Engine optimization / Tier 13
Voice and conversational
Voice search content, speakable schema, audio first content, and conversational schema, built for the way people actually talk to a phone, a smart speaker, or an AI assistant rather than the way they type into a search box.
What ships
What is in Voice and conversational
The tier for the voice surface: phones, smart speakers, and the AI assistants that answer a question out loud instead of showing a page of links.
- Voice search content written for question phrasing and conversational length
- Speakable schema deployed on key pages
- Audio first content: podcast episodes, transcripts, and audio versions of key pages
- Action and Skill setup for Google Assistant or Alexa, where it is actually warranted
- Conversational schema for chat ready content
Why voice and conversational queries are different
Someone asking a phone or a smart speaker "what is the best Italian restaurant near me" is asking a different question than someone typing "best italian restaurant downtown" into a search box. Voice queries run longer, read like a real question, and expect a direct answer rather than a list of blue links. Tier 13 writes and marks up content for that surface.
This is not the same thing as a voice AI agent that talks back to a customer on the phone. That capability lives under Voice and audio. Tier 13 is about making your existing content legible and citable to the voice and conversational surface, not about building a new agent.
The same discipline shows up twice inside a federation. Content structured so a smart speaker can read one clean answer out loud is content structured cleanly enough for your own retrieval layer to pull the right passage on the first try. Speakable schema and conversational markup are not a side project bolted onto the public site, they are the same clean structure a private AI federation depends on internally, pointed outward at the engines and assistants people actually talk to.
Deliverables
What you get at the end
Each item below ships as a real, validated deliverable, not a checkbox on a feature list.
- Voice search content published on the target pages
- Speakable schema live on those pages and validated
- Audio content produced where scoped: podcast episodes, transcripts, audio versions
- Action or Skill setup completed and tested, when scoped
- Conversational schema deployed for chat ready content
Prerequisites
Tier 13 needs Tier 1 Foundation in place first, since speakable and conversational schema build on the same structured data baseline. It reinforces Tier 3 AI Domination, because voice assistants and AI answer engines draw on the same clean, citable content. It also overlaps with Tier 5 Local Domination, which already covers voice search for map pack and local queries. Best fit for businesses with real voice search exposure: local services, content publishers, and retail.
FAQ
Tier 13 questions
Do I need a Google Action or Alexa Skill?
Most small businesses do not. Skill development takes real effort for a small return for a typical small business. Tier 13 focuses on voice search content unless Skill development is specifically scoped in.
How much voice traffic should I expect?
It depends on the business. Local services see meaningful voice traffic. A pure SaaS product sees almost none. We instrument tracking so you can actually measure it instead of guessing.
What about ChatGPT voice mode and Claude voice mode?
Voice mode AI assistants surface the same business citations as text mode does. Tier 3 AI Domination handles that surface, and Tier 13 handles the voice search content itself.
Next tier
Tier 14: Advanced and immersive
With voice and conversational content in place, Tier 14 covers 3D and WebGL, AR, VR, multimedia, and scroll choreography.