Automatic assistants and search engine marketing

Siri and Hey Google have been around for a while and the category is growing. Now we have Siri on the Mac, Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, Google Home, and other personal agents. As these grow in popularity and capability, what does that mean for businesses that rely on search?

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As a new Amazon Echo Dot user (I love it so much I immediately bought a second and may add a couple more), I am wondering. Mostly, I am making inside-the-house requests like “play music” but I’m starting to ask it the type of questions that would have immediately gone to Google. It mostly fails (even more than Siri) but it will get better. Eventually, it will be just like clicking the “Feeling Lucky” button on Google — which means being among the top 5 or 10 entries in the search results will no longer be enough.

An article at SearchEngineLand says that for some marketers, we need to “rank for featured snippets or go home.” (Snippets are those boxes on the results page that give answers instead of links to websites.) The article has a video of an interaction with Google Home that offers a thought-provoking example. For some consumer brands, especially services, this deserves some thought. Likewise for local services.

I think business-to-business companies need not worry about this yet, but it would be wise to have it on your long-range radar.

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