Optimizing for position zero: The future of voice search by Ashwin Ramesh #471

Hi, and welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris. I'm one of the owners here at eWebResults still? Yes, I'm the CEO of EWR Digital, also known as eWebResults. There we go. That's a transition. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. We are really excited. Remember, we're broadcasting live from Houston. So don't mess up. It's about wintertime. Because they can find us in Houston. I'm wearing shorts. Not right now, but I was this weekend. So a lot of you might be, like, tired of the cold already. We have yet to experience the cold. I mean, we've had... One or two days. Two days, right. Every fur coat in the city of Houston came out. It must have been 55 or something. And now they're all put back away. You know, they're hoping... You pray. Like, you just want... You bought Christmas clothes or winter clothes. Like, I opened up my winter clothes and was like, Man, I have all these jackets and long-sleeved shirts. And I was like, that I never wear. Yeah. Ever. I'm not going to buy anymore. You know? Stop buying those. I wanted to... Please remember, Matt and I, we are your results rebels. That was kind of low energy, Chris. Is that going to change? That was a little... Well, because I'm thinking, has it changed? We could change it. Yeah. Yeah. We thought, for a while, we were like, the white lab coats. Yeah. It was the results lab. The results lab, which I kind of like that. That was good. We could switch back to that. Hey, we have a review. It is, of course, five stars. And it's from Ursula O'Hare. It says, Thank you guys for a job well done. We appreciate the ongoing support and expertise you provide. It is very difficult to find an SEO company that does what it says it will do and conducts business. with the degree of integrity and professionalism as eWebResults does. Patif to you, Ursula. We really appreciate you.

Yeah. That's a client we put in first position at Google. Well, no wonder they're so happy. Yeah. Exactly. No wonder they're so happy. You know, about 40% of all our clients right now are for the keywords they want to go after in first position. Not first page. I read all these articles, right? And I'm like, Shoot for first page. And they're like, you're hanging out there on the second page. And I'm like, no, first position. Yeah. Where's the value? Yeah. That's where the value is. You know what we've been doing this week, Chris? That's been working out really well that I think a lot of people would get. As it turns out, I don't. Yeah. Well, we've been doing two meetings a week or two meetings a day. Sorry. Two meetings a day. We were doing two meetings a week this week. Well, two meetings a day, every day this week. Every day this week. And it's just been draining. Back to back. Back to back meetings. Yes. Like even calls over lunch. You seem really drained, actually. This was a long week. Yeah. This was a long week. And really, we were doing roadmaps for clients. Right. Realigning the goals for 2020. What is your goal? What is your goal? In 2020. It's hard to believe it's already 2020. What is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish? What would you like to check off your list with our help for next year? And really got great feedback all around. Yeah. Like, so we're bringing in all our clients. My wife's a client. And she... Yeah. Tell us what your wife said after. She said, this is a process that will help you maintain customers. Right? So that's one of the things we want to do. We recognize that customers have a choice. We believe they want first position and feel like we're the most qualified to deliver that first position. And they still have a choice. And what she said was, if people are making the decision kind of on their own

to move forward or not to move forward, which they might be doing at this time of year, then this is the right thing to sit down and say, okay, what's the plan? Because you're not going to get that anywhere else. You're not going to get this consistent, let's plan out these next four months, right? We like to work in four-month timeframes and know what we're going to accomplish in that timeframe and have some KPIs that we can deliver on. And that's really what we were doing. It was backing in to the KPIs. We were also looking at where the search volume was, how many leads they were currently getting if their goals were achievable and what's the path to get there, right? So I believe if you're doing marketing and you're spending money, you have some kind of objective you're trying to achieve. And we've got to make sure that expectations are in line. And also, we have the right strategy in place to get you there. And yeah, I think really... And that strategy fits in with who you are as a business owner, who you are as a company. Yeah, I mean, we've had all publicly traded companies all the way down to startups. Really, this process worked well. And probably your wife was one of the more stressful clients to make sure that she's happy, right? And so I think that... And she's happy. That was really a litmus test for the team to have her walk out of the meeting and say, this was awesome. I really enjoyed this. I don't know that she said awesome. I'm just kidding. I'm putting words in her mouth now. No, she did say it was an awesome experience and really have a great roadmap for the future. So yeah, that's... I can see that's a lot. That's brain intensive work. You probably have slept really well all this week. Yeah, no. After... Are you taking your ESS-16? Yes. And I was about to take like the dog version of it because I ran out

of the original. Yeah, don't take the dog version. And then I was like, no. Like you told me you put like bacon flavor in it or something. We burping up bacon for a while. So I actually didn't do that. But yeah, Wednesday was a long day because we actually had a client that has five different locations and running all the numbers... In the Houston area. In the Houston area and backing in all the data points that went into that to create multiple projections. Right. So it was testing like my Excel skills still. Oh, wow. Right. Yeah. And we had to map out everything. And so, I mean, we're probably running like 16 different campaigns. They have a semi-dedicated account manager. We're actually hiring an additional person to support that account. They're now adding a new location, spending more. Yeah. And so it was a lot of brain power that's gone into this week. That can be exhausting. Yeah. For sure. Hey, we're going to cover an article today. This is Optimizing for Position Zero, the Future of Voice Search. We talk about voice search every now and then. What are your opinions of voice search, Chris? Voice search is something that you will use. You'll use it a lot. And we're going to talk about it. That's my opinion of voice search. There's a lot of people who contributed. Did all these people? This is kind of a short article. Well, there's not a lot to go on. There's not a lot of people talking about voice search. Yeah. Okay. I wonder why. I mean, it's still in the early days of voice search. The biggest data point, Chris. Yes. You know, Comscore expects for it to account for up to 50% of global search by next year. That's a major shift in consumer behavior in only a few short years. What do you think about that? I think we're going to talk about that here shortly. And you're already giving, this is supposed to be a teaser. You're already giving meats of the article

away. We got to go back to... Hey, if you... He's always breaking something. If you have listened to this podcast before, we know you're back. Thank you. If you're... This is the first time listening. Howdy. Welcome to the podcast. Again, if you've listened before, make sure you shiko us. Yeah. You share, like, or follow us. Because that's how we... We don't get paid for doing this. We only get paid in your generous expression of how wonderful our podcast is. So... I am trying to change that. We're setting up a Patreon account. Yeah. Yeah. On bestseopodcast.com. Yeah. So if you want to buy us a cup of coffee or something like that... Or a Lamborghini. Or a Lamborghini. We're very open to Lamborghinis and Teslas. Yeah. Yeah. We only have one Tesla in the... Family. In the... Yeah. EWR family. So we need another one. Yeah. Yeah. We do. Yeah. Maybe the truck. No. I don't know. The truck's kind of jacked up. What do you think of... But I would still drive it. I believe that my kids designed it by taking one of their little blocks out of their playset and then putting wheels on it. Well, you know, I saw these memes, okay? And the memes of what everybody thought it was going to look like is what I thought... It was awesome. It was awesome. And I was like, yeah, I would buy that. And then when it came out, I was like, I wasn't sure if... Is this a joke? If they were coming out with that next or whatever. But I was like, that looks awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look that awesome. That's for sure. We have t-shirts. Neither one of us are wearing one of our t-shirts today. They're really cool. If you'd like a t-shirt, just go to ewebbershop.com. And we're going to be designing some new t-shirts as well. Slash swag. For just the podcast. ewebresults.com slash swag. But we're going to put those on the podcast. Okay. So we're trying to break that apart.

Yeah. So putting stuff on just the podcast. Just the podcast. Yeah. And then ewebresults or ewrdigil.com, which we bought the domain already. We have. Good. Well, we won't have control of that. Oh, well, let's get into this. We're going to change the format a little bit. Matt's going to lead the discussion this time. Okay. He's breaking stuff. So I decided it's my turn to break something. Okay. And go. Go. Okay. Although that kind of isn't breaking. I'm like, all right. Well, you know, I'm just going to summarize. Okay. And we can talk about it because I think that, you know, words are overused today. And we know that like 90% of like communication is through body language and kind of things. So, yeah. So we don't need to talk much. We're just going to mime. No, but seriously, like digital assistants are something that are really coming on the scene, right? The Echo, Alexa, like everybody's using them. There's also a buddy of mine that's at a video production agency out in California that I've done some podcasts with. Shout out Randy. Basically, he's got multiple ones all through his office and he's trying to use it and ask questions to see what's going on. He actually asks it every day, what's the best video production agency in Orange County. But really, you know, I want to, I know that you're kind of, we can take different sides of this, right? Because I know that your opinion on voice and, you know, I have a slightly different opinion. And so I think it would be interesting to kind of talk about maybe a statement in the article and then get your viewpoint on it. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, so one of the big things that talks about in this article is position zero, which is the featured snippet. Right. Right at the top. And I've seen one. A coveted spot. Well, I mean, I really have seen that, that when we can get people to rank in the featured snippet, the trust level goes through

the roof. The conversion rate goes through the roof. So it's really, really powerful. And when you say convert, it's not just the fact that they click through to the website that goes up. Yes. It's also that the customer is able to convert more because they've got the clout of being the featured snippet. So it's really like a vote as Google's going like, those guys are the bomb. You should use them. And I'll tell you, I think that also the conversion rate goes up because all the things that you did to get in the featured snippet supports the conversion, right? Your conversion was already climbing up anyway. So it's not just, oh, I got in the featured snippet. It's like all the steps that you went through to get in the featured snippet, right? And so how do you get in the featured snippet? Yeah. Right. So this says relevance through data. It talks about structured data. Yeah. It talks about prioritizing schema. Maybe you can speak to some of these things. Well, I think structured data is something that a lot of people talk about. They kind of know they need to do. And a lot of SEO companies never get around to actually implementing structured data. And it's just a way to put a flag. If you think about, you know, we all know placing well for a page is about a good description. And I think there can be interesting debates about the value of the description. Yeah. We know it's got to have a good title. You want to have H1 tags. You want to have your alt tags. And you want to have schema, right? And all of those things, like when people are like, oh, you have to have a good H1 tag and it's got to have relevant keywords in it. You're saying that because, you know, Google looks to understand what's on that page based on that piece of information. Yeah. Google does the same thing with schema. Oh, yeah. Right. So schema is like, hey, what? Hey,

Google, let me make sure you're not having to interpret anything on this page. Let me tell you exactly what this page is about, exactly what this section is about. And so it's got a really it's really important. And we don't very often see when customers come to us having had purchased SEO services before. They usually do not. Have we ever seen one with schema? Well, yeah. I mean, look, a lot of websites are coming to us and people, I think, don't understand that web design or development is different than SEO. And a lot of web designers or developers don't think about SEO in mind. Right. So they're not finishing the site to tell Google really what it's about. Yeah. So categories and tags are not done. There's no thought into there might be some customization of the themes and like kind of parent child, but there's no custom posts. There's some like very fundamental best practices like H1, if you're lucky, really though, H1 description, title. They'll usually fill out those components because they know they're going to get tagged if they don't do that. Well, we have a client right now that spent about $35,000 on a website. Right. Okay. It won all kinds of design awards. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's not functional at all. And there was no SEO done on it. And it was built in such a way that we actually couldn't restructure it. Yeah. Okay. And it was like big images. There was no text. It was really about a flow, right? Like a customer journey flow, which is a great concept. Through pictures. And it was like a storybook. Like basically is what it was. I think they should probably save that and use it for conferences. Yeah. Because somebody could walk up and like go through those. That's true. That's true. But it didn't check any of the boxes for SEO. Yeah. We've had to rebuild the site from a functionality standpoint and then from an SEO standpoint. And, you know, you got to fill

out that stuff on the back end. It's like Google trusts what it knows to be true. So, like even like on an image, if you geotag it in your location, Google knows that is definitely from that GPS coordinate. So, I can trust this coordinate more than somebody else that says that. Says that there was an user. So, there's a lot of things that go into it. A lot of people aren't utilizing this. There's some structured data tools. It really, as you're getting into like events, right? So, there's all kinds of ways to use this. There's a structured data tool out there that's pretty easy that helps categorize information. Google just really, really loves that. And that's what we're... We make it easier for them. Well, yeah. And that's what voice search is doing. It's grabbing that structured data. Yeah. And what I've seen playing around with these tools, which we probably need to get them in the office. You know, NSA probably is already watching us. So, it's okay. Yeah. I have to like fingerprint to get into my computer now. Like, there's all kinds... Like, I mean, they got my information, right? Yeah. So, whatever. Right. So, I mean, even our emails are through like business. So, Google has everything. Everything, yeah. Interesting facts. Do you know why Gmail and Chrome was created? Not specific. Probably internally. So, this is what I read. I'm not saying it's absolutely true. I have all kinds of interesting... I believe it already. ...interesting trivity facts. Trivial facts. This is also from like books that I've been listening to. So, I'm going to put one right. So, that Google could get the attention in those situations and have control of data. I mean, I think control of data is absolutely one of them. But I believe it... I think it came out right around the time when Facebook came out. And Facebook... People were... Gmail and all that. And basically, people were spending a lot more time on the Facebook page and they were collecting a lot more

data. And if you think about a search engine, you're only on it for a couple minutes, couple seconds, whatever, and you jump off it. So, the browser was a way to capture all the behavior interactions, right? And then email was just kind of all these add-on services where it can collect more data. But think about it. You're always logged into the Chrome browser. It wants you to be. So, now it can collect behavior data on all these different sites and what you're doing and how you're interacting and all that kind of social network. And that's really why they created it for data collection. Because another big interesting data... Or you could go with the altruistic view, which is they just wanted to provide the best caliber of service to people. That's true. And, you know, Google, you know, one of their mottos was do no evil or something like that. Right, right. You know, they took that away. That's gone. So, who knows? Yeah. But... Apparently, Google does. Google does. Google China. Just kidding. I was going to say something else and you totally threw me off. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I apologize. Okay. Let's see what's here. So, the next kind of section here... So, just... Yes. Schema. Make sure you do it. Right? It's an important part of... Just do it. Schema. If you want any chance of getting into position zero, do your schema. Do your schema markup. That's important. I mean, there are definitely strategies to get you there. Some of these are a little more advanced. Like, you know, a lot of people just, you know... So, one of the things that I'm going to say, right? So, here's the article. Optimizing for Position Zero, the Future of Voice Search. It's in Search Engine Watch, which is usually like, you know... Usually, you're going to find SEO people in there, marketing people, etc. And really more on the SEO side of things. And my question always is, is when you're doing voice search, what kind of searches are you doing,

and how valuable is that for the potential provider of the result? So, for instance, what's your typical voice search? Yeah. So, weather. Okay. Directions. Directions. Really non-business intent searches. Right. And that's really where I want... Maybe a restaurant would be relevant. You know, yeah. What does Yelp say or whatever, right? Do you... Can you ask that? I'm maybe going to learn something. Well, I can pull up Yelp if you ask it. Well, you pull it up, but... But then you've got to get on the screen. What does Yelp say about McDonald's on Fifth Street? You know, you can't... I wonder if you could do that. Well, you know, I feel like Siri, who, like, we're really close, she doesn't get a lot of stuff that I say still. I don't like many relationships in your life. You may be very close, but you may not understand everything about each other. Exactly. No, but no. So, that's what I want to know is your opinion, right? Because you have a very strong opinion on voice search. And a lot of times in past podcasts, you're like, it doesn't matter. Next. Well, that's what I'm getting to. It's like, if all your searches are... Okay. One of the examples is how far is Dallas from Houston? The provider of that information is not really going to get any value, right? It's not like we're not going to run out and optimize for that phrase, even if it was easy and even if it had a ton of searches, right? Because it's just not going to add any value to us as a business, right? The next is looking for restaurants. And the point about this one... So, voice search, I believe, looking for restaurants, yeah, we always talk about. Step one, make sure your Google My Business listing is right. And if you're in the restaurant business, you've got to be on Yelp. But that's not a position zero search because you're never going to go, Siri, what is the best restaurant in Houston? Siri is not

going to tell you, oh, it's McDonald's on First Street, right? Well, if you optimize for best, right? It's just like the phone company. Remember that phone company? And they're like, hey, what collect service do you want to use? And you're like, whatever, and then someone owns that and then they bill for it. So, near me, okay, best. And when you ask these different assistants, like information, usually what they're doing right now is it's not one, they give you a list. Right. So, that goes to position zero, right? How valuable is position zero to any one business? If you could be a restaurant and you could get to position zero, it doesn't exist for most of the things that you want. Right. That's the reality. Now, Adam at one point sent us an audio clip of what's the best marketing agency in Houston and of course- And we were on the list. Yeah. Boom. No, we were the, we were, I thought we were hit. I thought it was like- But remember- I thought we were like first and there was other ones. Google knows everything about Adam, so- Yeah. So, it's tailored to him. Probably was tailored to him. He's probably logged in. Yeah. Right. So, that's probably- Mirror, mirror on the wall. Exactly. Right. So, it just position zero for me feels like not a great kind of discussion. Now, if you want to talk, there are probably some situation where it is adding value, where you might say, you know, what is the best feature in a wireless microphone or something? And on a cell phone, that's, you still, the value to the business, if you're Rode, that's one of the microphones that we use, is that you get them to open the screen. It's not that like, oh, the best one. I mean, if you can get them to say, oh, the best one is Rode, but they're not- Yeah, but they're not going to make any buying decisions on the voice. They're always going to transition to the screen. Okay. So,

what do I need to look for in a microphone? Should Rode have an article there? Absolutely. 100%. Is that really affect like voice and zero, and especially position zero? It just doesn't matter that much to be in position zero for most of the searches. Because usually, if it's of value, it's going to be a list or it's information, it's not a purchasing decision. It's intent, right? What's the search intent at that moment? It's intent. I mean, I think, you know, kind of in summary, what I would say is all the things and best practices that you need to do to get in position zero makes good SEO. Oh, yeah. I will not argue with that. So, if you're trying to optimize to get into position zero, you've laid the foundation. You're moving into intermediate and advanced SEO tactics to better help Google understand what you're offering and why your content is absolutely the best. So, what you're saying is, in lieu of there being a position zero, attempting to get to position zero should push you in position one. And that's of value. Yes, and I think coupled with that is the understanding that virtual reality or augmented reality, voice search, all these things are coming and in your business, you can't stay stagnant. And that's why I see most businesses, you know, the ebb and flow of like businesses grow or fall is they don't continue to change with the times. And so, it's really, really important to understand at least what's happening in the marketplace and understand how it's going to impact you and assess like threat assess. Is this an opportunity like SWOT analysis is, is this something that's going to help me? Is this something that I can take advantage of me or hurt me? Or how, how is that going to happen? Keep looking at it. Right. So, keep looking at it. But a lot of people create businesses with the best practices of whatever, when they start is the most cutting edge thing that they know. And then it's

like they stop in time and don't stay relevant. And I think that that's one of the biggest things that people are going to miss. Most people are still not using internet marketing. A lot of small business owners in this gap is just starting to widen. People are starting to really get it. Like you have to do it. If you want to grow your business, it's not an option. Yeah. Yeah. With the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet, the internet, call eWebResults for increased revenue in your business. Our phone number is 713-592-6724. That was the best transition to the club ever. Wasn't that good, right? If you like this podcast, we're going to ask you to do three simple things. They're really simple. Shiko us, which is share, like, and follow. If you do that, and then why don't you just share it with three of your friends? That's how we get paid. We really appreciate you. One of the things that I would like to add, right, is so we do get a lot of referrals and we actually give a lot of referrals because there's things that we're good at and there's things that other people are better at and we want to connect you with the right type of people. Yeah. So if you're thinking about or you have a client, give us a call. We are open to white labeling. We are open to partnerships and that's what I'm saying. Let's deliver a great solution for your client. We deliver a great solution, whether it's white label, whether it's partnership or whether we put you in touch with the people that we believe might be the best fit for you. Yeah. But let's have a conversation and see if we can work together. And that's really what I'm seeing. I got a lot of people reaching out to us because they want us to do the SEO strategy piece. Well, you said you were at that digital agency conference and almost nobody does search. So there's got to be a lot

of digital agencies out there that know they need to up their search game. Yeah. Let us up your search game. Let us help you. Let's talk about it. We might be able to help you define a strategy. We are putting together a coaching program kind of mid next year where we're going to basically certify agencies that we refer to because we have a great Shopify partner. We also are very good at Shopify, but we have a really, really great Shopify partner. It's about 700 Shopify sites. A Wix partner. We have a Squarespace partner. Really, we're a WordPress development shop. And if you're looking to do WordPress or even attach e-commerce to that, we are your huckleberries. Yeah. Yeah. So where are the location? We are. Now, I do want to share this. Remember, we're involved in a Guinness world record attempt. Yes. It's exciting. We will hit it. I've done it before. We will get the world record. This is going to be exciting. It's happening in, I don't even. January. In January. I don't remember the specific dates. It's going to be the most number. So if you're interested in joining this, and I'm about to describe it, there are speaking opportunities in a Guinness world record breaking attempt. And here's what the record is. It's the most motivational speeches in the most number of cities in a 24-hour period. Yeah. Right? So if you're interested in having your business associated with a Guinness world record, it's kind of cool. We've done it before. It was really good for us. Go ahead and reach out to us. Make contact with us. We'll make sure to get you in contact with the right people. Matt's speaking. I'm speaking. This is going to be pretty awesome. And you could win $10,000. Yeah. That's the reason in itself to join. You can win $10,000 just for going. Yeah. Right? So we're going to have tickets available. This is going to be like, knock your socks off. Uh-huh. It's the fourth, almost the third largest city in the

country. And we are going to saturate the fourth largest city in the country. It's going to be very cool. We covered that. We covered that. Look, it's actually, that's an old note. And it's come back again. Networking in Houston, Guinness. Right? Nice. We were filmed live at five. I almost said that wrong. 13 105 Northwest Freeway. Houston, Texas. 77040. Suite 515. Yeah. Yeah. I got it all right. Yeah. We are one of the most popular internet marketing podcasts, the most popular SEO podcast because of you guys. We want to thank you so much. We're going into the holiday season, so it might be touch and go if we're going to do one more podcast. We just don't want, we would be remiss if we didn't wish you Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, all of the celebrations. Enjoy your family. Enjoy the cold if you like it. And you're up north here in Houston, pray for the cold. So you can use your jacket, your one jacket. You never get to use. No. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. My name is Matt Bertram. Bye bye for now. All right. Be funny, Matt. Go. Oh. You can do it. Soil your confidence. Bullshit. It's like trying. I like Matt. It's like, let's get this started. All right. Let's do this. Let's do this. Have we started yet? Are we already too loud? We haven't even started. No ammunition. It's all bullshit. He's just flinging poo. Ha ha ha. Ho ho ho.