When Siri first debuted, searching via voice commands was more of a gimmick than a practical tool. Users asked Siri silly questions like “tell me a joke” or “sing me a song.” But over the past few years, voice search has gained reliability, and millions of people now use it daily. A voice search occurs any time a a person verbally poses a question to a smartphone or device and is provided with an answer from a voice assistant.

What makes voice search different from text search?

First of all, voice searches tend to be much more conversational than regular text searches. For example, a traditional user would be more likely to type the query “pizza” into a search bar. However, that same person is much more likely to say something like “Where’s the closest place to get a slice of pizza?” when searching by voice. Another difference is that all voice or virtual assistants are powered by some form of underlying search engine, whether it’s Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or others like Samsung Bixby.

Which is the most reliable Voice assistant? 

Voice searches can be conducted via smartphone, tablet, laptop, or even through a home device such as Amazon Echo or Google Home. These voice assistants can answer all kinds of questions from “How is the weather today?” to “How many Oscars has Meryl Streep won?” This hands-free form of surfing the web is very convenient for any user who is driving, cooking or multitasking in some way. These assistants have also proven to be quite useful when connected to home automation devices and applications. 

Over the years, every voice assistant has gone through updates and improvements, but some are more accurate and reliable than others. According to Statista (2020), “Google Assistant ranked first among selected digital voice assistants in terms of share of questions answered correctly, as of 2020. A research found that nearly 77 percent of the simple questions and over 70 percent of the complex questions asked were answered correctly by Google Assistant.”

Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri ranked second and third, respectively, behind Google Assistant. 

Which virtual assistant has the greatest market share?

According to data cited by Microsoft, Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri account for 99% of all voice assistants in use by consumers as of 2018.

What makes a good voice assistant?

As you can see in the chart below, each assistant has its strengths and weaknesses. And they are all evolving rapidly! If you do a lot of online searching, Amazon Alexa is great and tightly integrated to Amazon.com. This assistant also has the broadest array of supported devices, allowing simple control of things like lights, thermostats, and home security. On the other hand, Google Assistant has the power of the Google search engine behind it. This feature, combined with some pretty slick AI, enables Google to provide the right answer more frequently and allows for more natural language conversations. 

That said, the number of devices that support Google is smaller than Alexa, which is due in some degree to Google’s tighter control over their ecosystem and a slightly higher focus on security when connecting to various devices. And let’s not forget Siri – this assistant’s prevalence on Apple’s market-leading smartphones makes her widely available to a huge market. Again, Apple’s tight control over their ecosystem provides better security, but is limiting in the number of devices and applications that Siri can control.

For more comprehensive comparisons between these voice assistants, check out this excellent article from Reviews.com.

Notice that the word “security” has come up several times in this blog post. For a voice assistant, security generally applies to two main areas. 

The first is digital access to connected devices. Remember, these are devices that help you complete tasks in the real world. So, it’s a good idea to have robust security to prevent hackers from accessing your system and turning off the lights, your security camera, or shutting down your furnace. 

The second area of security to consider is the physical location of a device. The most popular locations for home assistant speakers are the living room and bedrooms. However, users may want to consider placing them in a more “public” location, like the kitchen, to keep more private discussion away from the speaker. 

What are the three main types of local voice searches?

There are three different types of actions that can be executed through voice search. 

• Direct commands — These include directions such as “call mom” or “set a timer for 20 minutes.” 
• Discovery type queries — These include queries like “Find a pizza place near me” or “Find a plumber that fixes sinks in Franklin, MA.” 
• Knowledge type queries — These are generally broad questions such as "Is Local SEO difficult to do?"

1. Optimize for Local Voice Search on Alexa, Siri, Google and Cortana

Voice assistants rely heavily on information and content from local directories or citations (essentially, mentions of your information on the web). 

While we often think of Google as the universal search engine, it’s helpful to know that not all digital assistants are powered by Google. Alexa and Cortana are actually powered by Bing. Siri uses Google most of the time except for  location-based results (powered by Apple Maps) and reviews (powered by Yelp). and Yelp for reviews and photos. To be found in voice searches powered by Bing, it can be helpful to register on Bing Places for Business (similar to Google My Business) and Yelp.

Here is how to prepare your digital presence to be found by each of the big four voice assistants.

• Google Assistant 
• Optimize articles and web pages to be found in Google search 
• Claim, optimize and add photos to your Google My Business (GMB) listing 
• Solicit reviews for your Google My Business listing
• Apple’s Siri
• Optimize articles and web pages to be found in Google search 
• Claim and optimize your business listing in Apple Maps 
• Solicit reviews for your Yelp listing
• Microsoft’s Cortana
• Optimize articles and web pages to be found in Bing search 
• Claim and optimize your Bing Places listing 
• Solicit reviews for your Yelp listing     
• Amazon’s Alexa 
• Optimize articles and web pages to be found in Bing search 
• Claim and optimize your Yelp listing 
• Solicit reviews for your Yelp listing

Protip: Yelp has plenty to offer to local business owners and is very important in voice search. Their free listing product allows you to claim your business, verify address, respond to reviews, etc... However, page upgrades, posting, and listing customizations can get quite expensive, so just be aware of that fact. 

2. Use Long-Tail Keywords & Natural Language in Your Website

You already know that keywords are important for SEO. But what about long-tail keywords? 

Long-tail keywords are generally very specific keywords or phrases (e.g. “how to change Ford F150 brake lines”) that visitors are likely to use when searching for products or services online, especially when using voice. Long-tail keywords account for approximately 70% of all search queries, meaning they're less competitive when buying ads — but no less important. 

Utilizing these types of keywords and using natural language is essential to optimizing your website for voice search. Voice searches tend to be much more conversational, including entire phrases and not just keywords. When a user speaks to a digital assistant, they tend to ask entire questions, such as “What is the Patriots’ score?” or “Where is the nearest nail salon?” By contrast, typical SEO keywords would include a single word or phrase like “Patriots score” or “nail salon.” These long-tail keywords are not something that are typically included in regular SEO, and can be difficult to incorporate into your copy naturally. In order to optimize your site for long-tail keywords, you first need to research what longer keywords people are already searching for, then find a way to weave these key phrases into your content. One way to do this is by creating a blog or FAQ section on the website, as these could include entire questions and still flow naturally to readers.

3. Use Structured Data to Improve Featured Snippets

Structured data, or schema, is something that is often overlooked, but is a very powerful tool. Structured data is important for SEO because it helps search engines find and understand what your website is about, which enables them to provide more exact results to searchers’ queries. 

A featured snippet, also known as an answer box, is the boxed-in area directly below the ads on Google search results that aims to answer a user’s question right away without requiring them to click any of the search results. 

If your website is featured in one of these snippets, it can increase traffic to your website significantly. You can accomplish this by including the full text of the question or phrase you’re targeting prominently in your website's content. Make the question the heading, and answer the question in the body of a blog or FAQ page using top keywords or phrases in a natural way. For more technical information on structured data, check out this recent Duda blog post.

4. Improve Your Relevance in Local Searches

Another way to optimize your website for voice search is to make sure your business category and content is a good match for searches. Google determines whether your business is a good search result by measuring three things: prominence, distance, and relevance. 

“Prominence” refers to how well-known your business is online. This takes into account things like how well it’s assessed by customer reviews, quality and amount of inbound links, directory ratings, etc. And while the reputation of your business is always important, it’s especially important with voice search. 

“Distance” refers to the physical distance a business is from the user who’s searching. You can ensure that search engines understand where your business is by maintaining consistency in your name, address and phone number (NAP) across all different platforms. 

And finally, your business needs to be “relevant” to the search query. If your site is optimized with proper keywords, search engines will be able to understand a website and what kind of business it represents, making it more likely to be found.

5. Understand Search Intent

It’s essential to understand the search intent of users. The majority of users are looking to act upon the results of their voice search (e.g. go somewhere, buy something, etc.). In fact, voice searches are 30X more likely to be action queries than text searches. User intent is something that is notoriously difficult for artificial intelligence to decipher, but a recent Google update drastically improved the AI’s search ability to understand website content. By learning what types of questions are typically asked through voice search, you’ll be better able to understand a potential user’s intent when they’re searching.

Local Voice Search Optimization Summary

As voice search continues to gain in importance, local voice search will grow in prominence as well. 

To improve your chances of being discovered through this vital channel, it is important to take steps such as claiming your Google My Business Page, adding Schema markup to your website, adding your business to local directories, getting reviews and adding them to your website, identifying local search terms, and creating local content. Taking these steps to be optimized for local SEO has the potential to drastically improve your probability of being found through voice search.

Related: Structured Vs Unstructured Data — An In-Depth Explanation