How Voice Search is Changing Online Marketing, Part 1

As technology continues to advance, the world of online and digital marketing continues to change. One big area that’s making a huge impact on searches and the entire realm of search engine optimization? Voice search.

Mobile devices are already a huge area, making up over half of all online searches today – but voice queries have increased by over 30 percent, and experts expect over 50 percent of total searches to be done via voice command by the year 2020. Here is part one of our two-part blog on some of the basics of voice search, the numbers it accounts for, and the common ways people use it.

Voice Search Basics and Numbers

Every single day, roughly 3.5 billion searches are performed on Google. As we noted above, voice searches make up just under a third of this – if you’re in internet marketing or any area of SEO and haven’t begun considering this area, you’re missing out on a huge optimization area.

How People Use It

In many cases, voice search commands are used for basic information or to answer questions. Commands might include searching for nearby locations, or for information like directions, weather or other basic facts. As the technology expands, the ability of these searches will only increase.

Virtual Assistants

A huge driver of voice searches on the market is the growing rise of virtual assistants, which make up a high percentage of the total voice searches made. The four primary virtual assistants on the market are Siri (Apple), Google Now (Google), Alexa (Amazon), and Cortana (Microsoft).

Apple started this area off by introducing Siri into iPhones, allowing for voice search and personal assistant services. These assistants have become more advanced as they’ve updated over the years, including those that merge between devices and can actively answer questions rather than just simply providing web pages or search results.

For more on why voice search is important for your SEO, or to learn about any of our SEO services, speak to the pros at SEO Werkz today.