Voice Search is an eCommerce Trend in 2022

Do you know that voice search has become the eCommerce trend these days? And it will keep staying in the eCommerce trends even in the upcoming years. Why? Of course there are several reasons behind it, but first, you might want to be more familiar with this voice search function.

About Voice Search

Voice search is the action of giving questions or commands through speech to the internet through digital devices such as mobile phones or tablets.

It is human nature to desire an instant answer for any questions they ask. As time flows, it will not change, but the ways of achieving those answers have changed as technology keeps evolving. And now, we have voice search to do the searching in more efficient methods.

If you compare the speed of typing a question in the search engine with asking a question to the voice assistant in your smartphone, such as Apple’s Siri or Google Assistant, you will definitely get your answer faster with the voice assistant. Did you know that the average person can speak about 100 words in one minutes but can only type about 40 words per minute? That is just how much difference there is between the two.

How common is Voice Search?

If it is showed in numbers (Statistics on 2021):

• Smart speaker outnumbers tablets and it is to be expected to have USD 30 billion market size in 2024
• 64% of 16-64 year-old demographic are using voice-enabled devices at least once per day
• 30% web browsing sessions are screenless (Gartner)
• AI is able to recognize 97% of spoken words (Google search stats)

And those statistics related with purchasing are these statements:

• 40% people use voice search to buy something every month (PwC)
• 43% shoppers with voice-enabled device purchase a product using voice search (Navar)

How does Voice Search change eCommerce?

1. Fast and easy search

Just like what I said previously, searching for products or brands is easier with speech rather than typing. Moreover, you can do your product searching while you are doing another activity, in other words multitasking. For example, you can clean your house while buying groceries through the voice assistant in your smartphone.

2. Brand visibility will fade away

We know that the perception of a brand will be embedded in people’s minds, and marketing is based on building the perception of a product for its customer to scale and grow.

A product with high popularity will build its own market separately from its brand and the product name will be synonymous with its category. When people use voice search to get the answer to their query, the most popular and synonymous brands are going to have higher ranking in the search result. 

Thinking that speech comes out more naturally than writing, this might become a big problem to increase sales in the future. With this, merchants need to understand the marketing aspects regarding voice search and deal with it with care.

3. Personalized shopping experience

The algorithm behind the voice search will be able to take a record of the person’s habits and needs. Therefore, the voice search will be able to recommend the products that you prefer more or the things that you need. Therefore, it is needed to have a marketing strategy that leans towards customer’s impulse and awareness.

However, unfortunately, it is still impossible to completely rely on voice search because of people’s lack of trust towards AI. Voice search is commonly used by buyers to reorder certain products or purchase inexpensive items.

Voice Search Optimization

Are you aware of how important voice search can be in the eCommerce business?

Let’s take a look at some tips on how to optimize the voice search for eCommerce.

1. Realign the eCommerce business with SEO strategy

If you want your customers to find you, you need to raise your ranks to the top, and to reach that goal, you need to optimize your SEO strategy, and in this case, the voice SEO.

2. Choose the right keywords

The keyword you want to use for the voice search might be different from those for the typed queries. You will want to have these types of keywords: question, long-tail, natural, and conversational.

The reason is people’s habits when they type and when they talk are different, and those types of keywords are the best to optimize voice search.

3. Optimize the speed of your page

The reason is simple. Google wants the relevant answer immediately and it will ignore your page if it takes a long time to load.

To increase the speed of your page:

• Remove broken links
• Reduce image size
• Reducing redirects
• Use caching

4. Responsive eCommerce Page

Most of the voice based queries are made through smartphones. Therefore, it is essential to build a mobile responsive page for your shop.