How many times have we heard that something is 'the future of search’? Far too often, and most of the time this is just hot air. Voice search, however, isn’t the future; it’s already here. Technology has moved on sufficiently in the last few years to make voice search more viable for users, and crucially more accurate too, so Pat will be digging into how voice search works and why it should be taken seriously. And, this will all come from the perspective of someone who has never used voice search in his life...

1. Wednesday 25th October ‘17
Oxford Digital Workers’ Union
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Patrick Langridge
Head of SEO
Screaming Frog
An Introduction to Voice Search
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2. Voice Search
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3. Who is Using Voice Search?
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4. Why Are We Using Voice Search?
▪ Fast – on average humans can speak 150
words per minute vs type 40 words.
▪ Easy – convenient, hands-free, instant.
▪ Personal – context driven, ability to
understand based on prior questions,
interactions and locations.
“Smart digital assistants are responding to
user needs, not user searches.”
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5. Why Are We Using Voice Search?
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6. Voice Search Accuracy
▪ 2016 – Bing: 1 in 4 searches on Windows 10 taskbar are voice.
▪ 2016 – Android: 1 in 5 searches on mobile apps are voice search
▪ 2020 – Baidu: At least 50% of all searches will be through images or voice.
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7. 119 Languages Globally
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8. Personalisation Factors
▪ Location
▪ Device
▪ Browser
▪ OS
▪ Time Of Day
▪ Search History (personal & general)
▪ Logged In vs Logged Out
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9. How Are We Using Voice Search?
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10. How Are We Using Voice Search?
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11. Featured Snippets
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12. Featured Snippets
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13. Featured Snippets
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14. Lessons From Voice Search
▪ https://moz.com/blog/lessons-from-1000-voice-searches
▪ 71% of 1,000 searches yielded voice answers.
▪ 87% of text-only featured snippets yielded voice answers.
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15. Optimising for Featured Snippets
▪ Structure content using; definitions, tables, rows, bullet points, Q&As,
comparisons and numbered lists.
▪ Answer questions concisely, as Google prefers to feature an answer which is
given in one paragraph (50 – 100 words, lists of 4 – 8, tables of 4 – 9 rows).
▪ Explicitly mention the term in question or move it higher up in the page.
▪ Use factual and accurate data – numbers and prices work well.
▪ Reverse engineer competitors featured snippets to understand how they are
structuring their content.
▪ Look for new opportunities from ‘People also ask’ questions.
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16. Why Are We Using Voice Search?
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17. Google Search Console
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18. Google Search Console
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19. Schema
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20. Optimising for Voice Search
▪ Content style should be conversational in tone and reflect natural language and
speech patterns.
▪ Similar to featured snippets, structure content to answer common user questions –
reverse engineer Google Instant Answers.
▪ Use tools like Answer The Public to understand common questions within your
vertical. Value is in the long-tail!
▪ Local – location focused queries are very important in voice search (‘near me’,
‘nearest’, ‘nearby’).
▪ Implement structured data and Schema mark up to provide search engines with
additional information about your content.
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21. Questions?
Thank you!
Any questions?
patrick.langridge@screamingfrog.co.uk
@patlangridge
www.screamingfrog.co.uk
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