February 8, 2025
Voice Search Trends 2018

Voice search has taken over the world, and almost all leading corporations, tech moguls, and marketing companies are out to master the art of it. Nothing speaks as powerfully as statistics do, so here is a collection of a few compelling stats to convince you that the age of voice search is on the horizon.

  • In a 2017 SEO survey, voice search occupied the third spot in the order of importance for search engine optimization.
  • At the moment, over one-fifth of Google searches are voice searches from smart speakers or mobile devices.
  • There are over 33 million voice-first devices including mobile phones, tablets and smart speakers in circulation right now.
  • Almost 79% of US adults use personal assistants on the mobile phones on a regular basis for finding locations, shopping and looking for facts.

It is not at all surprising to see all the digitally aware companies make a move towards optimization of their content and blogs for search results.

Here are the three salient features that characterize voice searches in the 2018 digital market:

Simple SEO Strategies with Voice Search Trends of 2018

All Voice Searches Require Conversational Words:

While using Google search on laptops and PCs, we often resort to disjointed words and keywords to look for specific information. However, most personal assistant users and smart speaker users ask complete questions about particular locations. For example – “Hey Alexa, what are the nearby restaurants that serve steak?” Whereas, most Google search users on the laptop are likely to search for, “Steakhouses in XYZ area.”

Another growing trend among voice search users is the use of long-tailed keywords. Speech searches usually focus on 8-9 words or longer since they involve complete queries. Your regular keyword search tool will not suggest complete sentences to you. You need to contort your website content and blog to form Question-Answer type patterns or include FAQs to satisfy the latest voice search trends.

You can check out question generating tools like Question Samurai and StoryBase. They suggest natural language phrases instead of isolated keywords for your content strategy. It is a glorious opportunity for London SEO experts team to help their clients climb the Google ranks.

Hyper-local Content Comprises 22% of Voice Searches:

In most cases, people are likely to look for driving directions, pizzerias, bed, and breakfast or simple location-based results while using their smart speakers and mobile devices. A considerable percentage of people depend on Siri or Cortana while driving to find music, to ask for directions and to find out the latest updates on traffic in their area.

As per information from Google, the “near me” searches have grown by over 130% in the last few years. It has led to the disclosure of a staggering statistic – over 50% of these searches precede store visits. It is another effect of mobile-geddon that is finally ushering in a massive overhaul of the SEO status of our websites.

Here are a few ways you can morph your content to meet the requisites of voice searches:

  • Include the phrase “near me” in your titles, title tags, meta descriptions, anchor text and internal links.
  • Always include the landmarks around your store location.
  • Include the names of local institutions and monuments that might add gravitas to your business.
  • Include all the phrases people usually use to describe your products and your business.

It makes more sense and is going to drive more traffic to your store since more people use their mobile phones on the go.

Voice Searches Offer Immediate Results:

Personal voice assistants may have their own quirks, but they have one thing in common – they provide instant results. Young adults and adults use their voice assistants for two purposes – making calls and searching for directions. When a user is looking for a particular location, business or service, you cannot expect them to find you, when you are nowhere in the top 3 companies or top recommendations.

You need to ensure that your website and service link appears above the fold and your business rating is high enough to compel the user to click on the call button. So collect positive reviews and update your business hours. Do not forget to mention your location and contact details while you sign up for Google My Business. Your ulterior aim should be to get a seat at the #0 spot by answering as many relevant questions as possible. It might require a little bit of extra work as per the latest Google SERP featured snippet optimization strategies.

Google voice search is here, and it is not going away anytime soon. Start by claiming your business on Google My Business, starting your own responsive website, optimizing page speed, including FAQ type posts in your blog section and including structured content on your site. It might be hard work in the initial stages, but this will humanize your content for better ranks.

Author bio: Harry Roger is an SEO expert. He helps many leading tech companies and London SEO teams increase their revenue.

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