We have seen an ever increasing rise in voice search and it isn’t just related to driving. Amazon’s Echo, for example, is on the rise. The Amazon Echo answers queries, controls smart home devices and plays games with users. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimate the retail giant has sold 3 million of the smart speakers.

The implication is more complicated than it might appear due to the fact that different devices match up with different search engines. For example Amazon’s Echo utilizes Yelp’s database for local service providers, restaurants and retail. It also defaults to Bing for general search queries. So, if you don’t have a presence on Yelp and Bing you won’t necessarily be found when people use this device. It goes deeper than that though.

People search differently

People search differently with their voice and often use more specific terms. So, for example instead of searching for “electricians near me”, people might request an “appointment with the highest-rated local electrician who is available between noon and 2 pm tomorrow”. That means you need to have that information available for the search engines. We will follow this trend and provide more reports as it becomes more popular.

Google is also in the mix. See how people are actually using voice search…