Hey Google - Is my website ready for voice search?

Several clients have asked about voice search lately. Why? Because they are getting bombarded with phone calls and email sales blasts warning them to run out right now and get ready for voice search, before it's too late. AAAHHHH!   You too? 

Ok. First....

Remember that story about the emperor and his new clothes? Realize that in the tech world, as with any other industry, there are two camps:

1. Those who base decisions based on facts and patterns
2. Those who are so desperate for new customers that they use unawareness, fear and intimidation to try and panic people into buying the latest gizmo from them right now whether it makes sense or not.
                                                                                 (Hazard a guess which camp I am in?) 

Let's look at some real data on the trend toward voice search in the global marketplace so you can decide for yourself what impact it will have on your business. Here's what users of Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri, Windows Cortana are really doing:

image credit: Google

1. Voice search is growing in popularity, and for certain market sectors that will matter more than others.
   
2. Currently only about 20% of all searches on Google are voice searches. 
   
3. Of that 20%, only about 41% are performed by adults.
   
4. Of that 41% (adults searching), 40% of the time the user is asking for directions, while another 39% of the time they are using voice search to send text messages. Other things voice search is used for? Checking the time, find a song, look for a recipe, check the weather, find movie theater times. 
5. A very small amount of voice search is adults looking for product or services such as flooring, hot tubs or eyewear.

Like any other technology, voice search's net relevance to your business will depend a lot on the usage patterns of your target customer. For example: Let's say you sell above ground swimming pools in the beautiful state of NH. On average, there are 38 searches per month for "swimming pools." Let's assume you cover the entire state population with your product, so all 38 of those are important to you:

Total state search volume: 38
Voice search volume (20%): 20% x 38= 7.6
Adult search volume (41%): 41% x 7.6= 3.1

3.1 searches per month, well ok.

Also, Google's research shows most of voice search by adults is currently people who are lost, or voice-texting, or don't know the time, or who want to go the movies. In other words, they are not driving down the road pool shopping per se. But for our example, let's be generous and give it a whopping 3.1 people per month who are using voice search to find a swimming pool company in NH.

Also, consider that "voice search" is not simply about Google's main search algorithm.  It involves Apple Siri, Google Now, Windows Cortana, Viv, and you can bet a mess of others wild-eyed startups will be here soon, all with there own particular slant on things.That means that the results that finally arrive at Google's API may vary significantly depending on the source platform's natural voice handling and predictive user intent (semantic search) technology.  So any voice search oriented edge you want to gain on your website needs to take into account each of these particular voice search software's particular behaviour and requirements. 

I personally can think of many more cost effective and less complicated ways to try and potentially get two more leads per month.  How about you?

Voice search is still in it's very early stages from a technology adoption standpoint and depending on your industry and your website's general search readiness today, it may not require much if any additional website tweaks to be ready for voice search.  But don't take our word for it.

Take a peek into Google's webmaster forums and you can quickly see that Google engineers, and those outside of Google who do the actual SEO work (not sales) are all saying the same thing:

There will surely be some voice search specific changes down the road that will make sense to revisit, but for now, if you want to rank high in voice search, the same ranking factors Google has been talking about for quite a while for text-based searches, will apply to voice search as well:

• The best search experience wins. 
  
• Provide helpful, easy to use information for the searcher 
  
• Provide rich content, displayed in a way that's easy to find
  
• Provide a pleasant, easy to navigate, experience regardless of the screen size
  
• Provide a website that's fast loading and secure
  

Doing these things ensures that searchers (and Google) will take notice. It's not about chasing the trends or gaming the system. It's about giving the people what they truly want when they search.

If you are unsure about your website's readiness, drop us a line for an analysis of your website and market readiness.