1.
Speak Up! SEO Strategies for
Voice Search
How voice search and virtual assistants can be an integral part of your
customer acquisition and retention strategies.

2.
Dan Taylor.
• Senior Consultant & Account Director @ SALT.agency
• Winner TechSEO Boost 2018 Call for Research
• Search Engine Journal Top 140 (2018 & 2019)
• Blogger Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch,
OnCrawl…
Projects
Hreflang Checker – https://hreflangchecker.com
Sloth – https://sloth.cloud/
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency

3.
We’re living in the age of assistance.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency

4.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Google first introduced a form of voice search in 2010, but it was
cumbersome and not a practical alternative.
This did however lay the foundations for future updates and
technologies, one of these key updates (and likely one of the most
important early updates for voice search) was the 2013 Hummingbird
update.

5.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/voice-assistance-parent-users/

6.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: Thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/voice-assistance-parent-users/
Also used by Aleya Solis in her talks.

7.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: Freakonomics Radio ep. 357 – Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling

8.
“The world hasn’t completely shifted to
voice, nor do we expect it to. Screens
bring a completely new canvas for
conversational AI, where we can bring
together voice and touch in an intelligent
way.”
Scott Huffman (Google)
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: blog.google/perspectives/scott-Huffman/five-insights-voice-technology
Marco Lenoci Google Keynote @ SMX West 2019
“We don’t expect voice to take
over search as the prevalent way
of searching... people will search
in the way that’s relevant to them.
We want to make sure we are
there in the way the user wants it
when they want it.”
Marco Lenoci (Google) @ SMX
West 2019

9.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: blog.google/perspectives/scott-huffman/five-insights-voice-technology
moz.com/blog/how-voice-search-will-change-digital-marketing-for-the-better

10.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: thinkwithgoogle.com/data-collections/voice-assistance-emerging-technologies/

11.
“Based on usage habits, marketers and developers should think about
how to create voice/assistant experiences that can become habit
forming, go-to for users.”
Marco Lenoci, Google Keynote @ SMX West 2019
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency

12.
1. Voice is about action. 40x more action oriented
2. People expect conversations. 200x more conversational than search
3. Screens change everything. 1/2 use voice and touch input
4. Daily routines matter
5. Voice is universal
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency

13.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Data sources: Mangools, Google Search Console, Answer The Public

14.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Google Assistant Desktop

15.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Google Assistant Desktop

16.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Data sources: Mangools, Google Search Console, Answer The Public

17.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: A J Ghergich Study
83% of URLs are secure (HTTPS) Average number of images with ALT text is 12
Average 22 headers and sub-headers Average number of external links is 33
The average word count is 2,260 Median number of social shares is 139
Average paragraph length is 38 words The average Google Mobile Friendly score is
95/100
Content is written at a 7th grade level
(Gunning Fog Index)
The average Google Mobile Usability score is
95/100

18.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/Speakable
pending.schema.org/speakable
Indicates sections of a Web page that are
particularly 'speakable' in the sense of being
highlighted as being especially appropriate
for text-to-speech conversion. Other
sections of a page may also be usefully
spoken in particular circumstances; the
'speakable' property serves to indicate the
parts most likely to be generally useful for
speech.

19.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Sources: seroundtable.com/listen-to-google-speakable-markup-in-action-26169.html
https://sloth.cloud
Good example of the
schema in the wild
Potential implementation method if
you have development/platform
issues

20.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Technical
• Your site needs to be fast
• JavaScript needs to be renderable and cacheable (server-side
rendering preferred)
Content
• You content needs to be structured in a user-friendly way
• Written to a 7th grade level (12/13 year old could easily read)
• Be concise and not overly verbose

21.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: https://twitter.com/gfiorelli1/status/1090733177126162433 (Gianluca Fiorelli on Twitter)

22.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: ai.googleblog.com/2017/12/evaluation-of-speech-for-google.html
moz.com/blog/how-voice-search-will-change-digital-marketing-for-the-better
Criteria Summary
Information Satisfaction The content of the answer should meet the information needs of the
user.
Length when a displayed answer is too long, users can quickly scan it visually
and locate the relevant information. For voice answers, that is not
possible. It is much more important to ensure that we provide a helpful
amount of information, hopefully not too much or too little.
Formulation it is much easier to understand a badly formulated written answer than
an ungrammatical spoken answer, so more care has to be placed in
ensuring grammatical correctness.
Elocution Spoken answers must have proper pronunciation and prosody

23.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Source: ai.googleblog.com/2017/12/evaluation-of-speech-for-google.html
storage.googleapis.com/guidelines-eyesfree/evaluation_of_search_speech_guidelines_v1.0.pdf

24.
Dan Taylor | @taylordanrw SALT.agency | @salt_agency https://salt.agency
Thank you.
@taylordanrw | @salt_agency
https://salt.agency/careers