2018 has already been a big year for voice search and virtual assistants, with Alexa making its way into hotel rooms[1] and Google Home racing ahead in sales[2]. However, recent developments from Google suggest that what started off as a neat way to order milk, play music, and switch the lights on has become something that will soon be having real-world consequences for local businesses.
The current SEO landscape is already tricky for local businesses. Google Maps’ business listings have been trimmed from a maximum of seven listings to three in search results. Google My Business has evolved into a listing which features elements that take the place of social media (GMB Posts), forums (GMB Q&A), and includes many points of conversion, resulting in visitors no longer needing to visit your site for the information they need. On top of that, all that great work being done to create useful content is often swallowed up by Google featured snippets even when you do get a top ranking.
With the addition of voice search, we can expect things to shake up even more, presenting more challenges and opportunities for search marketers.
Of note is Google’s announcement of Google Duplex[3] at their I/O conference in May. Google Duplex will call local businesses for you, replicating the human voice as closely as possible, and its artificial intelligence (AI) will have conversations with staff to make reservations and orders on your behalf. There are a lot of ethical implications of this technology, but for the purposes of this article we will focus on how this relates to consumers’ current use of voice assistants.