How Visual and Voice Search Will Help Increase Conversions

While having the world at our fingertips was once new and exciting, it seems as though text searches are becoming quite passé. Nowadays, thanks to our affinity for smartphones, visual and voice search promises to be more efficient, accurate and even more advanced than a generic keyword search.

For example, voice search is an interactive technology that works with digital assistants like Siri and Alexa and allows users to give commands or ask questions using his/her voice. In the case of visual search, users can use existing images or employ their mobile device’s camera when they can’t find the exact words to describe something. The use of a picture widens the search to include subtle and inexplicable nuances instead of simple keywords. Rewinding a bit — how did these developments occur in the first place?

The Importance of Visual & Voice Search

Any company that works in web development knows that today’s typical mobile user has new priorities: speed and efficiency. Voice and visual search promises to answer questions as thoroughly and as quickly as possible, which is exactly what users want.

In fact, Andrew Ng, a leader in AI and everything digital, predicted that by 2020, 50% of all search will be done by image or voice. As he said,

[s]peech and images are, in my view, a much more natural way to communicate [than text].

The overall idea is that consumers don’t want to spend time synthesizing their detailed inner monologue into the perfect combination of keywords or rack their brain on how to describe that beautiful flower they saw on their way to work. They want to ask their complicated questions or take mental pictures, and voice and visual search allow them to do exactly that! For this very reason, you need to get with the times and redesign your website to support visual and voice search.

Voice Search

With digital marketing experts, such as Jayson DeMers predicting a “full-scale search revolution in the next few years,” new SEO strategies are more important than ever. As short keywords become longer questions with intent, voice search requires software to handle lengthy sentences and consider specifics.

For example, if the user asks where is the best and cheapest Méxican restaurant near me, search engines will have to produce suggestions that consider the user’s location, the restaurant’s price point, the type of food it serves, reviews of similar restaurants and so on.

This means that your SEO strategy must include a conversational tone and anticipation of consumer inquiries. In other words, answering who, what, where, when, why and how. If someone called your company and asked a question, what would it be? How would you answer? Once you know the answers to these questions, developers can then create content that interacts seamlessly with the casual nature of the searches.

Creating more specific pages will also help voice search technologies find your website; instead of searching for red dress+polka dots, people will ask: Hey Siri, where can I find a modern sleeveless red dress with black polka dots? Additionally, FAQ pages are a great example of content that’s ripe for voice search.

A study by Backlinko discovered when Google produces an answer to a verbal question, 2.7% of those results come from a FAQ section. In short, redesigning your website to accommodate precise questions will increase the chances of your site being found.

Visual Search

Like voice search, visual search is quickly rising in popularity. With Pinterest seeing 600 million searches every month through its visual search engine, and Google reporting that camera-based searches through their Lens produced 48% more product views and 75% greater likelihood to return, it’s clear that visual search is a force to be reckoned with.

As a result of visual search’s newfound prominence, SEO must take new measures to ensure that Google considers your website’s pictures to be related to a user’s input images. The process essentially boils down to users uploading pictures, and then the visual search technology takes a variety of tangible and intangible factors into account to match that image. For instance, with a photo of a backpack, the software must consider its color, style, size, price and current trends.

So, while custom web development for visual searches may seem to be a daunting task, there are a few ways to modernize your website and make it visually compatible. The first step is to make all of your website’s images clear and accessible so that the visual software can easily process them. Moreover, make sure that the target keywords in the image’s alt text are specific and on trend because those descriptions will be seen by Google. Lastly, maintaining a level of originality and consistency with aesthetics will help your website succeed in this ever-changing field.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, the world of web development is constantly changing, and this hands-free approach made possible by visual and voice search makes perfect sense in an increasingly mobile society. As a result, you should focus on specifying the content of your websites and making your images distinct and accessible, and then you’ll be well on your way to utilizing voice and visual search.