John Philip Argonia

How voice search affects SEO “Hey Siri” has got to be one of the most popular phrases that jump started the age of voice search. It is no secret that tech giant Apple Inc. once again pioneered the success of a technology with the domination of voice commands and queries by introducing Siri to the world. A recent announcement by Google states that 59% of search queries come from mobile devices, which means it has surpassed the desktop numbers. This should give you an idea of how smartphones and their voice recognition abilities are able to shape the future of voice search and SEO. It has also been revealed by Adobe’s July 2019 survey data that nearly 50% of smartphone users use voice assistants such as Siri and Google Assistant for “general web searches''. It is important to note that general web searches do not mean “all searches”, but it is still a good representation for the future of voice commands and search. Going back to Siri, a 2013 poll revealed that 85% of iOS users said that they did not use Siri. Now, Apple and Google are leading the charge in popularizing the use of these voice assistants. Voice assistants are now more convenient than ever because of how easy they are to use, how accessible they have become, and how good their speech recognition has become.   So, what does this mean for SEO? As voice search transforms the landscape of technology and how searches are made, adjustments and particular changes to SEO has to be made. A 2018 study revealed that 70% of English language voice searches were done in conversational language. This means that SEOs have to take into account the natural language we use in our day to day lives when thinking of a page title or meta description. People want to think and experience the feeling that they are just talking to another human when using voice assistants, hence the statistics of a 70% conversational language use. Another factor would be optimizing your website to be searchable by questions with a what, who, which, when, where, and how. Making sure that your content is concise and accurate is one way to do it.   Utilizing plugins and apps such as YoastSEO and especially Google My Business will also be a huge plus in optimizing your website for the future of voice search. Setting up a Google My Business account directly ties your business within Google’s algorithms, even Google Maps, which in turn boosts your site’s ranking and presence in the system. This will also help with how often your website will show up on voice searchers. Google My Business also has its own benefits for local SEOs to discover. More about that can be seen here.   The future of SEO is certainly heading towards a voice search oriented one. The boom of voice search these past years will heavily impact the way local SEO manages their website.  With that said, optimizing a website to cater the future where typing is the minor deed is a must.