How Voice Search Will Impact SEO in 2020?

Every year some new creation of technology takes place that alters the business productivity. Resultantly it can be hard for any industry, be it digital, manufacturing or IT to survive in the modern digital era. One such innovation in the field of digital marketing is the increased usage of voice search that is influencing the traditional SEO techniques in several ways.

To ensure that your website ranks well on the search engine, it is vital to check your website’s performance with the voice search. In 2020, internet voice search will increase tenfolds that will significantly alter the traditional search engine optimization methods. Every marketer and business must be aware of the role voice search will play in SEO from 2020 onwards as this will determine their revenue and productivity.

SOURCE: How Voice Search Will Impact SEO in 2020?

The Hike in Voice Search Innovation

The launch of Watson by IBM in 2010 metamorphosed the technology of voice recognition enabled devices. Watson is an improved voice Q&A recognition program that astonished the world by transforming computers into smart droids. The program was intelligent and fast enough to overcome Trivia grandmasters on Jeopardy (TV quiz show.) In the same year, Google launched its Voice Search feature, and Apple introduced Siri on iPhone 4S, the introductory digital personal voice assistant. Later in 2014, Microsoft introduced its Voice Search known as Cortana, and Amazon Echo also released in the same year.

Amazon Echo is a unique smart voice-enabled speaker that can react to the human voice and reply with its artificial brain called Alexa. Google Assistant was introduced back in 2016, as well as the Voice Search enabled speaker Google Home. Till 2019 Amazon Alexa steered the smart speakers market, but according to the current rise in Google Home users, it overtaking Alexa seems inevitable.

Voice recognition innovation has been continuously in development, and it is improving day by day since its genesis. Google claims that its voice recognition system is 95% accurate, but it is nothing comparable to the Chinese iFlytek voice recognition program that is 98% accurate.

The comprehensive voice search in 2019 was not only limited to smartphones and smart speakers, but it is also integrated into several other devices such as on Televisions, Internet of Things, smart thermostats, and in home kits. While 2019 was a big year for development in voice search, 2020 will revolutionize the digital world with the expansion of voice search.  

According to statistics, 31% of smart mobile users access voice search feature at least one in a week while 20 percent of searches on Google app and Android phones are done via voice recognition system. While the above statics of usage of voice search may be shocking, 2020 will dominate the manual screen web searches by 50 %.

According to a prediction by a media analytics organization Comscore, half of the internet searches will be done via voice in 2020. Gartner, another analytics firm, speculates that in 2020 30 % of the user queries on the internet will be made without using keypads. These predictions suggest that you need to be ready for the voice search’s effect on your business as well as modify the marketing plan that might be friendly with voice recognition systems. Another research organization speculates that 3.25 billion voice searches were in-use at the beginning of 2020. They forecast that until 2023 it may rise to eight billion voice search systems in use.

The Effect of Voice Search on SEO

The voice recognition innovation is meant to comfort your life and offer ease of access to web information. However, it may be a sudden sharp turn for marketers and SEO specialists. Let’s discuss in what way it influences your search engine optimization:

Natural Language

With the new and upgraded voice search detection programs, voice detection feature is now adept in analyzing day-to-day common language we use while talking to a regular human. The developers of voice detection systems analyze user’s voice queries, and then they optimize their voice detection systems accordingly. This makes voice identification programs much smarter in learning and understanding a natural language spoken by a human. So the point here is about the language you use in your online content should be natural and moderate. If it gets too formal, then the voice searches may not include or rank your site in the search engines. So your business website should have a standard conversational language that is used in day to day life.

Keyword Length

The method we were using until now was ranking our sites for 2-3 phrases keyword or short keywords, but it is now changing. When a person uses voice search is likely to speak out a lengthy keyword such as “Nike red men’s running shoes” instead of typing “Nike shoes.” This happens because while talking to someone, we mostly use descriptive sentences instead of saying two-three words. However, while using keypads, most of us are quite lazy and only types two-three terms to get the result. According to Backlinko, voice searches are mostly 29 words long and include natural conversational language. That means from now on, your online business content must contain keywords that are likely to be spoken via voice search. To get a better ROI in 2020, one should always long-tail keywords and may avoid excess usage of short-tail keywords.   

Question Keywords

Voice search based web queries will be made up with question terms like how, what, when, which, who, and where. These words are avoided while searching from a keypad. The SEO executives, leaders, and professionals need to bear in mind that the content provides accurate and to the point answer to these question keywords. Business website contents must include the relevant answers to their questions keywords to generate considerable traffic via voice searches.

It would help if you also used the verbs in your content that are likely to be used by users with the question keywords be it can, do, make, and other. You can also consider using the adjectives and nouns related to the query to get the most out of voice search.

Semantic Search

Instead of lexical searches, Google and other users are likely to use Semantic search algorithms. It does not only ranks websites based on used words but also considers the user’s geolocation, search history, glocal search history, and spelling variations of the user’s search terms. Google has a dedicated artificial intelligent system called RankBrain for this purpose, which identifies the arranged order of the words in a keyword. This helps Google understand the user’s purpose behind using the specific terms, and it also considers the other aspects mentioned above in this paragraph. Another program, Hummingbird, is used by Google to recognize and learn the natural language of a user. In short, voice search is related to a semantic search system as the voice searches sometimes have different intentions even if other users use the same terms for another purpose. 

Local Search

Voice innovation in smartphones is significantly focused more on the local search. It is at least three times more drawn towards local search than the non-location-based searches. For example, if someone is looking for a bakery shop nearby, then the user is likely to say, “Hey Google, best bakeries near me.” This is why voice search has a significant impact on the local search ration, and it is rapidly increasing as more and more people are getting aware of this feature.

SERPs

The sites optimized with the voice search are mostly ranked in the top three positions on the search engine result page. You don’t need to be on the first rank on SERP to appear on the Answer Boxes located at the upper of the SERP. If your site is providing the most relevant answer to the user query, then your site will appear in the featured snippet. To appear in Google’s featured snippet, your website must have the most appropriate and logical answer to the user keyword. The voice search keywords are a great way to appear in these featured boxes.

Ecommerce

Users are using a voice assistant to find their products online, and most of the e-commerce keywords are made through voice search. Approximately 40% of the users use voice search before making the final deal, and this means they prefer voice search while shopping online. If you are managing the SEO of an e-commerce website, then you need to use voice friendly keywords in your products.

How to Adapt to Voice Search SEO?

As you now aware of how voice is influencing the world of SEO, here are the tips that may help marketers adapt to the voice search change:

1. Site Loading Speed: Google Voice search apps are preferring a lightweight website that can load quickly without any delay. So marketers are advised to optimize the loading time of their websites. One can do this by compressing the images of the website as well as avoiding the auto-play videos, which slows down the loading time.
2. Use of long-tail keywords: Voice searches are long-tail keywords, and optimizing your site accordingly, will help you in generating traffic through voice searches.
3. Featured Snippets: Voice searches are likely to contain question words, and by answering these question keywords with a relevant and short answer, you can list your site into the featured snippet. These snippets only consider summary answers from particular webpages.  
4. Use Structured Data and Schema Markup: Your content must be well organized and should follow an excellent order and structure to appear in voice searches. Always use Schema markups on your website while posting traffic-generating content.
5. Provide Local Information:  If your site is for your local business where you provide products and services, then you should include the details like physical address and map of your store or company. You can embed Google My Business on your site to boost the performance in local voice searches.
6. Enhance the Domain Authority: Site that has higher DA is likely to appear in the voice searches because this increases the trust of search engines on your site. You can boost the Domain authority of your website by creating high-quality backlinks on your domain.

The voice search innovation is influencing search engine optimization for sure and recently it has significantly developed. In 2020 it will increase more than ever, so marketers should not be surprised if the traditional SEO techniques stop incurring the general revenue. It is time to buckle up and take advantage of voice search and get even more customers through the web.

Harry Williams is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles for AOI Tech Solutions, TekWire, Wire IT Solutions, Fegon Group, Zone Firewall. He is a very knowledgeable person with lots of experience. To get in touch with the internet security service provider,  just visit on these given sites.