Voice Search & Voice Assistants

Introduction

If we are to go by the latest reports, then it has been shown that those gadgets which are able to recognize live voice or interact through voice is quickly gaining popularity especially among the youth. Amazon’s Alexa, Google assistant and Apple's Siri are among the major players in this category. What we fail to realize is that information was always available to us at our fingertips and now our busy schedule has made us recent going through each result in a list but we would rather have the most optimum one read out to us. There are many skeptics about the voice technology in itself, but the fact remains that voice search and voice assistants are definitely going to play an increasing part in our day-to-day life and getting on board is the most optimum choice.

Statistics

In 2016, CEO of Google Sundar Pichai in his keynote conference presentation, describing the applications of Google Assistant spoke about how one in every five search done in an android app in the United States was a voice search and that 22% of all searches based on local needs were through voice search and an unprecedented 40% increase of voice search were recorded by millennials. It is predicted that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice search

The Challenges

1.        Different Languages: When voice search becomes inevitably ever popular the first demand would be so as to incorporate the same in different languages so that irrespective of what language we speak the ideal result comes to be showcased. Right now, however that technology is a bit away from our grasp.

2.        Keyword Specific: Another point to notice is that all of these algorithms work on the principle of relevant keywords. The inclusion of specific keywords would yield us results and they may not be always appropriate for our needs.

3.        Privacy: A question of privacy also comes into play as these assistants would require access to more and more information from our side to make these results as accurate and personalized as we wish and the obvious question of these personal data being used for monetary and selfish benefits to those who have a good rapport with the parent company is a genuine concern and as of now we only have the stipulations and regulations enforced by several institutions and governments that prevent these malpractices.

The Changes

1.        Page Optimization: The inclusion of such a technology would mean having to make certain changes to our premium websites. Most of these voice searches occur in handheld devices and the whole reason why voice search became popular is because of its speed and efficiency therefore one needs to improve one’s page speed so that it will load much faster and can be voice search friendly.

2.        Security Certificates: All the results from voice searches only include those web pages that have an SSL security certificate and this is considered as a priority ranking factor. In fact, those pages with https prefix get caught by Google's SEO spiders much quicker than other websites.

3.        Keyword Research: Ensure to do your research and include those keywords that are more likely to be used for voice searching into your own SEO strategies. One can do the right research in the queries entered in mobile space, identify the appropriate keywords and implement the same for SEO algorithms. Snippets and other attractive images will also lead to better result.

Conclusion

One of the prime benefits of voice search is that they simply create a platform for more effective communication with consumers. Voice search offers a plethora of opportunities and in the coming years, the number of search-based micro-moments will continue to proliferate. The future of search lies with voice and as the role of search expands to cover every step on the path to purchase businesses will definitely act on them in order to implement new strategies and there is simply no time like the present.