Why Voice Search is the Future of SEO

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Voice search is the next big thing in user experience. Voice search has become so popular that some industry insiders predict it will reach mainstream adoption in the next few years. Voice search has a lot of benefits for users: it’s hands-free, fast, and natural. No more typing keywords and phrases into search bars to find what you’re looking for. Instead, you can just ask your assistant or device to find places to have dinner near you with great Yelp reviews or an inexpensive restaurant in town. With this rise of voice search also comes new challenges for SEOs. Voice search is still a fairly novel concept to most users, which means they aren’t used to asking their devices certain queries. As such, it will be important that your website is optimized for voice searches so that when people inevitably begin speaking to their devices instead of typing them, your site ranks as highly as possible on Google and Bing results in pages.

1. Voice search is hands-free and fast

The main advantage of voice search is that it’s hands-free, unlike typing into a search bar. Whether you’re cooking, driving, or cleaning, using your hands to type phrases into a device can be difficult or dangerous. Suddenly, you don’t have to worry about looking at your screen to see what you’re typing. If you’re in a group setting, voice search is also a great way to avoid disturbing other people with the sound of typing on a keyboard. In addition to being hands-free, voice search is also extremely fast. If you’re in a hurry and need to find nearby restaurants specializing in a specific cuisine, you don’t have to scroll through pages upon pages of search engine results. Just ask your device to find places nearby with great Yelp reviews, and you’ll likely get your answer in seconds.

2. Voice search is natural and intuitive

Another major advantage of voice search is that it’s intuitive. While typing into search bars might feel like a chore or a necessary evil, speaking to your device feels natural. For example, if you’re looking for a nearby pizza place, you wouldn’t type “pizza” into your device. You’d say, “Show me the nearest pizza places.” While typing might feel more like a game of 20 Questions where you have to decipher what keywords a website owner used in their SEO strategy, voice search is much more intuitive. You ask your device what you want to know, and it tells you.

3. Voice search is currently in its infancy

While voice search is growing in popularity, it’s important to remember that it is still in its infancy. Voice search is currently used by only about 20% of users and is just beginning to be integrated into devices like Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa. Because voice search is still so new, it’s important that website owners make sure their sites are optimized for this type of search. If Google discovers that your site isn’t optimized for voice search, it might not rank your site as highly as it would if you took the necessary steps to optimize it.

4. Voice assistants are constantly improving

One major thing to remember when optimizing your site for voice search is that voice assistants are constantly improving. As these devices get smarter and more intelligent, they will improve how they interpret what users are asking. For example, if you ask your device to show you the nearest coffee shop and the location is closed, your device might show you the nearest coffee shop still in business. As these devices become more intelligent and understand more complex language, ensuring your site is optimized for voice search will become even more important. If your site isn’t optimized for these devices, you run the risk of not appearing in the results at all.

5. Optimizing for voice search will become essential

In the future, voice search is likely to become even more popular than it is now. All signs point to this future becoming a reality, and, as an SEO, it’s important that you make sure your site is optimized for voice search. If you wait until voice search has become mainstream and it’s too late to optimize your site for it, you risk not appearing on Google’s or Bing’s SERPs. Even before voice search became truly popular, Google stressed the importance of optimizing this type of searching. If you want to be one of the top-ranking sites on SERPs, it’s important that you make sure your site is optimized for voice search. Not only will this keep you competitive, but it will also help improve the user experience for people who use voice search to find information.

6. Conclusion

Voice search is the next big thing in user experience. Voice search has become so popular that some industry insiders predict it will reach mainstream adoption in the next few years. Voice search has a lot of benefits for users: it’s hands-free, fast, and natural. No more typing keywords and phrases into search bars to find what you’re looking for. Instead, you can just ask your assistant or device to find places to have dinner near you with great Yelp reviews or an inexpensive restaurant in town. With this rise of voice search also comes new challenges for SEOs. Voice search is still a fairly novel concept to most users, which means they aren’t used to asking their devices certain queries. As such, it will be important that your website is optimized for voice searches so that when people inevitably begin speaking to their devices instead of typing them, your site ranks as highly as possible on Google and Bing results in pages.

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