Why is Voice Search Important in 2023?

If you aren’t utilizing voice search as a strategy in 2023, you will be missing out big time! Find out how you can take advantage of the growing technology to grow your business in the upcoming year.

With virtual assistants accessible at the command of your voice, voice search is becoming more involved in our daily routine. Through the use of simple catchphrases like “Hey Siri / Alexa / Google”, users are able to activate their search assistant to search the Internet hands-free. Voice search has offered accessible solutions for people of all ages and abilities to access information with minimal effort.

In 2023, we can expect to see voice search expand even further with its accuracy and with more users having a smart home. As voice search continues to change how users interact with websites and businesses, it is important to see how you can utilize this change. If you don’t implement SEO into your content and localize it, you may struggle to be at the top of the voice search results. Let’s learn about how voice search is important in 2023 and some of our top tips for implementing optimized voice search strategies!

What is Voice Search?

Voice search allows users to search the Internet and access apps all from the control of their voice. While this hands-free solution has been around for decades, it wasn’t until Apple introduced Siri in 2011 that it began directly impacting people’s lives. Just as Apple started many trends in the tech boom, companies like Amazon and Microsoft, took inspiration from this new search assistant technology to release their own. Today, voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant are estimated to be used by 135.6 million people in the U.S.

Each voice search device assistant uses different search engines to access its information. This information is important to note since each individual search engine may give the user different first-page results. Let’s take a look at some of the more popular options and what search engines they use.

Siri: Safari
Alexa / Amazon Echo: Bing
Cortana: Bing
Google Assistant / Google Home: Google

You can learn more about voice search and how it works in the YouTube video below.

Technological Improvements

Voice search and search assistants are designed for user convenience. While some people may have been hesitant to engage with voice search, we are seeing this technology embedded in our everyday life. From our phones and speakers to our cars and homes, voice search and search assistants are a part of the modern-day experience.

Part of the reason voice search has been accepted by so many users is because of how fast the technology has grown. Through the increased accuracy of voice-to-text technology with national language processing (NLP), voice search technology is continuing to constantly improve and grow in its capabilities. Sure, it helps that technology is everywhere we look, but it wouldn’t be as successful if the technology was dated.

The Importance of Voice Search

In a world where smart homes, smart vehicles, and smartphones are essential features in our daily lives, we are always looking for ways to simplify tasks. Rather than doing more work to get the same outcome, we have discovered many ways to improve our user experience through technology. Voice search perfectly demonstrates this improvement by how it has changed the way people search by making it more convenient and accessible for all skill levels.

Just because consumers frequently use voice search, doesn’t mean businesses know how to use it to their advantage. The businesses that continue to stay relevant and stay at the top of search engines are the ones that adapt well to changes. We are now seeing this happen with businesses that are fully utilizing voice search in driving their localized search results. Voice search opens up opportunities to increase your website traffic, improve user experience, and increase your local reach. Optimizing your content will help your business achieve these results through intentional action.

Overall, voice search can be seen as a win-win situation, for the customer and the business. The customer gets to find the answers they are searching for and the business gets the exposure they wanted!

3 Tips – Optimizing for Voice Search

Now that we know more about voice search and its importance, it’s time to start implementing it into your website and online presence. Aside from having a mobile-friendly, fast-loading website, there are more areas your website can use to improve your voice search results. Since it can be overwhelming to figure out how to start, we have come up with a guide to make the task more straightforward. Whether you are new to voice search or SEO, here are some of our top tips for optimizing voice search in 2023!

Conversational Keywords

When voice search was first introduced, the technology wasn’t always accurately picking up on conversational phrases. Through years of technological improvements, voice search has been able to expand through the use of natural language processing (NLP). NLP has allowed voice search to understand the colloquial phrases or conversational tones that are used in the majority of voice searches.

How to Optimize: Identify some of the main conversational keywords/phrases that would be used when searching for your business. Filler words like “I, of the, for, to” can be used to appeal to the natural sentence structure of a voice search. Since more people voice search in a conversational tone, you can implement these causal phrases or long-tail keywords in your website to mimic the structure of a voice search.

Learn more ways to add conversational keywords to improve your voice search results by watching the YouTube video linked below.

Add a Question?

Voice search works best for answering specific questions. Since many voice searches are in the form of a question, it’s important to utilize its natural format in your website. This will make it more likely for your website to be at the top of the search results. Using question words like how, why, when, where, and what can help strengthen your content to be relevant to the searched questions.

How to Optimize: Create a FAQ section on your website with some of the most frequently asked questions about your business or industry. Make sure to keep the answers concise and direct so that they can be pulled as an answer for a voice search. Questions can also be used in blog headings or other tabs on your website. This will drive more consumers to find the answer on your page.

Localize

Think of how many times you have voice-searched for a business near your location from your phone. Approximately 46% of Google searches are meant for local queries. If you are wanting to improve your local search results, you will need to optimize your website through local SEO. Voice search and SEO go hand-in-hand so if you aren’t utilizing local SEO, you are missing out!

How to Optimize: Stay up to date with your Google Business Profile by replying to reviews, adding photos, and using relevant key phrases. This will make your business more likely to appear on “near me” voice searches. You should try to make a Bing and Yellowpages profile since other voice assistants use different search engines. Additionally, add links to your website and social media pages since many users will visit those before visiting your business.

Want to learn more about how to localize your voice search with SEO? Check out the short, YouTube video below!

Key Voice Search Statistics

55% of users use voice search to ask questions on a smartphone.
40.2% of the U.S. population uses voice search features.
58% of consumers use voice search to find online information about a local business
27% of users will visit the website of a local business after conducting a voice search.
In 2022, they are about 57.4 million households in the US are actively using smart home features like Alexa and Echo.
While younger consumers have adopted voice search technology faster than older consumers, older consumers are statistically using them more frequently.

Just For Fun

While Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant are at the top of most people’s lists, how do they compare to each other? Take a look at the entertaining The Ultimate Voice Assistant Battle by YouTube User: Mrwhosetheboss below!

Additional Voice Search Resources

SEO Services at Websults

Voice search and SEO work better together. That’s why Websults wants to help you have the best experience possible when it comes to everything in the SEO and digital marketing world. As an experienced web development, SEO, and eCommerce agency, Websults will listen diligently to your needs, ask questions to help identify any other needs or future needs, and will work hard to give you a competitive advantage in your industry. Contact Websults to discuss ways we can bring value to your organization.