Voice search has recently gained much attention in the digital world. It has become one of the most important search engines. Voice search technology allows users to search the web by just talking to the search engine instead of typing. This method of searching the web has led to many methodologies being developed so that people can integrate voice search into their everyday lives. This technology can be used on various devices and/or platforms like computer/laptops, mobile phones, smart wearable devices, home appliances, etc. The user experience with voice search is better compared to searching the web by typing (K. Jones, 2018). In voice search, users just have to talk, and the search engine will find the relevant result.
There is no need to read or type anything. But on the other hand, users must have some basic knowledge about using this technology as web searchers have a general knowledge of how to type their queries. Voice searching has a very different approach compared to the other searching methods. The users may feel uncomfortable or even refuse to use this technology in some public places. However, keeping in mind all the limitations and issues, it is believed that in the coming years, voice searching will replace the traditional search engine methods (Dubiel, 2018).
1. Definition and Evolution of Voice Search
The Rise of Voice Search
Voice search provides users with the ability to search for information in search engines using their voice rather than typing in a query. Voice search is nothing new; however, it has evolved into a fully capable feature that many people use on a daily basis. In the early days of search engines, it was just about searching for information on the web. As technology advanced, search engines began to understand the need to provide users with search results that deliver more than just links to web pages. From there, search engines began providing direct answers to users’ queries. This capability of search engines led to the rise of a new feature called “Voice Search” (K. Jones, 2018).
Many technological advancements have contributed to the rise of capabilities to search the web using voice. One essential technological advancement was the growth of virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana. These virtual assistants became the front-end for voice search. Over the years, virtual assistants evolved from being able to set reminders and alarms to almost performing everything a user can do on their smartphone, including sending text messages, making phone calls, and searching the web. The popularity of these virtual assistants led to the rapid growth of voice search (Dubiel, 2018).
This rise in popularity led to an increase in the number of people searching the web using voice, but virtual assistants were not the only reason for this rise. Another key reason for the rise of voice search was the increase in accuracy in how machines recognize a person’s voice. This advancement encouraged people to adopt voice recognition technologies in their daily lives. One of the first widely adopted technologies that used voice recognition was the popular social media platform Facebook. In late 2013, Facebook introduced the ability to send voice recordings in messages, and the next year, it introduced the ability to comment using voice recordings on photos. Shortly after Facebook adopted this feature, popular messaging applications followed. These technologies made them feel compelled to try out devices that recognize and respond to their voice.
Currently, the most popular technologies that are searching the web using voice are web browsers, smartphones, and smart speakers. Although other technologies such as computers and TVs have the capability to search the web using voice, currently, they are not widely adopted. Out of these three technologies, web browsers account for the most search queries conducted using voice. However, this audio search feature is currently only available on Google Chrome, which might be the reason why it has not gained much popularity in comparison to other voice search technologies. The rapid rise in penetration of smart speakers in the U.S. market is prompting many people to start conducting search queries using voice. Despite being the newest voice search technology, currently, the majority of search queries conducted using voice are using smartphones.
With the rapid adoption of voice search technologies, the way people interact with technology has changed dramatically. Instead of entering text to search for information, people now are talking to technology in a more conversational way. This change in the way people interact with technology is the reason why voice search is chosen as a topic to dive deeper into what it is and how it has evolved over the years.
2. Voice Search in Singapore 2025
In 2025, it is anticipated that around 51% of the Singapore resident population will be using voice search. This projection is based on an extrapolation of current user behavior and local considerations. The necessary underlying technology for voice search is already in place. Much of it is driven by big technology companies, as well as local stakeholders. Accordingly, various demographic factors that influence voice search uptake are analyzed here to project the potential market penetration within the Singaporean voice search narrative (Dubiel, 2018). Furthermore, attempts are made to consider how local cultural nuances might inform the shape of voice search usage in Singapore, beyond anticipated global trends.
As of today, voice search is still a nascent technology, up until the systems are voiceless and utilize text-based search engines in the background. Given Singapore’s status as a smart city and voice search’s evolutionary developmental trajectory, hints are provided on what the world might look like in arguments similar to the previous chapter, but regarding local businesses, government services, and consumer behavior. In addition, anticipations are made on regulations and challenges that might shape the voice search context in Singapore. Lastly, the implications of the previous considerations for SEO are outlined. Overall, the goal is to provide understanding and context for how Singapore’s unique situation is at play concerning the developments of voice search technology.
3. Artificial Intelligence in Search Results
To better examine the potential impacts of voice search on SEO, it’s necessary to first understand the role of AI in the search results. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown to be one of the most innovative technologies that is reshaping how people live and work (Varghese et al., 2022). AI and its related technologies have entered several aspects of day-to-day life, and search results are among them. Google and other search engines have witnessed a remarkable transformation in how users receive search results, all thanks to the intervention of innovative AI algorithms. With the effective implementation of machine-learning and deep-learning paradigms, the relevance and accuracy of the search results that users receive have been greatly enhanced. In the hope of providing better search results to users, a number of AI techniques have been leveraged to assist in better understanding the user intent behind the search queries, and some of these techniques have been integrated directly into the search technologies.
More importantly, AI takes into account a range of contextual factors, such as the user’s online profile, browsing history, and geographical data, in an effort to improve the personalization of the search results. In addition to the underlying algorithms, AI-driven tools and functionalities have been embedded into the search engines to refine and transform the user search experiences, among which the voice recognition and natural language processing tools have received much attention. Notably, many people now tend to issue a voice search instead of a text search; thus, it is of great significance to look into the synergy between AI and voice search. Since the day that voice search was first introduced to the users, voice search has been on an upward trend. Meanwhile, it is also imperative to analyze how these advancements might impact the traditional SEO practices. Before diving into the in-depth discussions, it is useful to start with a fundamental introduction to voice search and AI as well as the current trends regarding these technologies.
4. Optimizing Chatbots and GPT for Search
With the advancements in artificial intelligence, chatbots have become a powerful tool for businesses to interact with users in a real-time, conversational manner, providing search functionality directly in the chat. A Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) is an advanced language model capable of understanding and generating human-like text, making it an attractive option for businesses looking to streamline content generation and user interactions. Both chatbots and GPT can be optimized to enhance search capabilities, bringing novel user experiences. Chatbots can provide a real-time, conversational search experience to users, allowing them to easily find what they’re looking for through text-based interactions instead of having to browse a website (Singh Gill & Kaur, 2023). On the other hand, GPT technology can be integrated into a business’s online presence to generate text content automatically and answer user queries, streamlining search processes.
The basic idea behind chatbots is a set of machine learning and natural language processing models that take a user’s input as text and output text in return. There are different types of chatbots, depending on the complexity of the underlying models. A simple rule-based chatbot responds with predefined text outputs based on keywords that match the user’s input. On the other hand, more advanced chatbots use machine learning models trained on historical interactions between users and customer support agents. Alternatively, pre-trained models such as BERT or GPT can be fine-tuned on specific data, for example, a business’s frequently asked questions (FAQs) (Huang & Huang, 2024). This generative approach allows chatbots to better understand user input, even when it does not match the training data, and generate text responses instead of just retrieving them from a predefined pool, leading to more relevant and personalized interactions. To improve the search performance of chatbots, it is essential to define what a user can search for and what input they can provide to the system. This can be done by training a model to classify queries into categories that match a dataset used for retrieving search results. Another strategy is to train a model that understands the content and intent of both search queries and results, mapping them to the same vector space to increase the chances of matching relevant items.
5. Step-by-step guide to being ranked with Voice Search
Optimizing for voice search is a new and important challenge for businesses and web content. Voice search brings new opportunities for reaching customers, but it also means that current web content might not be enough to be found in voice searches. Google’s search engine and many devices now support voice search, so providing good search results will depend on making text content appropriate for voice searches. This presents a comprehensive guide with practical ideas for businesses and web content to be ranked with voice searches.
First, it is crucial to know how to use keywords for voice searches. Although keywords are usually one or a few words that express the desired content, keywords for voice searches should be optimized differently. Voice searches are often longer because they use natural language. With voice searches, people tend to ask questions or seek information through conversation. When optimizing text content for voice searches, it should be focused on keywords that are natural or conversational, rather than on keywords that are the simplest way to express the desired content (Salenius, 2016). When thinking about what content to voice search for, it is a good idea to ask questions aloud, as people would when using voice search. Consider what questions are being asked and what kind of content could best provide the answers. Then, make sure to include those questions and relevant answers directly in the content. After considering the content, it is important to ensure that the website performs well. Website performance affects rankings in voice searches, which use Google’s search engine. It is vital to make sure the website is responsive on mobile devices and loads quickly because voice searches often occur on mobile devices.
