As the sale and use of mobile devices continue to rise, more and more users are getting comfortable with speaking to their devices rather than typing queries. This development also comes with advances in speech recognition technology that has allowed the likes of Google, Amazon, and Apple to offer a satisfying voice search experience for their users.
Amazon has become known for its commercials that show consumers telling Alexa to play whatever music they want through a Bluetooth system. Walmart and Google joined voice based shopping, making many analysts confident that voice will be a crucial part of marketing in the future.
As voice search and devices that use digital assistants continue to rise, there is a transformation in consumer behavior that accompanies it. Consumers now talk to their devices, as they would to a friend, using a more natural, less formal (using known keywords) language. That “natural” language flow births a new stream of queries, changing everything.
The best way to prepare for the change would be to understand the patterns and preferences people have when they make use of voice search. Since voice searches happen in the form of a simple question in a conversation with friends. It is important for marketers to consider the keywords that would arise from this new form as part of their content strategy.
In terms of statistics, 66% of women use the voice search on smartphones while 53% stick with laptops and desktops. The 16% of Americans already own a voice-activated smart speaker, and 39% of these consumers claim that using intelligent speakers has reduced the amount of time they spend watching the TV or listening to the radio.
Another 34% of these consumers spend less time on smartphones, but this number is sure to go up as statistics have it that there will be a total of 21.4 million smart speakers in the US by 2020. In fact, as of January 2018, the estimated number of voice searches per month rose to a billion, and the number keeps growing.
Therefore, every forward thinking business person must get all the information they can about voice search trends. The infographic below provides all the information needed to prepare for the takeover of voice search.
