Click click click… Years ago, tapping sounds on a keyboard were the hallmark of getting something done online. However, that can sometimes be a big hassle for your audience.

Every extra click, every form field, and every menu they have to navigate creates friction and saps their zeal. This friction adds up and slows them down—sometimes enough to make them abandon the process entirely. It can cost you sales, sign-ups, and conversions.

But what if your audience could simply say what they want, and it happens, instead of typing their way through menus or search bars? Less friction, ease of interaction, and increased level of engagement.

That’s where voice user interface (VUI) comes in.

In this article we’ll discuss what VUI is all about, its benefits, and how to effectively integrate a voice search interface on your business website.

What is Voice User Interface?

VUI is an interface that enables people to interact with systems, such as apps or websites, through voice commands, guiding their customer journey to drive conversions. Technically, what happens is:

• You visit a website or app with integrated VUI, or access them through virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, and speak
• The embedded speech recognition system converts your speech into text
• VUI uses a natural language processing (NLP) engine to analyze and interpret the meaning of your text
• The system then determines the appropriate action based on the interpreted command
• The app or website executes the action and returns a spoken or visual response

This is in contrast to the traditional Graphical User Interface (GUI), where you need to tap, scroll, or click your device screen to interact, navigate, and perform other functions.

Common VUIs you have likely seen in day-to-day activities include voice search on Google, Siri on iOS, and Alexa on Amazon Echo. You might have also used Google Assistant on Android, Bixby on Samsung devices, or Cortana on Windows.

Benefits of VUI for Small Businesses

According to GMI, the voice user interface market was valued at $16.5 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow by 20% between 2024 and 2032. Devices allowing the use of VUI, such as Amazon’s Echo and wearable smart devices, are also on the uptrend. These figures highlight a shift in user preferences for comfort and hands-free interaction.

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Let’s look at the other major benefits of VUI.

Helps to Refine Offerings from Queries

Let’s say you run an ecommerce website selling personalized printed t-shirts and you embedded VUI on your critical pages, such as product and checkout pages. Whenever a user navigates or locates a product using VUI, a record of their speech is created, often translated into text in your database.

Unlike in GUI, where you only see where your website visitors are going within a page via a heatmap, the texts or speech records you get through VUI give you direct insight into what users truly want. 

For example, if significantly more visitors say “DIY t-shirts with custom quotes” compared to “DIY t-shirt kits for kids,” you immediately know which variations are in demand. And this helps you refine your current offerings to meet their needs.

Aligns Your SEO Strategy with User Intent

Every phrase a user speaks contains potential keywords highlighting what your target audience needs. If you can collate these keywords, it’s possible to align your content and SEO strategy to rank higher on search engines.

For instance, imagine a majority of voice searches on your small business website revolve around phrases like “affordable custom DIY t-shirts for birthdays” or “eco-friendly DIY t-shirt kits.” You can either turn these keywords into blog posts or create more variations using a keyword research tool and build clusters around them to draw in more traffic.

This approach works because each speech query is directly tied to an obvious user intent and pain points, rather than relying on random keyword research.

Expands Access for Users with Different Abilities

Location-based businesses can also benefit greatly from VUI. When a customer simply says “find me California debt relief,” a voice-enabled website can immediately guide them to a relevant, localized service page without any manual searching. This increases conversion and provides users with quick access to the resources they need.

Emily Ruby, Owner at Abogada De Lesiones, said, “If you’re catering for a diverse audience, VUI helps you address possible barriers like visual and physical disabilities, which prevent interactions through a graphical user interface (GUI). These users can simply voice out their requests and successfully access your offerings.”

“Of course, you can also combine both GUI and VUI to reach a broader audience, especially individuals with communication differences, language barriers, or limited literacy. For example, Domino’s uses this approach to serve a wide range of customers through its platforms,” Emily continued.

Builds Trust Through Conversational Experiences

Graphical User Interface is fantastic, but… it’s not always the type of interaction users want because it can feel rigid.

On the other hand, VUI enables your audience to interact by speaking, receiving audio responses if available, or seeing their commands implemented in real-time, and perform virtually all of their actions hands-free.

This also adds more depth to the conversation and allows them to carry on other tasks simultaneously without sacrificing engagement and control.

Tips to Successfully Implement VUI for Your Business Website

Voice user interface reimagines how users interact with your brand from clicking to conversational speaking. To successfully implement it on your website and drive up engagement, follow these tips.

1. Make Your Voice Search Bar Easy to Spot

”While VUI is not a new wheel, most of your site visitors are not likely to actively look for or expect it on your website. So, you need to ensure your voice icon or voice search bar is in a place they can easily and passively spot it,” said Eric Do Couto, Head of Marketing at Visualping.

• Place the icon in the top right corner
• Enhance contrast between the icon and background elements
• Maintain design consistency by using the same color and shape style
• Use a subtle animation or pulsing effect to draw initial attention without being distracting
• Add a short label like “Voice Search” or a microphone tooltip for clarity
• Keep enough padding around the icon to prevent it from being lost in surrounding elements
• Ensure it remains visible in both desktop and mobile layouts

If you have a main search bar, like Google’s own below, you can place the voice icon near it so users immediately associate it with searching.

2. Design for Conversational Flow

Leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) to help your site understand varying phrasing, slang, and natural speech patterns rather than forcing users to use rigid voice commands. 

For instance, whether a user says “impact of unified communications” or “benefits of unified communications”, your website’s system understands the primary context behind both, even if their phrasing varies, and responds accordingly.

On the design end, you can make your VUI feel interactive and natural rather than robotic by doing the following:

• Include a visual progress indicator to show when the system is processing a command, such as a rolling bar during product searches or a “thinking” emoji while the system prepares a response
• Use pop-up responses to deliver quick confirmations or suggestions without breaking the browsing flow
• Ensure your design supports multitasking, allowing users to browse, scroll, and click other elements while continuing to interact with the VUI
• Offer voice and visual feedback simultaneously so that users can hear and see responses

Most importantly, integrate context retention, so that if users follow up with “What about red ones?” after an initial search, the system knows they’re still talking about coffee mugs.

3. Provide Fallback Options

Anna Zhang, Head of Marketing at U7BUY, said, “Voice user interface shouldn’t be the only way users can access or interact with your website and products. Instead, implement the multimodal approach by combining both VUI and GUI in case one fails.”

• VUI: Allows voice input for website navigation and interaction
• GUI: Allows interaction via tapping, clicking, and scrolling

“You can also add an AI-powered chatbot assistant with inbuilt voice support like ChatGPT to process VUI prompts on your pages and give real-time response when needed or automatically direct users to graphical elements, including texts as a fallback”, Anna added.

4. Add a Help Command

For first-time VUI users or visitors to your site, it can be pretty challenging to know what to ask. Some might also end up voicing speech queries that your system is not yet trained to respond to.

To avoid such issues:

• Add a help command, such as a question or statement in the placeholder bar
• Add more than one command if your system is designed to answer only rigid prompts
• Provide a document or guide on the side to help new users successfully adapt, just in case
• Enable Quick Exit or Cancel to give users a way to stop the current action without frustration—simple commands like “Stop” or “Cancel” should immediately pause the process

In addition, offer feedback for misunderstood commands. If the VUI does not understand a request, it should let your users know and offer alternative suggestions. For instance, a simple “I didn’t catch that. You can ask me about our menu, delivery options, or today’s specials,” will do.

5. Set Analytics to Track Voice Interactions

Implement analytics with your integrated VUI to monitor usage per page, barriers to usage, and which commands or queries are most frequently used.

Remember, we mentioned how voice queries can help refine your offerings and pad both content and SEO strategy? 

Beyond these two benefits, you can analyze user sentiment from what they ask and how they phrase it. Sentiment trends can reveal frustrations, preferences, and emerging needs, giving you a deeper understanding of user intent. 

6. Test with Real Users Regularly

Lastly, before you roll out the VUI, test it with a select group of people first. These could be your company employees, family and friends, a more diverse paid testing group, or a few of your informed audience.

Regularly repeat the tests to ensure no lag in layout, confirm device usability on both mobile and desktop, and identify any unclear prompts or misunderstood commands.

Also, track if users are abandoning voice interactions midway, as that may signal confusing phrasing, long response times, or technical glitches that need fixing.

Wrapping Up

Voice user interface streamlines audience interaction with your website. As a small business, you can utilize this approach to boost engagement on your site, improve browsing experience, and enhance conversions.

For successful implementation, ensure your voice search icon or bar is in an easy place to spot. Design the interface for conversational flow, provide fallback options in case VUI fails, and add a help command or instructions.

In addition, set analytics to track voice interactions to understand user intent and beta test with real users before going live, even for subsequent updates.