The impact of Voice Assistants on SEO
The recent past has seen a huge jump in interest in both hands free always listening voice assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Now. Google’s recently launched Google Assistant is in a sense the version two of Google Search. What is unclear is the impact this will have on SEO.
One point is that spoken queries are different to standard search queries. From SEMRush:
“One thing to remember about virtual assistants is that they’re not always asked the same types of questions as your typical search engine. People might want to find out about your business, but they’re not looking for a lengthy blog about an industry topic. They just want basic information – business in the local area, their hours, and their contact information. If they want to read something, they’ll search for it on their home computers when they have free time. The virtual assistant landscape, then, is limited to only the most basic of queries.”
This is why Google has an advantage over the competition. With the knowledge graph, it can answer a wide range of general queries. However it is best to protect your business by using the third party services like yelp used by these assistants:
“For example, Siri automatically defaults to Yelp for address information for local businesses. In other words, they’re not crawling the Web to find your location. But having said that, it’s in your interest to make sure your bases are covered around the Web. If your site’s information is not in Yelp, potential customers might just choose a more Siri-friendly option.”
Ultimately the best way to future proof your site and content will be to target spoken queries:
“Again, you’ll want to choose keywords that are constructed in the way that they are spoken. In some cases, these will match the way someone would type that keyword into a search bar. Other times, the two will be totally different. Optimizing your keywords for virtual assistants is an ideal time to look into the user intent of the search.”
This way you will get both the standard search traffic, and be a potential source for information for the voice assistants.