26 May Why You Should Optimize Voice Search In 2021

A sizable chunk of web traffic and online purchases now come from voice searches. The requests users speak aloud to assistants like Alexa and Siri are quite different to typed searches. As a result, optimizing content to appear in voice searches needs a different approach.

Voice is different

Some voice devices eliminate different kinds of content. Unlike searching on a phone or laptop, a smart speaker without a screen, can’t display an article or video to users for example. So this means using a different approach to answering voice searches, in addition to the content you already create for other types of searches that come on social sites and via a web browser.

Voice search is particularly effective for location-based businesses who can increase their footfall by optimizing content. For example creating content that delivers a result for “takeaway delivery” or “restaurants near Charlotte” voice searches while a consumer is driving or out and about are good target searches for food based businesses.

Voice search usage grows

Voice search is growing quickly among users and a recent study shows around 48% of consumers use voice search for general web searches. Another study reports that 76% of voice search users search for local businesses at least once per week.

Smart speaker adoption in US homes grew by 22% in the year between 2018 and 2019, and it is now estimated 45% of homes have one or more smart speakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also grown how many users get their news and entertainment using smart speaker devices, but despite this people who own smart speakers still perform lots of traditional text searches.

For businesses that act early there is an opportunity to do well in voice search. Even though the medium is growing at an impressive rate, not many brands have targeted voice search yet.

This fact could make it easier to see results from optimizing content for voice search, compared with other much more competitive searches such as Google search.

For help optimizing your businesses content for all kinds of search including voice search, or local searches from Charlotte, North Carolina to Seattle, Washington, and everywhere in between, get in touch with Visual Caffeine to learn how we can help you.