Looking forward, voice search aims to dominate the broader search market in 2020. Voice-based queries are shifting how consumers interact with their tech and are informing purchase decisions to a greater degree. For many businesses and websites, optimizing properly for voice search is critical to continued success. Since this is still an emerging technology, there are a few things to keep in mind when planning for a voice-heavy future.

Voice-enabled devices are booming.

Think you can escape voice-based technology? Think again. Smart speaker tech, like the Amazon Echo, continues to grow year-over-year. In fact, it's estimated that over 55% of all homes are anticipated to own a smart speaker device by the year 2022. That's an incredible leap for a younger market which shows how prevalent analysts anticipate the spread of voice-enabled technology to be. As a business owner, that should strike you as having immense consumer potential.

Voice usage is growing, as well.

Between the ages of 25-49, it's estimated that around 65% of current voice users verbally interact with their devices at least once per day. Though younger adopters are driving the technology the most, their older counterparts are slowly but surely catching on as well. A majority of current users also say they anticipate using their devices more in the future. As the technology grows, it's forecasted that over 50% of all searches will be conducted via voice.

Many voice searches are made with purchase intent.

Nearly half of all consumers who use voice-enabled devices leverage them for shopping purposes. Many use their devices for product research or to add items to their cart so these are quite commonly bottom-of-the-funnel shoppers that are looking to make purchases. With voice search, it's also more likely that local businesses that appear in verbal search results are going to receive valuable phone calls from prospects. Typically, restaurants see the most benefit from local voice searches but plenty of other businesses are succeeding as well.

You need to optimize differently.

Most commonly, voice searches are longer than traditional searches. This is because it's more difficult for consumers to truncate the spoken word into a search than it is to shorten text. As such, it's critical that you optimize for long-tail keywords instead of container keywords. Many of the same SEO practices will still apply once you've chosen the appropriate long-tail keywords for your business. Even adding modifiers like "near me" in your meta description, web pages, and tags can drive greater amounts of voice search traffic.

Struggling to properly optimize your website for a voice-focused future? Products like LinkGraph's SEO services can analyze your web pages, find areas of improvement, and help you make the right corrections to ensure you're not missing out on valuable traffic and prospective customers. If you're not sure about your SEO savvy, getting a little help is your best bet to succeed in an ever-competitive business landscape.

Use call data.

Call data can be one of your biggest allies when it comes to optimizing for voice search traffic. You can mine calls to find out what questions customers commonly ask about your business, analyze calls to determine if the caller is suitable for a retargeting campaign, and measure conversion success rates. Based on the results, you're then able to make the necessary adjustments to your site and your campaigns.

Voice search is changing the way entrepreneurs look at their businesses. If you're not preparing your business to adapt to the shifts caused by voice search technology, it's possible that you could fall behind the competition. Start preparing for the higher influx of voice search traffic sooner than later so when it continues to expand, you're ready for its demands.