Most of us have experimented with using voice searches on our smartphones, with mixed results. You’ve probably also seen voice assistant devices, like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, advertised on TV or online. Maybe you, or some of your tech-savvy friends, already own one?
Voice recognition and voice searches are gaining in popularity. According to a 2017 Google study, 73% of consumers would like to be able to complete tasks by speaking to a digital assistant. And, according to Tractica, there will be over 1.6 billion digital assistant users by 2020.
We’re already well on our way to that number:
- 60% of all web searches are now done on a mobile device. If that seems irrelevant then… wait for it …
- 20% of searches in the Google App on Android are now done by voice
- Assuming this is the same on other mobile devices (e.g. Siri on Apple), then as many as 12% of all web searches on any device are now voice searches (0.2 x 0.6 = 12%).
This is only going to increase as more voice assistant devices become available, and as voice recognition software improves. Hotel marketers need to start preparing for the inevitable and become more familiar with voice searches, their potential impact on SEO, and how to optimize their websites for them.
Voice Search Could be a Major Disruptor
It’s hard to believe, but the way we think about search engine optimization could change dramatically. That’s because voice searches predominantly happen on mobile devices, and mobile devices and voice assistants use a variety of search engines. Android devices use Google. Apple (Siri) uses Spotlight and Wolfram-Alpha. And Amazon’s Alexa uses a combination of A9 and Bing.
The iPhone is the top selling smartphone by far, and the iPad is even more dominant in the tablet market. In addition, the recent alliance between Microsoft and Amazon, which allows their competing voice assistants to now talk to each other, gives Microsoft access to searches on the leading voice assistant out there, Amazon’s Echo.
While it’s early days, if Apple continues to dominate smartphone and tablet sales, and Amazon’s Echo does the same in the voice assistant market, then Google seems bound to lose search volume share.
