1. UK voice commerce is expected to be worth £3.5bn by 2022
Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s hard to deny that voice search is drastically growing. And with the expected market value increase, it’s likely you will soon have to accept it as part of our daily lives. Amazon’s Echo is currently leading the way in voice commerce, with 8% of UK households owning one, compared to just 2% with a Google Home device. This is especially important for businesses that trade on Amazon (and Google Shopping to a lesser extent) as it’s now necessary to become Amazon’s choice product in order to be recommended to a user shopping with a voice assistant.
2. 72% of people who own voice-activated speakers say that their devices are used as part of their daily routines
So, the vast majority of people who invest tens, or even hundreds, of pounds into voice-activated speakers use them on a daily basis *shock*. Although it may not be the most surprising statistic going, let’s put this into perspective: YouGov research suggests that one-in-ten Brits own a smart-speaker; that being approximately 6.6million people. That’s 4.95million people in the UK that use their smart-speaker on the daily, not including those that use voice search on their mobile devices. Although that’s a drop in the ocean of the UK population, it could be a vital demographic of a business’s target market, with millennials accounting for the vast majority of users.
3. 22% of smart home speaker owners have made a purchase using their device, 85% of which accept the recommendation given
With Amazon, arguably, being at the forefront of this function, voice command devices have the ability to allow consumers to order items online without even having to press a button (effort, right?). A stark difference from the past behaviour of consumers using search as a method of comparison shopping through different sites. This poses yet another challenge for search marketers as users now trust and rely on technology to do the comparisons for them. Amazon offers recommendations to users based on factors such as popularity, price and deliverability, and 85% of the time the user accepts it.
4. 46% of voice search users look for a local business daily, of which 27% will continue to visit the website
For nearly all local businesses, successful local SEO is crucial; with mobile voice searches being 3X more likely to be local-based than that of text-related searches, this has never been truer up until now. We’ve all been there, looking for a good place to grab lunch or a much-needed coffee, only to be stumped as to where to go and to rely on our trusty companion Google to direct us. Not only is this true of consumer-facing businesses, but also for B2B local businesses that want to drive traffic from other local business. One way to benefit from this is to ensure listings in national and local directories are up-to-date and full of helpful, relevant information.
5. 58% of users say they’re most likely to use voice search whilst at home alone
Research conducted in the US by Stone Temple revealed some interesting, and somewhat questionable, findings on user behaviour with voice command devices. When looking at what environments people use voice search in, it ranged from the most popular, ‘at home alone’ (58%) and ‘in the office alone’ (50%), to the least popular, yet still concerning, ‘in a public restroom’ (24%).
Although you may think this information is irrelevant to search marketers, it’s actually very beneficial to evaluate whether it’s worth optimizing a site’s SEO to voice search based on whether the product/service the site provides would be searched for in these environments. So, if you think your site is likely to be searched for whilst in a public bathroom, I wouldn’t worry too much about voice-search optimization just yet.
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