Voice Search: Statistics, Trends, And Beginner’s Guide To Using It

Voice Search: Statistics, Trends, And Beginner’s Guide To Using It

Voice Search: Statistics, Trends, And Beginner’s Guide To Using It

Updated on: 8 October 2021

Voice Search: Statistics, Trends, And Beginner’s Guide To Using It

Technology and science continue to change how many of us use the internet. For one, advancements and innovations have changed the way we search for information online.

One of the most significant trends that continues to change the way people use the internet – more particularly, the way people search online – is voice search.

When Google introduced voice search in 2011, it was more of a novelty rather than a useful feature that helps make searching for information online quick and easy. Thanks to the improvements in speech recognition technology, voice search has gone to the forefront of search marketing.

Voice search statistics

Current statistics show that 41% of adult users use voice search at least once a day. In 2020 alone, more than 50% of all smartphone users engage with voice technology using their mobile devices.

Aside from those, here are some more statistics worth keeping note of:

  • 27% of the global population that uses their mobile phone to search online is using voice search.
  • 150 million units of smart speakers (Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, etc.) were sold in 2020.
  • 65% of 25–49-year-olds use their smart speakers at least once per day.
  • 52% of people keep voice-activated speakers in their living rooms.
  • 93% of smart speaker users are satisfied with their devices.
  • 65% of people who use smart speakers can’t imagine themselves going back to the time when they didn’t use one.
  • Almost 20% of voice search queries contain a set of 25 keywords, consisting of words, like how, what, best, easy, etc.
  • An estimated 43% of voice search users use their smart speakers to shop.
  • 51% of all those who shop via voice search use it to research information.
  • 5% of smart speaker owners purchase via voice search every month.
  • 76% of those who use voice-activated speakers perform local searches at least weekly.
  • 58% of consumers use voice search to find information on local businesses.
  • 28% of people who use voice search to find local businesses go on to call one of those on the list.
  • Phone calls convert to 10 to 15x more revenue than web-generated leads.
  • 83% of consumers say they are loyal to brands that provide a positive experience regardless of the channel they are engaging on.

Voice search has been proven to improve a site’s user experience because it is convenient to use. People who don’t like typing on their devices prefer voice searches.

Emerging voice search trends

Nowadays, a lot of households use smart speakers, like Siri and Alexa. While these devices were merely for entertainment at the beginning, they have now become more commonplace in households all over the world. This is why tech giants are rushing to release their own voice-activated speakers to keep up with the increasing demand.

Improved voice AI and machine learning

Advancements in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning have revolutionized how people interact with smart devices and search for information on the internet. Google’s RankBrain is a great example. It was designed to recognize words and phrases to learn and predict outcomes better. When it doesn’t recognize a word or phrase, it makes its best “guess” based on the user’s intent. Then, it will deliver the best matches. This means that AI and RankBrain combined are more effective at answering all sorts of search queries.

A growing number of voice searches on mobile

Anyone with a smartphone can do a voice search. Because voice search is now available in more than 100 languages, voice search will continue to increase. A report says that virtually 70% of voice searches were made using natural or conversational language, which has been a growing trend since last year.

Increased use of voice for local and hyperlocal search

Trends show that there has been an increase in the use of voice for local searches. Since last year, 58% of consumers have discovered local businesses using voice search. The volume of voice searches also continues to increase as 46% of users who have used voice-activated searches will repeatedly use such a feature to find nearby businesses on a daily basis. According to Google, “near me” business searches have dramatically increased in recent years.

Voice search is changing SEO

Because of the increasing demand and popularity of voice search, marketers will need to make sure that they regularly optimize their content for voice search. Google voice recognition has an accuracy of 95%, which only shows how important voice search nowadays is.

Basic tips on optimizing for voice search

Yes, voice search makes it easier to find information online through voice search. However, marketers need to keep in mind that if your content happens to have a lower ranking, then there’s a huge possibility users won’t see it. In other words, you have to go above and beyond to rank #1 on Google and other search engines.

1. Deliver content that is useful and relevant.

It’s important that you optimize your content to ensure that it matches users’ search term intent. So, the more relevant and useful your content is, the better you will rank on Google.

For one, you can add a page dedicated to FAQs. You can also create short blog posts with words that match how users usually present their voice queries. In other words, you need to write your content with human consumption in mind, which means that it has to be dialogue-friendly.

2. Use long-tail keywords.

People usually use long phrases or full sentences to search for information using voice search. This means that you need to use long-tail keywords to drive your content strategy and make the tone of your content more conversational.

3. Make the subject matter clearer.

To make your content more crawlable, you need to make sure that your subject matter is easier for Google to understand and deliver to users. Voice assistants, like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri, usually pull excerpts from a webpage and deliver them to users to answer queries. If your content is not clear about the topic or subject of a blog post or article, search engines will have a hard time pulling out information from your content. This means that you need to focus on-page content on definitions and how-tos, as well as use plenty of in-text subheadings to make it clear to search engines exactly what your content is all about.

4. Keep your site mobile-friendly.

Keep in mind that voice searches are primally done on mobile devices since there are more smartphone users than smart speaker owners. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to check whether your site stands up to the mobile-friendly test.

You also need to check out Google AMP requirements to ensure your website’s loading speed is optimized. There are website themes that automatically respond to different screen types, but it’s worth making sure that mobile users can easily see your text and that image sizes are correct for mobile devices.

5. Provide context with schema markup.

Schema is used to mark up content and tell search engines what your site’s all about. Because this HTML add-on helps search engines better understand the context of your content, it will be easier for your site to rank better in search engine results pages and become more relevant in voice search queries.

According to research, you can gain 20-30% more ranking with an average of 40 schema types and 130 attributes and properties.

6. Think locally.

More and more people prefer using voice search when they want to find information on local businesses. If your business has a physical address, make sure it is listed on each of the online business directories, such as Yahoo Local, Google My Business, and Yelp. You can also develop location-specific content to optimize your site for voice search.

Final thoughts

SEO does play a major role in voice-activated content marketing, which means that marketers will need to reevaluate their marketing strategy to drive more traffic and increase their revenues.

Better user experience is key to customer retention and gaining more following. To improve user experience on your site, you need to take a more conversational approach with your content. This is why you need to make your marketing strategy more specific to voice search.