How to be the answer a voice assistant reads aloud

What a voice search answer is

When someone asks a question out loud to a phone or a smart speaker, the assistant runs a search, picks one short passage, and reads it. Google Assistant reads from the featured snippet when there is one, and says which site it came from. Siri passes web questions to a search engine and reads a result the same way. In each case one passage from one page is spoken, and the page’s name is said with it.

The spoken passage is shorter than the written snippet. What we have observed is that assistants read about 30 to 45 words, which is 15 to 20 seconds of speech, and stop. If the answer is not complete by then, the listener hears half of it.

Some questions never reach a web page. Hours, address, phone number and whether you are open right now come from your Google Business Profile. Questions about cost, time and process are answered from a page, which is the part this guide covers.

What an unreadable answer looks like on a cabinet shop website

A custom cabinet shop gets asked the same things by every caller. People want to know what custom cabinets cost, how long they take, what wood holds up best, and whether the shop does refacing. Each question is also asked out loud, usually while the person is standing in their kitchen with a phone.

The shop’s website answers in a way that cannot be spoken. The pricing page says to see the pricing table below, and an assistant cannot read a table. The lead time is written as 8-12 wks, which is read as eight dash twelve w-k-s. The wood comparison is a grid of species with checkmarks. The process page opens with a line about how every kitchen tells a story, which is 10 of the 40 words gone before a fact appears.

So the assistant reads a passage from a national remodeling site saying custom cabinets cost $500 to $1,200 per linear foot, a plausible national figure and the wrong one for Idaho Falls, and the listener has that number in their head before they call the shop.

A worked example: rewriting four answers for an Idaho Falls cabinet shop

Snake Bend Cabinet Company builds custom kitchens in Idaho Falls at an average of $18,000 installed. Asking the four questions below to a phone assistant, in a private test, produced answers from three national sites and one nearby competitor. The shop’s own pages were then measured for whether they could be read aloud at all.

Every spoken answer was under 45 words, and none of the shop’s passages could have been spoken. Here is the pricing page as it stood.

Every kitchen is unique, and so is every quote. Custom cabinetry is an investment in your home, and pricing depends on the size of your kitchen, your choice of wood species and finish, door style, hardware, and any specialty storage you select. See our pricing table below for typical ranges, or contact us for a free in-home estimate.

Here is the passage that replaced it, under a heading that reads How much custom kitchen cabinets cost in Idaho Falls.

Custom kitchen cabinets from Snake Bend Cabinet Company in Idaho Falls cost between twelve thousand and twenty-six thousand dollars installed, and most kitchens come in near eighteen thousand. Painted maple is the lowest cost, and a full overlay in stained walnut is the highest.

That is 43 words, and it reads in about 17 seconds. The number is in the first sentence, spelled as it would be said, with the town named so the assistant can match it to a local question. The lead time became a single sentence saying that custom cabinets from Snake Bend take eight to twelve weeks from the final measurement to installation, and a full kitchen installs in two to three days. The wood grid stayed for the reader, and a 34-word pair of sentences above it now says that painted maple and stained hickory hold up best in an Idaho kitchen because both take the dry winter air without cracking. The refacing question got a new section on the services page. Each passage was played back with the phone’s own read-aloud before it went up, which is the test that matters.

How to check your own voice search answers

1. Ask your phone the four questions your customers ask most, out loud, with your town in them. Note which site is named and write down the answer you hear.
2. Type the same questions into Google in a private window. If a featured snippet appears, it is nearly always the passage that was spoken. If none appears, the assistant reads the top result’s opening lines.
3. Open your own page for each question and select the passage that answers it. Use your phone’s read-aloud function, Select to Speak on Android or Speak Selection on iPhone, and listen to it. If you hear a dash, an abbreviation, or the word below, it will not work.
4. Count the words. A passage over 45 words gets cut off. Under 30 usually leaves out a fact the listener needed.
5. Check your Google Business Profile hours and phone number at business.google.com, since those are what the assistant reads for whether the shop is open and for placing the call.

Voice answers follow the written snippet, so the check on the featured snippets page applies too.

What we do about voice search answers

You get the passages that answer your customers’ spoken questions rewritten to be read aloud, at 30 to 45 words, with numbers and units written as they are said and every fact confirmed by you. Each passage sits under a heading that matches the question, on the page that ranks for it, and is played back with a phone’s own read-aloud before it goes live. Your Google Business Profile hours, phone and address are checked against the site so the assistant reads the same facts from both. Snippet and spoken results are reviewed monthly. This is included in every Hazer search plan.

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