Win the Voice Search Battle Practical Insights & Content Strategies to Win the Single Answer

Webinar | September 20, 2017

Enabling Brands

to Connect with Customers

in the Right Moments

About the Experts

Richard Chavez VP Professional Services, seoClarity

He’s a true SEO expert with deep expertise in technical optimization, content strategy

and analytics. Richard has 17 years of experience helping brands optimize and

drive results in SEO.

Sherry Bonelli Owner, early bird digital marketing

She specializes in SEO, Reputation Marketing, Social Media, Content

Marketing, Retargeting and Display Advertising to help make local and national

businesses successful online.

Jayson Akers Digital Strategy Architect, Digital Current Jayson’s 15 years of experience allows him to craft the strategies that help forward-

thinking brands generate measurable growth in their website's traffic,

conversions, and revenue. 3

Agenda

• Voice Search Landscape

• The Single Answer and its Reach

• Growth Trends

• Content Strategy & Optimization Customer Journey

Impact on Content Development

• Measurement and Performance Impact to the Business

4

seoClarity Professional Services

• Goals

• Jumpstart and/or accelerate goal attainment

• Provide best of breed talent on-demand

• Objectives

• Strategic planning

• Technical expertise

• Project support

• Advanced Analysis

• Research Insights

5

Voice Search Reach

6

Voice Search

Distribution

Google Desktop

and Mobile

Google Home

Amazon Echo

Siri

Cortana

• Voice Search impacts just

about all form of connected

devices

• Smartphones

• Tablets

• Laptops

• Personal Assistants

• Smart TVs

• Smart Refrigerators

20% of queries on Google’s mobile app and on Android devices are voice searches

*At Google I/O 2016 Keynote, Google SEO Sundar Pichai announced this stat.

Overview of the Answer Box

What is Voice Search Answer Box?

• Google’s Answer Box, or “featured snippet block,”

is a solution to a user’s query that is displayed in

Google’s search results.

• It is Google’s way of understanding user intent by

giving the best answer without requiring the user

to scroll down the result pages

• It's also Google's way of rewarding brands for

having the best answer to the user's question

• Primary results: paragraph, bullet points, charts,

images and video

9

Where do the Answer Box Results Originate?

• Desktop Answer Box

results can also show

additional results that

Google considers relevant,

but secondary to the

primary answer

• The Answer Box can be

removed from mobile

results

10

Desktop result

Mobile result

Where do the Answer Box Results Originate?

• For more popular queries

Google will display text ads

and PLA ads

• This can push Answer

Box results below-the-fold

and can potentially

reduce CTR

11

Desktop result

Mobile result Answer Box is pushed below-the-fold

Answer Box Growth Trends

Understanding its significance

The research covers a sampling of nearly 40 million keywords with ~20% that triggered a Google Answer Box result. The full report can be downloaded here: www.seoclarity.net/next-generation-search-voice-17099/

seoClarity Proprietary Research of Billions of Keywords from Research GridTM

↑35x Google Voice Search Queries up 35x since 2008 & 7x since 2010

* Google Trends 2008 – 2016 data imply queries associate with voice-related commands after the launch of iPhone & Google Voice Search.

Growth of Google’s Answer Box in Results

3.60%

9.80%

12.19% 13.20% 13.45%

15.73% 17.04%

18.52% 19.03% 18.95% 18.78% 18.91% 18.49% 19.13%

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

Percent of Keywords Triggering Answer Box

seoClarity proprietary research of billions of keywords from Research GridTM 14

“How”,

“What” &

“Best” are the most frequent words to trigger an

Answer Box result

Trigger Words Count % of Total

how 658,976 8.64%

what 382,224 5.01%

best 200,206 2.63%

the 75,025 0.98%

is 53,496 0.70%

where 43,178 0.57%

can 42,757 0.56%

top 42,277 0.55%

easy 31,178 0.41%

when 27,571 0.36%

why 25,980 0.34%

who 24,930 0.33%

new 24,779 0.33%

recipe 22,967 0.30%

good 22,807 0.30%

homes 21,132 0.28%

make 19,774 0.26%

does 19,449 0.26%

define 19,375 0.25%

free 18,315 0.24%

i 18,245 0.24%

list 17,136 0.22%

home 17,118 0.22%

types 16,575 0.22%

do 16,448 0.22%

seoClarity proprietary research of billions of keywords from Research GridTM 15

68% of the time resulted

from sites outside of

the first position

Position 1 32%

Positions 2-10 68%

Brands – Take Advantage of this Opportunity

seoClarity proprietary research of billions of keywords from Research GridTM 16

32% of the time came from the

first position and was also

Google’s voice

result

32%

22% 16%

30% Rank 1

Rank 2

Rank 3

Rank 4

Voice Result and First Rank Position

seoClarity proprietary research of billions of keywords from Research GridTM 17

Top 10 Domains Winning Answer Box

The top 10 domains with the highest share of answer box results accounted for

less than 5% of all keywords analyzed in seoClarity's data set

0.00% 0.20% 0.40% 0.60% 0.80% 1.00% 1.20% 1.40% 1.60% 1.80% 2.00%

en.wikipedia.org

www.youtube.com

allrecipes.com

www.webmd.com

www.wikihow.com

www.mayoclinic.org

www.healthline.com

www.food.com

www.zillow.com

www.foodnetwork.com

seoClarity proprietary research of billions of keywords from Research GridTM 18

Brands Need to Catch-Up

19 19

The Top 10 sites of key industries have fairly low penetration with the exception of

Health and Food

1. https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Home 2. https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Health 3. https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Reference 4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271450/monthly-unique-visitors-to-us-retail-websites/ 5. http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/car-websites 6. http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/travel-websites

5.07%

12.78% 11.71%

25.79%

52.85%

73.51%

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

Travel Retail Automotive Reference Health Food

Avg. % of Answer Boxes by Industry

19

How does this fits into the Customer Journey

Optimizing for this opportunity

Where Does the Answer Box Fit in the Customer Journey?

• > 65% of Answer Box queries analyzed

contained 3-5 words with a monthly average

search volume less than 1,000 (long-tail)

• This lends to higher conversion rates

• Primarily impacts Intent and Conversion

stages

• Understanding customer intent at all stages is

critical for success

• Brands must understand the behavior at

each stage and create an experience that

gains visibility and solves customer needs

Awareness

Consideration

Intent Conversion

Loyalty/Engagement

Customer Journey

21

How do we get started?

• Understand where your Answer Box opportunities are

1. Does it solve a customer need?

2. What’s the volume of opportunity / audience size?

3. Can it help customers complete the purchase?

4. Can it lead to repeat visits and loyalty?

5. What is needed to get this off the ground?

22

Voice Search: Hierarchy of Needs

23 23

23

Usability •Schema

•Page speed

•Mobile compliant

•Solve tech issues

•Content fits in appropriate Customer Journey

Relevance •Content solves the

problem

•Data/content is contained within table

•Uses natural language that answers user question

•Data-driven topic research

•Local pages

•Content has a permanent home within hierarchy

•Content fits your KPIs

Authority • Content is linked

internally (nav, XML, etc.)

• Local (reviews – google)

• Images

• Accept user-reviews

• Respond to user complaints and poor reviews

Domination • Consistently achieve

Voice Search results

Optimize for Voice Search

How can we as SEO professionals create and optimize content for a voice search queries? Sherry Bonelli

Optimize for Questions and the Way People Talk

Strategize for Devices Differently

• Nimble and flexible to create content

and code pages

• Examples:

• Voice Search on Google typically uses

Answer Boxes

• Local searches on Amazon Echo often

rely on zip codes

Voice Search = New Content Strategy

• Content & Keywords

• Content structure is different

• More than five words and are literally spoken

• Use words and phrase strings that people say

when they’re asking a real question

Topics, Keywords and Phrases

• The keywords should answer the question

you’re trying to optimize for

• That phrase should be in the first paragraph

on your landing page – preferably in the first

sentence.

• Look for keywords that involve a question and

write content that answers those questions.

Identify More Complex Questions

• Look for questions that

you will be able to

answer in great depth

• Include keywords “how”,

“why” and “where”

Use Trigger Words

• Use “trigger words”

– More than 20% of

featured snippets

are triggered by

these top 25 words

Trigger Words Count % of Total

how 658,976 8.64%

what 382,224 5.01%

best 200,206 2.63%

the 75,025 0.98%

is 53,496 0.70%

where 43,178 0.57%

can 42,757 0.56%

top 42,277 0.55%

easy 31,178 0.41%

when 27,571 0.36%

why 25,980 0.34%

who 24,930 0.33%

new 24,779 0.33%

recipe 22,967 0.30%

good 22,807 0.30%

homes 21,132 0.28%

make 19,774 0.26%

does 19,449 0.26%

define 19,375 0.25%

free 18,315 0.24%

i 18,245 0.24%

list 17,136 0.22%

home 17,118 0.22%

types 16,575 0.22%

do 16,448 0.22%Source: seoClarity Proprietary Research of Billions of Keywords from Research GridTM

Long-Tail Keywords Just Got Longer

• When optimizing for voice search,

research long and longer keyword

phrases

• Use variations of keywords

• Semantic keywords – different ways

of saying the same thing (think

synonyms)

“iPhone” and “release”

Optimize Your Pages

• Use the search query or keyword phrase in

your headline (H1)

• Write your answer as a complete sentence

near the top of the page

• Include your key phrase or query in your

meta data, alt tags and URL structures

• Use keyword variations throughout the rest

of the content

Use Schema Markup

Content Strategies

• Use H1 tags with the keywords

• If you’re a local business trying to get

local customers – write with “local

intent”

• Write pages on individual/specific

topics

Content Strategies

• Voice search is also typically mobile and

often locally focused

• Because they’re more conversational, voice

search queries are also usually longer than

typical text keyword search queries.

• Local Businesses: Claim and optimize your

Google My Business listing with voice

search in mind

Create Q&A Pages

• Find out what questions your

customers/potential customers

are asking and create Q&A

Pages

• Brainstorm with your team

• Talk to your sales people

• Ask your customer support reps

Write “Topic Specific” Pages

• Create pages with rich, quality

content that focusses on the

keywords you’re trying to rank for

Google Answer Box

• Goal: Get listed in Google’s

“Answer Box” for the

keywords you’re targeting.

Position Zero

• This coveted spot is often referred

to as “position zero” because these

rich snippet boxes show up above

all other search results – even ads.

Different Search Queries Results in Different Snippet Types

List Snippet

Table Snippet

Video Snippet

Local Search = No Answer Box (Yet)

No “Answer Boxes” for

local search intent keywords

Tools for Voice Search Optimization Strategy

• Tools to find out what questions people are asking about a

particular keyword: • Storybase

• blogsearchengine.org

• hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator

• answerthepublic.com

• seoClarity

Measure and Performance

Jayson Akers

Impact Potential: Adoption

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

2015 2016 2017

Growing number of Voice-First Devices

New

Total

SOURCE: Google http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/teens-use-voice-search-most-even-in-bathroom-googles-mobile-voice-study-finds-279106351.html SOURCE: https://moz.com/blog/how-voice-search-will-change-digital-marketing-for-the-better

0 20 40 60 80

18-29

30-43

44-53

54+

Smartphone Virtual Assistant Usage

Voice has fastest feature adoption rate, deep adoption across demographics

Impact Potential: Integration

SOURCE: Google http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/teens-use-voice-search-most-even-in-bathroom-googles-mobile-voice-study-finds-279106351.html

55% of Teens 40% of Adults

Voice-search has become largely normalized as a part of daily device usage

Measurement: Voice Search Query Data

Segmented queries from voice search might come in the next year to Search Console

"we are going to fix voice search" to give people more insight into when they're

showing as voice query answers

Voice Search Query Data Filtering coming to Google Analytics & Search Console?

source: John Mueller, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3SEjHefk4#t=1393, https://www.stonetemple.com/everything-mobile-google-john-mueller-mariya-moeva source: Gary Illyes, https://twitter.com/GregGifford/status/874665674781597696

Measurement: Indicator Metrics to Monitor What metrics can we monitor to provide insight into voice search effectiveness

1. Rankings of ‘voice search’ type phrases 2. Rankings of ‘voice search’ focused pages 3. Traffic via ‘voice search’ type phrases 4. Traffic to ‘voice search’ focused pages

Measurement: Monitor Queries What ‘voice search’ phrases can we use to monitor voice search effectiveness

1. Longer, longtail phrases 2. Conversationally phrased queries 3. Question based query phrases 4. Localized interest phrases 5. Featured Snippet phrases

Measurement: Longer, Longtail Queries Voice search queries even longer than mobile, which were longer than desktop

SOURCE: Hitwise http://hitwise.connexity.com/070116_MobileSearchReport_CD_US.html SOURCE: https://moz.com/blog/how-voice-search-will-change-digital-marketing-for-the-better

10 12 14 16 18 20

Desktop

Mobile

Voice

Character Count Of Search Queries

Measurement: Conversational Queries Voice search queries are longer, in part, due to the natural speech used

Measurement: Localized Queries Voice search queries are 3x more likely to be localized than text queries

SOURCE: Benu Aggarwal @ SMX West 2017 http://searchengineland.com/optimize-voice-search-273849

Text

Voice

Localized Queries

Measurement: Monitor Query Rankings

Create a breakout keyword set that only includes phrases most likely to appear for voice search queries, track your site’s visibility for these phrases over time

(pay particular attention to mobile rankings for these phrases)

Break out rank tracking for potential voice search query phrases

Measurement: Monitor Query Traffic

Create a breakout keyword set that only includes phrases most likely to appear for voice search queries, track the traffic to these URLs over time

(pay particular attention to mobile traffic numbers for these phrases)

Break out traffic reporting for potential voice search query phrases

Measurement: Monitor Page Rankings

Create a breakout page set that only includes pages which are most likely to appear for voice search queries, track the average ranking for these URLs over time

(pay particular attention to mobile rankings for these pages)

Break out rank tracking for potential voice search query pages

Measurement: Monitor Page Traffic

Create a breakout page set that only includes pages which are most likely to appear for voice search queries, track traffic to these URLs over time

(pay particular attention to mobile traffic numbers for these pages)

Break out traffic reporting for potential voice search query pages

Measurement: Monitor Rankings & Traffic

Make your life simple and the data more accurate - just use a digital marketing intelligence platform with integrated Featured Snippet ranking & traffic data like seoClarity

Track featured snippet rankings & related traffic

Measurement: Monitor Local Listing Activity

Measuring the engagement of these listings should give you some advance insight into how effective your

efforts are at reaching this audience

Due to the high potential for voice search queries to be localized expect your local listings (particularly your Google My Business

listing) to be the first point of contact for many voice search users

Particularly you google my business page & map listing

Post-click Impact: Hyper-focus on Mobile

Usability

Source: https://baymard.com/mcommerce-usability/benchmark/mobile-page-types/search-field

Visitors driven by voice search most likely arriving via mobile device

Mobile-first On-site Search Experience

Post-click Impact: Hyper-focus on Mobile

Usability

Source: https://baymard.com/blog/search-within-current-category

Visitors driven by voice search most likely arriving via mobile device

Mobile-first On-site Search Experience Contextual UX – “Search With-in Category”

Post-click Impact: Hyper-focus on Mobile

Usability

Source: https://www.labnol.org/software/add-speech-recognition-to-website/19989/

Visitors driven by voice search more likely to use voice interactive elements

On-site Voice Command Navigation & Usability

Post-click Impact: Hyper-focus on Mobile

Usability

82% of mobile users use mobile search from inside the store in-store maps (department location, restrooms, request assistance etc),

interactive restaurant menus, deal alerts

Does your site address the needs of customers ‘on location’?

On-premises Search App-like usability

Voice Search: Hierarchy of Needs

67 67

67

Usability •Schema

•Page speed

•Mobile compliant

•Solve tech issues

•Content fits in appropriate Customer Journey

Relevance •Content solves the

problem

•Data/content is contained within table

•Uses natural language that answers user question

•Data-driven topic research

•Local pages

•Content has a permanent home within hierarchy

•Content fits your KPIs

Authority • Content is linked

internally (nav, XML, etc.)

• Local (reviews – google)

• Images

• Accept user-reviews

• Respond to user complaints and poor reviews

Domination • Consistently achieve

Voice Search results

Even more insights and strategies available in

the full research report.

Download here: bit.ly/voicesearchresearch

Schedule 15 minutes to see your site’s voice

search opportunities.

Email us: sales@seoclarity.net