The Future of Voice Search and How to Optimize Your Business for it
Since 90% of all customers find a business online, your job as a business owner is to work hard to make sure that they find yours. With 90% of smartphone users utilizing their devices’ digital assistants, that should be one of your areas of concentration. Both Siri and Google Assistant are great tools to help people find what they need, but if you want to make sure that Siri and Google Assistant can find you, here’s what you need to do:
1. Make Sure That You’re on the Map
Since nearly 90% of people who use a voice-based local search on a smartphone also use driving directions, making sure that your business is listed on various map sites is a must. This includes Apple Maps Connect for the Siri assistant and Google Maps for the Google assistant. It is easy to do this and it can make a big difference in how many customers you attract. We can make this super easy for you with our tool Listings. With Listings, you can instantly update and publish your company information on 50+ platforms in one click.
2. List!
Digital assistants rely on local listings and this means one thing in practical terms: your business needs to be listed in every local listing site you can find, including Yelp, Foursquare, Citysearch, and Google Places, to name a few.
3. Always Be Consistent
Consistency makes it easier for customers to find you. Don’t mention your entire business name in one listing and an abbreviated version in another. Check your spelling, spacing, abbreviations, etc. to make sure that they are exactly alike. If you don’t, Siri and Google Assistant might think that you’re two separate businesses, which can be a detriment when customers are conducting their search.
4. Know That Keywords Are Key
Your listings should always go into detail about your product or service. The more descriptive you are, the more Siri and Google Assistant will get to know you, which means that they are more likely to “remember” you when someone asks them for that product or service.
5. Claim Your Listings
This is a simple, free thing to do but it’s important because it lets Siri and Google Assistant know that your business is legitimate. Do this for every local listing website. You can get started by visiting the Claim My Business page and searching for your business. As soon as it pops up, click on “Claim Your Business” and you’ll be done with that particular site, which is yet another task made easier with SO Connect.
6. Focus on Reviews
For starters, both Siri and Google Assistant rely on reviews and ratings to decide which businesses to recommend. What does this mean for you? Encourage your customers to leave reviews and rate your business highly. Also, be patient. Just because you get a good rating today doesn’t mean that these two assistant programs will start recommending you tomorrow. It can take up to 30 days for that to happen. Get started with our Reviews tool to boost your star ratings and search rankings by collecting and managing new reviews across several channels.
7. Watch Your Tail
Many people use long sentences to search on Siri and Google Assistant. Check your keywords and make sure that they are descriptive, “long tail” keywords. This is a sure-fire way to improve your ranking in both of these assistants’ results. With long tail keywords, you increase the odds that customers can find you.
8. Beef up Your Tags
Use as much information as you can on your business website. Make sure that you include all contact information, location, a complete description of your products or services, and any other pertinent information the customer may want to discover before calling you. The more descriptive you are, the more likely they’ll want to start working with you.
The popularity of both Siri and Google Assistant is growing with each passing year, and SO Connect has optimized all of its tools to help you with every aspect of making sure that customers find you when they need you.
