“OK, Google, how can I rank higher in voice search?”
That question might have seemed silly ten years ago, but the era of voice search has arrived, making this a very real expectation and thing to consider for your WordPress site.
Even back in 2016, voice search was already powering 20% of Google’s mobile searches. As virtual assistants have only grown and expanded (Activate estimates there will be 21.4 million smart speakers in the US alone by 2020), it’s a pretty safe bet that the voice search percentages are even higher today.
The increase in people using voice search has led to similar growth in people trying to optimize their websites for voice, as well as people investigating what that optimization actually entails.
Thankfully, that means we now have some data to go on. So…want to optimize your WordPress site for voice search? Here’s what the data says to do…But first.
What is Voice Search?
It seems pretty self-explanatory now, but to define it further voice search is the act of searching something on a search engine by the use of voice commands.
This is often, but not always, used with an intermediary, and a “wake” call, such as the ever-popular Siri, Alexa, or “Hey Google!”, aka, the Google Assistant. So far, only Alexa has offered the ability to change its name or “wake” call.
By the means of complex processing, and sometimes, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), these voice patterns are converted, analyzed, and understood by computers as text searches, and then fed into the search engine. Thus giving almost instant results. Accuracy is still albeit contestable.
And as mentioned in our intro, the use of these virtual assistants has only grown since given the plethora of devices that have them built-in, including phones, speakers, laptops, tablets, TVs, and even Refrigerators, of all things.
With that in mind, web developers, web owners, and even aspiring “tech gurus” try to learn as much of the pattern as possible to optimize their websites for it. To make sure that their content is the one spewed out when you say “Hey Google.”
This is a big advantage for SEO purposes and those looking into ranking higher on search engines such as Google.
And this trend continues to grow since according to research published by Adobe, by this time, it is estimated that 48% of “general web searches” online are via voice searches.
Such virtual assistants and voice searches have always been a dream for many tech enthusiasts since the dawn of the internet, and more so at the start of this century.
A Brief History of Voice Search
Like with anything Google has released, voice searches started out at Google Labs. Kind of like a fun playground and testing ground for most of Google’s features.
Since its introduction in 2010, what was formerly known as Google Voice Search or Search by Voice, it’s grown quite a bit in terms of usability and how it can be accessed.
Read full article here: https://wpastra.com/voice-search-optimization
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