about nearby businesses. “Which pharmacy in Area A closes last?” is a typical example of a local voice search.

One way to make sure that your site’s content is accessible for voice assistants is by implementing geo-targeting keywords (such as the ones listed below) since they can help you address location-based queries.

• Phrases that people use to describe the local neighborhood or community
• “Near me” phrases in your title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, and anchor texts
• Identifiable landmarks around your business location
• Names of local institutions that are relevant to your business

Aside from using the right set of keywords, you can also claim your business listing on Google My Business. This strategy involves verifying your contact information, so that Google users nearby can locate your business or see your business profile on Google Search or Maps. In addition, by verifying your business, Google lets you track your business’s analytics to help you understand your customers as well as respond to customer reviews on your website.

How to Use Google My Business Listing

Creating your listing on Google My Business takes little time and effort, but it can boost your ranking in the search results when there are voice searches pertaining to locations or local businesses.

• Indicate your business name, address, and phone number on Google My Business listing. Make sure the information you provide is accurate, up-to-date, and consistent with other business directories.
  
  Why is this important? Any discrepancy in your contact information can negatively impact the local search results for your business.
  
• Specify a category to describe what your business is, not what you’re selling or offering. If your business is leasing cars, the correct category to use is “Car Rental” and not “Compact cars” or “Sedan cars.”
  
  Why is this important? Although Google will proactively tell you if it’s unable to understand the category you want to be associated with your business, choosing the wrong category can result in your business not showing on the voice search results.
  
• Optimize your business profile by including information about areas you serve, opening and closing hours, special attributes (such as “women-led” or “wheelchair accessible”) as well as photos of your business.
  
  Why is this important? An optimized business profile can bring more traffic to your website and encourage people to visit your physical stores.

5. Make sure your website is fast.

People who use voice search are always on-the-go and want immediate results for their queries. Ideally, your web page should load in 3 seconds or less, or you might suffer from poor ranking in voice search because of speed issues. There’s an exception to this rule though, as Google may still give you a favorable ranking in search results if it finds your content the most relevant from among other slow loading websites.

It’s worthy to note that page speed was used to rank websites only in desktop searches, but Google has decided to apply the page speed criteria for mobile as well, where voice search is usually done.

How to Optimize Page Speed

• Check any issues with themes, plugins, or any other integrations on your site, which might prevent your site from being responsive or working well on mobile.
• Invest in a good web hosting service that can give you access to high-speed internet connection.
• Rid your website of bad source codes—white spaces, new lines, redundant formatting, and the like—to enable you to create smaller web files that load fast.
• Determine a good schedule for browser caching. Google recommends a minimum cache time of one week and up to one year for static assets, where changes aren’t that frequent.
• Use optimizers or similar tools to make your images and files more compact and lighter.

It’s a New Era for SEO

Trends and technologies are ever-evolving, with voice search slowly but surely reaching the top of the totem pole. This calls for you to match the keywords, language, and tone that voice searchers are using to look for content, as well as implementing mobile-focused strategies to land your business on top of SERPs.

Since voice search SEO is quite different from traditional website SEO, you need to have a thorough understanding of the different methods you can use for your site to rank on voice search. Once you’ve implemented the best practices in voice search optimization, you should keep testing and monitoring your site’s performance as well as anticipate future trends and updates to make sure that your business stays relevant to the times.