Presentation on Voice SEO at the VoiceSummit.ai by Katherine Watier Ong, the founder of WO Strategies LLC. Curious as to how fast you need to adjust to capture voice search queries? You need to check out this presentation.

1. Marketers!
Prepare Now for the Voice
Search Present & Future
Katherine Watier Ong
@kwatier

2. Katherine
Watier Ong
• Owner of WO Strategies LLC
• 24 years of communications experience
• 14 years of online marketing experience
(SEO, SEM, social media, web analytics)
• Built first website in 1994
• Once crashed a website for 4 days and
still received almost 1.3 million
visitors/mo. (up from 300K)
• Wrote master’s thesis on consumer
adoption of wearable computers (2003)

3. Inputs Have Gotten Better...
● 2003 Xybernaut
● First consumer wearable computer
● No cell data networks
● Joystick input
● Windows OS

4. Brands Katherine Watier Ong
has worked with

5. Adoption Data -
Voice Action or
Search?

6. 1 in 5 US Searches
May 2016: Google I/O keynote https://mklnd.com/2NeBRD3
on the Android App Are Voice

7. Last Year...
Source: 2017 http://bit.ly/2L2vUvl
1 in 2 use voice technology
on a smartphone
(search + actions)
1 in 3 of those use it daily

8. We ARE Adopting Technology Faster
(2018) http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
● Smart speaker
ownership is at
18% of the U.S.
population in
just 3 years
● Outpacing the
adoption rates
of smartphones
and tablets.

9. By 2020…
30% of web
browsing sessions
will be done without
a screen
2016: https://gtnr.it/2KOSBnC

10. By 2020…
75% of U.S.
households will have
smart speakers
2017: http://bit.ly/2unAo5y

11. By 2020…
50% of all searches will
be voice search AND
image
(Mary Meeker)
(It was really Baidu...)
2014 http://bit.ly/2L7CltO

12. How many are marketing
moments?

13. Voice search data is almost
impossible to find...

14. Top Voice Smart Speaker Use Cases
2017: http://bit.ly/smartspeakerusecases

15. Google Home Sample
23%
was an SEO
opportunity
A year of in-home use. 3,188 queries.
Source: https://selnd.com/2uz597k

16. Voice Assistant Survey
17%
was an SEO
opportunity
2017: http://bit.ly/2KNkPPs

17. Weekly Voice Tech Users
(Includes smartphone)
60%
was an SEO
opportunity
2017:http://bit.ly/JWIreport

18. How Fast Do You
Need to Shift?

19. US or Global?

20. Germany
Voice Search Use
23% 63%64%
Use it Weekly Online Search Asking Questions
Source: http://bit.ly/JWIreport

21. ChinaChinese characters are hard to type, it’s easier to talk.
Voice Search Use
31% #14%Use it weekly of Chinese
respondents saying
they will never use it.
Voice activity in China
is investigating
products online and
search on a search
engine.
Source: http://bit.ly/JWIreport

22. Thailand
Voice Search Use
55% 70%64%
Use it Weekly Online Search Product Info Search
Source: http://bit.ly/JWIreport

23. USA /Global
Top Voice Uses (Smartphone)
65%/50%
Asking Questions
70%/60%
Doing Online Searches
60%/35%
Finding Local Business
55%/35%
Finding Info About Local Business
53%/58%
Finding Info on a Product
Source: http://bit.ly/JWIreport

24. Younger Demo

25. 2016: http://bit.ly/GWIvoice

26. Product Search

27. 2015: http://bit.ly/visualsearchdata
74% of consumers
say text based keyword
searches are inefficient in
helping to find products
online.

28. 5% of consumers
use voice shopping.
Could reach 50%
by 2022.
April 2018 http://bit.ly/2NGYjWl

29. “The growth curve of
voice shopping looks a
lot like the trajectory of
mobile commerce seven
years ago”
- Moffett Nathanson’s Greg Melich
Source: http://bit.ly/2uc5XQu

30. Online Groceries

31. 56% of online grocery shoppers
use or plan to use voice controlled
smart assistant/speaker
2018: http://bit.ly/voicegrocery

32. Local Searches

33. 58% of consumers used voice
search to find local business info in
the last 12 months
Source: http://bit.ly/2KQS2cL

34. Voice Search Mechanics

35. Voice Search Queries Are Different
Desktop:
“weather paris”
Voice:
“What’s the weather like
in Paris?”
Source: http://bit.ly/2MzDIlo

36. Where Does Google Read the Answer From?
● 70% cited a website source
● 41% came from featured snippets
● Now “speakable” markup
2018: http://bit.ly/backlinkovoice and http://bit.ly/weareroast

37. Featured Snippets
Jan 2018: http://bit.ly/Googlefeaturedsnippets

38. Paid Search Won’t Help

39. How Do You “Optimize” for Voice Search?

40. Voice Search Optimization
1. Follow SEO best practices
2. Be mobile friendly and fast
3. Help Google understand your content (structured data)
4. Know your audience context and intent
5. Develop a brand voice
6. Answer their questions (featured snippets)
7. Be found locally (if relevant)
8. Leverage your audio assets

41. 1. Tech SEO Must Haves

42. Get Your Tech House in Order
● Load fast
● No crawl or indexing issues
● Use structured data
● Be on HTTPs
● Have low bounce rate and high engagement

43. 2. Be Mobile Friendly and Fast

44. https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/

45. 2018: https://backlinko.com/voice-search-seo-study

46. Diagnosing
and Fixing
Page Speed
Issues
● GTMetrix.com
● Google’s
Lighthouse tool in
Chrome
● WebPageTest.org

47. 3. Structured Data

48. Structured Data
● Helps with entity extraction
● Now enables Google Actions in Assistant and in Search
● Can help with getting a Knowledge Box (along with other signals)
● Quick Check: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
http://bit.ly/Googlestructureddataguide
http://bit.ly/GooglesupportSD

49. Google Assistant Actions Directory
Users can play media via Search and
the Google Assistant.
If you have:
● Structured data markup (or AMP)
for recipes or news
● or RSS for podcasts
You will get an email to claim your
directory page.

50. Speakable Markup
● News publishers can
markup content that can
be read out loud
● Markup documentation
● Need to be a verified
news org
● Submit for inclusion
http://bit.ly/Googlespeak
https://wostrategies.com/take-to-get-into-google-news/

51. 4. Know the Context

52. Does your
content work
in that context?
https://www.stonetemple.com/voice-usage-trends/

53. 5. Develop a Brand
Voice

54. Users Want to Hear Your Voice
72% of regular UK voice users think
brands should have unique voices and
personalities for their apps
Source: http://bit.ly/JWIreport

55. How would your brand “sound”
if your search snippet “spoke”
to your searchers?

56. Developing Your Brand Voice
● Consistent customer’s experience of your brand
● Helps to develop a brand that everyone understands, can articulate,
and effectively share with others.
● Keeps marketing and sales on the same page of who is “behind the
brand” on the handle.
● Lets you surface “your voice” via social, paid, voice, AND SEO.

57. Brand Voice Documentation
How to develop your brand voice: http://bit.ly/2unv7uM

58. Brand Voice with SEO

59. 6. Be Found Locally

60. Local User Context
● Claim & optimize Google My Business
● Local geo landing pages
● Consistent NAPs (Name, Address,
Phone)
● Claim local citations
● Get geo local links
● Get reviews
● Full checklist here: http://bit.ly/2Lqfr0Z
moz.com/local - BrightLocal.com

61. 7. Answer Their Questions

62. What Works to Get Featured Snippets?
● Rank in the top 5
● Most are questions
● Mobile usable and fast loading
● HTTPs
● Easy reading level
● Scannable
● Use images
● Citations
May 2018: http://bit.ly/2ucDGJp

63. Brainstorming Keyword Topics - Your Data
Currently seeing voice queries?
1. Google Search Console
2. Filter by “how, what, when”
queries on mobile
Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

64. Keyword Topics
https://answerthepublic.com
https://keywordseverywhere.com

65. Does It Meet Google’s Human Rater Guidelines?
Source: http://bit.ly/2KyRyUo

66. 8. Leverage Your Audio
Assets

67. Optimize Your Audio Content
● Optimize your meta data and episode
descriptions & markup for entities (guest
names, etc).
● Provide show notes
● RSS feed requirements, Submit your RSS
feed url
● Plan for Google to surface internal parts of
your podcast as an answer
https://search.google.com/devtools/podcast/preview

68. Let’s Talk ROI

69. Measuring Voice Search
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Can’t be explicitly tracked

70. Other Ways to Measure
● Filtered organic impressions
● Mobile keyword rankings
● Rich result rankings
● Google Actions
https://developers.google.com/actions/tools/analytics

71. Where Do We Go From Here?

72. Takeaways
● Follow SEO best practices
● Leverage structured data
● Develop a plan based on your data and your target audience.
● Think about the context of their search
● Develop brand voice documentation
● Watch the trends (audio SEO, Google actions directory)

73. Questions?

74. KATHERINE
WATIER ONG
202-930-1744
katherine@wostrategies.com
www.linkedin.com/in/katherinewatier
www.WOStrategies.com