WEEK 5: A Conversation with Guest Speaker Duane Forrester by Vanessa Ortiz
By UCLA X469.21 Student Vanessa Ortiz
Voice Search: Ready to Disrupt the Industry
Vanessa Ortiz
As part of our “Best Practices in Social Media” class we had the pleasure to have Duane Forrester, VP of industry insights at Yext, as our guest speaker.
Duane started the discussion with voice search – a relatively new trend that is growing rapidly and poised to have a big impact on marketing. We have all heard about Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, but during his presentation Duane gave us his insights into how such voice-enabled devices can change the way we interact with our technology.
Duane Forrester
He explained how voice search has very different characteristics from traditional text search, and how voice platforms do not yet offer marketers an option for paid search results. Therefore, he said that every brand has the potential to rank and be featured in voice search, provided it has well-structured online data that voice search can understand and use.
In addition to providing a new search platform, voice technology is also helping brands by giving them new opportunities to reach their target audiences. Duane described the voice search option as “another touchpoint along the customer journey” and offered the surprising prediction that “by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches.” I found this shocking, as voice search is still a new technology.
Another new marketing concept we learned about is Digital Knowledge Management (DKM), which is related to voice search and an organization’s entire online presence. In the competitive world, companies need to have the most accurate data available for all forms of search used by their audience. But how does a company handle so much data? The answer is through a DKM professional who is in charge of the organization’s entire online footprint. Duane said this new role is very important, as DKM provides the data that helps all search options, including voice search, broaden their database and improve accuracy. Voice search is gaining strength steadily and encouraging many brands to start thinking strategically about DKM. As Duane stated, “there are no shortcuts to success in voice search.”
Duane also touched on a few key tips and techniques for traditional SEO, including his favorite WordPress plugins such as Yoast SEO and All In One SEO (AIOSEO). He stressed the importance of having a well-defined headline and the right title tags. He also explained how to use Google Trends to do a quick search for key terms.
To conclude, Duane’s presentation provided insights on what we will see next for the voice landscape and what it means for brands and the overall marketing industry. He was a wonderful speaker who took the time to explain and break down step-by-step terms such as structured data, SEO, DMK and SERP. I’m confident Duane’s presentation will help me throughout my career.
