Back in 2017 and 2018, almost every SEO platform was talking about the disruption of voice search in SEO. Industry leaders and SEO service providers started noticing voice as a revolutionary upgrade to the world of search.
The trend started with the arrival of advanced voice assistants such as Alexa, Cortana, Google Hub, and others. Along with that, the market got introduced with the Amazon Echo family of Alexa-enabled smart devices. So, digital marketers and SEOs knew the direction where the future of search was heading.
There was a flood of articles about Voice Search, its optimization and how it will take over half of the search market, about 52.3%, by the end of 2020. Most experts were suggesting the prioritization of voice search at all levels of SEO strategies.
Predictions are great, but it is necessary to have a critical eye when looking into a new idea, especially in the world of SEO.
What is the credibility of data predicting voice search domination?
Frankly speaking, most articles and information online related to voice search are unreliable. This is due to a small base of subject utilized for data collection. Also, in many cases, voice assistance is incorporated as voice search, which interrupts the accuracy of data collected.
The research around voice search (in almost all cases) involves the following functions:
- Streaming music
- Setting or managing alarms
- Calling someone
- Playing voicemails
- Browsing contacts
- Managing calendars
Without a doubt, the studies conducted by the industry experts are genuinely helpful and showcase interesting findings. However, they tend to mix voice assistance and voice search, which puts a question mark on the credibility of the data.
Now, voice assistance is a great advancement. Google has started using AI for improved speech recognition, so it can understand users with speech impairment as well. NLP or Natural Language Processing has become more empowering with Natural Language Generation.
However, in terms of SEO, people need to separate voice search from voice assistance:
Voice assistance is about leveraging Cortana, Google, Alexa, and others to improve your life.
Voice search is about searching answers to your queries with voice commands.
How speakable markup can help?
Currently usable for news portals, Speakable Markup holds the capacity to change the whole spectrum of voice search forever. Proper adoption can allow virtual assistants to read users the whole content section instead of just the featured snippets.
When combined with the schema of Q&A, this can actually revolutionize voice search.
What to expect in the future?
Right now, it is too early to designate voice search is a revolutionary factor of SEO. Most probably, the voice search won’t be able to dominate the 50 percent of the search market by the end of 2020. It will surely play an important role in shaping the future of digital search, but only as a part of SEO.
Hence, it is extremely important to keep using these content SEO techniques:
- Write to offer clarity
- Utilize structured data
- Optimize your content for local SEO
- Use your content to answer questions
- Stay updated with the new voice technology arrivals
The flood of advanced and widely available smartphones / mobiles have made voice search more relevant to users. So, you should definitely adopt voice search with steady and calculated steps in order to gain genuine google SEO results.
