Short answer: Write instructions so that they still work when nobody is looking at the screen. That means naming things instead of pointing at them, one action per step, real units instead of vague ones, and describing the result in words rather than colour. It also means ignoring most of the advice about how-to schema, because Google deprecated how-to rich results and no longer shows them — the reason to structure a guide now is that machines can read it, not that you get a badge.
This article covers the writing. Where the structure comes from is in a simple guide to schema, and how to get a guide to be found in the first place is positioning your brand as a step-by-step authority.
First, the correction
Most guides on writing how-to content for AI and voice search are working from a version of structured data that no longer exists, and it is worth clearing that away before anything else.
In August 2023 Google announced changes to how-to and FAQ rich results. The specific position, from Google’s own documentation:
- How-to rich results are deprecated and no longer shown on desktop.
- FAQ rich results are limited to well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For other sites, they are no longer shown regularly. [1]
So if a strategy is built around earning a how-to badge, it is built on a feature that no longer exists. That is a significant correction, and it changes what is worth doing: markup is now worth having because it describes your content accurately to systems that consume structured data, not because it produces a visual enhancement. Google’s structured data documentation is clear that its purpose is communicating the meaning of a page’s content — a purpose that survives the loss of the badge. [4]
This also removes the main reason most people attempted HowTo markup in the first place, which is a relief. If the payoff was cosmetic, the sensible response is to spend your time on the writing instead.
The test: could you follow this with your eyes closed?
Not literally — but the principle is close to that. Take any instruction in any guide and ask whether it works when the reader cannot see the screen.
This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is what happens when a voice assistant reads your page aloud, when a summary quotes it back to someone, when someone uses a screen reader, when a phone is held at an awkward angle in a dark cupboard, or when a customer is one-handed on a ladder. It is also, increasingly, how AI systems process instructional content: extracting steps and presenting them without the original layout.
It is worth being honest about the evidence here. Voice search exists and is growing, but the standard advice attached to it — target conversational phrasing, chase ‘near me’ variants — is weaker than it was, and voice queries cannot be reliably separated out in your reporting. [3] That makes the writing itself the durable part, because it helps everyone: the person reading on a phone, the person using a screen reader, the person who only reads the first two lines, and any system summarising the page.
Instructions that only work visually fail in all of those cases. The fix is not complicated — it is usually a single sentence rewritten.
| Situation | Visual-only instruction | Surface-neutral instruction |
|---|---|---|
| Locating a control | ”Click the red icon at the bottom." | "Select the Emergency Stop button, located at the bottom right of the panel.” |
| Judging progress | ”See how the bar has changed?" | "Wait until the progress indicator reads 90% or higher.” |
| Positioning a part | ”Put it here." | "Place the sensor three inches from the central hub, not against the frame.” |
| Confirming success | ”It should look like this image." | "A green indicator light will pulse once, then stay steady.” |
| Reading a setting | ”Change it to the higher option." | "Change the setting to High, which is the second of three options.” |
| Knowing it worked | ”Then it should be fine." | "If the pump does not start within ten seconds, the isolation valve is still closed.” |
Every second-column version is longer, which is the honest trade. What it buys is that the instruction survives being extracted from the page.
Five rules that do most of the work
Name the thing. Do not point at it. A reader who does not know what the Emergency Stop looks like needs the words, not a position. This one change accounts for most of the difference between a guide that works everywhere and one that works only in a photograph.
One action per step. If a step contains three instructions of different importance, the important one gets lost, and anyone extracting a single step extracts the wrong content. Split them, or put the critical action first and the optional one in parentheses.
Use real units and real thresholds. “Three inches”, “ten seconds”, “until it reads 90%”, “the second of three options”. Vague quantities force the reader to guess, and a guess in an instruction about plumbing, electrics or scaffolding is expensive.
Say what success looks like. Each step should be checkable on its own. Can someone tell whether they have finished step four without reading step five? If not, the step is missing something.
Front-load the outcome. Say what the whole thing achieves in the first two sentences, before the steps. Someone who abandons the guide after one line should still know what they were trying to do — and a system quoting the opening should get something worth quoting.
Where the specificity lives
There is a specific type of detail that generic content cannot produce, and it is the reason a human should write these guides at all.
Not “check the seal”. Which seal, where it sits, and what it looks like when it has gone.
- The tool you actually use. “A 13mm ring spanner” rather than “the correct tool”.
- The mistake people make. Nearly every trade has one: the isolation valve left closed, the filter fitted backwards, the wrong gasket. Naming it saves your customers a return visit.
- The number where it goes wrong. If there is a torque figure, a set time, or a diagnostic step that tells you the job has gone wrong, it belongs in the guide.
- What you will not do. The limits — the conditions under which this is the wrong job for you — are among the most useful lines in any guide, and they are exactly what a generated version omits.
This is also the argument for writing these yourself rather than generating them. An assistant can produce a competent generic procedure in seconds. It cannot produce the fact that half your callouts are caused by the same fitting. That fact is the guide.
Structured data: a small, optional garnish
With the rich result gone, the honest case for HowTo markup is limited to describing your content accurately. If your guide is clearly a set of steps, marking it up as such is defensible and costs little — but the requirement from Google’s documentation applies as always: the markup must describe content visible on the page. [4] Marking up steps you have not written, or marking up eight steps while the page shows six, reintroduces exactly the kind of inconsistency described in automated entities and schema.
Speakable schema is worth mentioning only so it can be dismissed. It identifies sections of a page suited to text-to-speech, and is aimed at news and broadcast content rather than service guides. [2] It does not make anything more findable, and clear writing already delivers most of the available benefit.
For most service businesses the priority order is straightforward and worth stating plainly: answer the question correctly, write it so it survives being read aloud, keep it current. Only then consider markup. Google’s published guidance continues to prioritise content that is genuinely useful and written for people as the foundation. [5]
How this connects
Instructional content is one of the few things a small business can publish that a larger organisation cannot easily copy, because it comes from having done the job several thousand times. That advantage only survives if the writing is clear, which is the whole argument of this page.
Getting guides in front of people is covered in how to magnet AI authority and the navigation shift from clicks to direct answers. The markup side is in a simple guide to schema and automated entities. Keeping a guide accurate as prices and services change is content maintenance, and the same discipline applied to your claims generally is brand consistency across every touchpoint. Whether guides are the right use of your time depends on how you have chosen to spend it, which is working smarter through digital efficiency.
