What is Voice Search
Google Voice Search is voice recognition technology that allows users to search on Google by speaking on a mobile phone or computer, rather than typing in the search bar. These are voice searches. When you use Google, you may have seen the icon outlined below on the search screen, which you can use to enable the voice search feature during your Google search session.
Hey Google
Voice search has taken off in a big way, in particular since smart devices, like Amazon's Echo and Google's Home devices, have exploded in popularity. As voice search has gained popularity, Google has evolved its ability to understand and interpret voice search commands to improve voice search results and meet searchers' needs more accurately. As a result, it is necessary for businesses to optimise their content for voice search queries, to ensure they don't get left behind, as voice search grows ever more popular.
How Has Google Voice Developed?
Google's Voice Search was released by Google Labs in 2000, so it certainly isn’t an entirely new feature for the world’s most popular search engine.
Eleven years later on June 14th 2011, Google announced at its Inside Google Search event that it would start to roll out voice search. Unbeknownst to the world at that time, voice search would begin to revolutionise how we acquire knowledge. A year later, to stay competitive with Apple's Siri assistant, Google released an enhanced version of their Google Search app for iOS. The new Google search app boasted a powerful and unprecedented Voice Search capability.
However, voice search has certainly developed since then, and is now a much more accurate and effective way of searching. Early voice search was a bit hit and miss and you didn’t necessarily get (anything close to) what you asked for in your voice search query…!
As a method of search, voice search is continuously increasing in popularity. In May 2016, Google CEO, Sundar Pichai announced that 20% of searches on its mobile google app and Android services were voice searches. In 2022, Google reported that 27% of the global population uses voice search on mobile devices.
It’s already evident how important voice search is becoming from the following statistics:
- In 2020 the voice recognition market was said to be worth $10.7 billion
- Siri and Google Assistant are the most popular digital assistants, with 36% of users each.
- Amazon has sold over 11 million Echo devices
- Google Assistant supports 30,000 smart home devices in the US alone (Statista)
- According to Statista, there are 4.2 billion voice search devices in the world today\the latest research projects that there will be 8.4 billion voice-operated devices in use by 2024
The demand is clearly there for voice search technology, so it’s no surprise that it’s not just Google investing time and money in its development. Voice search can already be used across much of the Google ecosystem, including Google maps.
Google's Voice Search Accuracy
Google has been working hard over the last few years to improve the accuracy of its voice search functionality across smart speakers, mobile devices and computers, striving to achieve human-levels of accuracy. In 2017 claimed it had achieved 95% accuracy compared to under 80% in 2013. This shows that Google’s continued investment in voice search has been beneficial and with such high accuracy rates it’s no wonder that the number of people using voice search is also increasing.
Interestingly, China's iFlytek claims 98% accuracy in its speech recognition technology and its ability to interpret spoken voice commands. It can translate Mandarin to English, English to Mandarin as well as Japanese, Korean, and 22 other Chinese dialects.
Microsoft Reaches Speech Recognition Milestone
Microsoft probably wouldn’t be too happy if we didn’t make it clear that it’s not just Google that has made significant improvements when it comes to speech recognition. In 2017 Microsoft announced that its voice recognition error rate dropped to a new low of just 5.1%, surpassing the previous years' error rate of 5.9%. However, in 2022 Microsoft also took a step back to rein in its facial and voice recognition technology as a step to acknowledge the potential of this AI to exacerbate racial and gender biases and inequities.
How is Voice Search changing SEO strategy?
For many years now SEO has been based on optimising sites for keyword searches, but now we also need to think about how we can optimise for voice search.
Voice search is changing the way search engines handle search queries and how users search for information and search keywords. People search differently when they speak compared to using a keyboard.
Be Human
The main thing to consider when optimising for voice search is being human. What you type on your computer will be different to what you say. For example, you may say to Google voice search,’ How much are cheap flights to Spain in August?’, but if you typed that same search into Google you would probably use a more shorthand version of the query, such as ‘cheap flights Spain August’.
To rank for google voice search you need to consider producing content to target long tail keywords, as this content will stand a much better chance of ranking.
User Intent & Google Voice Search
The best way to think about how user intent works when it comes to Google voice search is to think about how you would ask someone a question in normal conversation. Create content in a question and answer style, which will help increase your potential to rank for google voice search.
Search Results Page
One of the most challenging issues facing SEO specialists is how voice search selects its results for search queries. Google voice search tends to pick the first result, bypassing the SERPs.
When browsing on a desktop or mobile you will see a number of relevant search results on your screen. You will then have the option to browse through the results and choose what you think looks like the best answer to your search query. However, with voice search, the option to browse results doesn’t exist and the most relevant answer is chosen for you.
Your website may rank second for a search query and that’s great, until you consider that Voice Search will only return the first result to that search query. Then ranking second doesn’t seem quite so good does it.
Why Do People Use Voice Search?
Voice search can be a much faster and, in some cases, much more convenient way of searching the web. It’s much easier to speak than type. We can type 40 words per minutes, but we can speak 150 words in the same time frame. It's also far more convenient to speak out loud to your smart speaker than it is to stop what you're doing and find a device to type a search into.
Most people will use voice search to get information about physical places they want to go to. For example, you may ask ‘find a pizza takeaway near me’. Voice search can recognise ‘near me’, and then uses your physical location to serve you with the most relevant results.
If you’re a business owner, voice search means it’s even more important to make sure your business details are up to date in Google My Business.
Is Voice The Future of Search?
The market for voice search will surely only grow, as more people start to use smart speaker devices to search for information and make purchases. It’s predicted that 50% of searches by 2020 will be voice searches, meaning it’s only going to become more important for SEO.
Talk to Our Experts
If you’re interested in finding out more about the benefits of optimising your website for voice search, then why not speak to a member of our team who will be happy to help and offer useful advise. Feel free to contact us today.
