Google assistant - How Will This Affect SEO and PPC Campaigns?

What’s Google assistant?

Google assistant is an AI that understands your world and helps you get things done. It understands multiple kinds of contexts. This virtual assistant as an improvement of the two-way conversation experience in Google Now.

Google assistant sets itself apart from other AI personalities, such as Siri and Cortana. It can figure out exactly what you’re asking for, make suggestions and actually complete tasks for you using other apps. It’s going to change the way we think about the iconic search engine. Scott Huffman, vice president of engineering for search said Google is “such a strong thing in people's minds. It's associated with 'I express my need in a really simple way and I get back public information.'" When talking of Google assistant he suggests "it's been a bit of a leap for our users ... to now think of that box as a place where I can also call grandma."

Google assistant is not yet released.

How does this affect my campaign?

Depending on your campaign a few things may need to be changed or enhanced:

Mobile

It is even more essential for all websites to be accessible and user-friendly on mobile devices. Google assistant relies on voice search, which are mostly done via mobile. Make sure that when they reach your site it looks good!

Local SEO

It is very likely that most searches and/or inquiries that people will make with Google assistant will be related to solving everyday issues such as finding a restaurant or cinema, suggesting where to buy a certain product, booking a table and so on. Making sure Google can suggest your company to users in your area is essential and in order to achieve this, working on and improving your local SEO strategy is important.

Schema Markup

Make sure that you have included relevant schema markup in your site as this will help you improve your site’s click-through rates as Google relies on this data to categorize your site’s content and define and display rich snippets of your content in SERPs.

Will Google assistant hurt your campaign?

Advertising impressions, display advertising and CPC may be affected. This is because once the action has happened, Google assistant will move the searcher on from your site, without the possibility to dig deeper.

It may hurt your branding efforts if the name is hard to pronounce.

It is also important to note that voice search isn’t yet trackable. This is most likely a temporary issue as Google will come up with a way for voice search data to be made available for SEO agencies.

Reference: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/11672938/google-assistant-chatbot-virtual-assistant-io-2016

POLARIS is an SEO Agency in London providing SEO services across the Ecommerce, travel and B2B sectors. Please contact one of our account managers at info@polarisagency.co.uk today for a free audit.