How to Prepare for SEO in 2017

How to Prepare for SEO in 2017: How Voice Assistants Will Have an Impact

There is a new technological phenomenon that is throwing a wrench into our SEO strategies and it’s called a Voice Assistant.

What is a Voice Assistant and Why Should You Care?

Voice assistants can now be found on mobile phones and other technology devices and works as a personal assistant such as Apple’s Siri, Google Now, and Microsoft’s Cortana. In May 2016, Google introduced “Google Assistant,” an improved version of Google Now that can help users do more than ever before. Whether it’s ordering tickets to movies or finding the closest restaurant that has available seating, Google Assistant does it all.

Because of this, keyword searches are changing and creating more of a challenge for local businesses to compete in a whole landscape due to users using more of a natural language when questions are asked.

Proven Facts:

According to Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report, voice command usage has increased a decent amount since 2015. As of May 2016, 1 of 5 Android users use the voice assistant in the United States and by 2020, it has been predicted that 50% of all searches will be going through speech or images.

During May 2016, Google also revealed that 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches and will continue to grow over the upcoming years.

Be Prepared:

Although voice assistants don’t have much of an impact just yet, it’s still evolving and will soon be reshaping our digital marketing efforts. One thing we know for sure is, voice assistants is changing the way people interact with search engines.

So what does this mean for SEO Strategists? It means we must pay close attention to the changes in how people are searching for terms and be ready to alter our strategies.

In today’s world, Google spoils us by constantly evolving and accurately finding what we want to have put in front of us in the search engine. With voice assistants, users are using more of a “natural language.” For example, instead of using the search query “Honda Dealer near Philadelphia” more users are searching for “Honda Dealer near Me” causing SEO strategists to change the keywords we are targeting.

BrightEdge, a keyword data tool used by Stream Companies, reveals that “Honda dealer near me” has a search volume of 40,500—this is a very high search volume! Because of this, our SEO team at Stream Companies has already started implementing changes to our content strategies in order to take this into consideration.

What’s Next?

As digital marketing strategists, the question is, do we have anything to worry about? Not exactly, but we will need to evolve our digital marketing strategies. The key is to pay close attention to how voice assistants will have an effect on keywords in the years to come and how we can realign our strategies to continue to rank high for search terms.

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