Is voice search really the future of search or just temporary hype? The answer is neither. Voice search is not the future since it has been here under our nose for quite some time. Over the last few years, voice search has been quietly growing and gradually taking over the search market. It all started back in 2011 when Google announced that it would begin to roll out Voice Search on Goggle.com for the coming years. Since then, it progressively made its way into the consumers' households, minds, and everyday lives.

In this post, we’ll unfold the recent stats and trends about voice search, the reasons why your e-commerce business should follow this trend, as well as some key takeaways 💡.

Sound interesting? Keep reading! 😉

Understanding voice search: stats and trends

The way consumers search has changed 👀. Instead of typing a question into your mobile phone or computer, you can now say the question out loud, and Google will present you the answer in a second.

Some claim that nearly gone are the days of typing in a search query. According to a recent PwC study, 71% of consumers prefer to use voice search to conduct a query over the traditional method of typing ⌨️. And already, 50% of all searches are voice searches.

Why do people love voice search so much 🥰? Because it’s more convenient and it works just as fine as a desktop search. Statistically speaking, nearly 75% of voice search results will rank in the top 3 positions for a particular question on a desktop search 👍.

Voice Search has also changed where people search because it is being used more and more outside of peoples' homes 🏡. As the chart below presents, recent stats suggest that it’s more likely that voice search will be used more in public settings than in private ones.

Why should your e-commerce business follow the trend of voice search?

"We are now witnessing a new shift in computing: the move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world."

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google

Technology has changed and improved itself. People are way more mobile-driven, which makes it easier to search for something by voice. You can simply speak to your phone and ask for something or probably anything. Searching with voice is 3.7x faster than typing. You can speak 110-150 words per minute, as opposed to the average people’s typing rate of 38-40 words per minute. Therefore, it also means that consumers will receive their answers faster 🚀. In addition, time is rather costly for people nowadays, and thus voice search is more convenient. Last but not least, local-based shops benefit a lot from voice searches because people who search with voice tend to search more for local results. It is quick and easy to ask a question that ends with "near me." The following figure summarizes the top reasons for why people are using and loving voice search:

If your e-commerce company is not following this trend, you will probably get overrun pretty soon by those who decided to go with it 😨. Why?

Because voice-based shopping is expected to increase to $40 billion in 2022! Some experts project that voice commerce, or voice-based shopping, will be the future of digital shopping.

Also note: Optimizing for voice search is vital for your e-commerce site's SEO 💡. Voice search is somewhat conversational and natural. For instance, the top three phrases are “how”, “what” and “best”. As said before, voice search makes use of the natural language and will impact SEO. Therefore, it is of high essence to optimize your website for voice search. Here’re some practical tips:

• The best way to adapt to this new trend and to get more traffic to your website is by making use of a natural conversational tone.
• While considering keywords, you should focus more on user intents. Also, make use of long-tail keywords and contextual answers.
• Lastly, the chances are higher that your website will be selected for a voice search query if the page has more social shares.

As you can see, voice search is not just temporary hype. Instead, voice search is a legit trend that you cannot hide from. So, get on board and join the future 😎.

Key takeaways

• Voice-enabled shopping has become more and more appealing in the last few years, and this trend shows no sign of stopping 🔥!
• The introduction of voice search has redefined customers’ online shopping experience. Consumer behaviors change, so should your e-commerce business.
• You should start optimizing your e-commerce site for voice search! It will also benefit your SEO 🙌.

Being the world’s #1 rated e-commerce personalization platform, Clerk.io powers 2,500+ stores worldwide to automatically improve customers’ shopping experience and effectively grow sales. Get started by talking to one of our specialists and finding out how Clerk can help grow your business today.