Uncategorized

The convenience brought about by saying, “Hey, Google” to perform a query has now turned science fiction into reality. We can find out what’s going on with the weather, send a text message, turn on the TV, or make a restaurant reservation all without looking up from your dinner plate.

Voice recognition technology has gone a long way since its inception, revolutionizing voice search through modern devices such as our Android-powered smartphones and smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa. Pretty soon, we won’t have to type in commands or queries when asking our devices to do a task for us.

The role of Google Assistant has been key to advancing the voice search revolution. It has presented new opportunities for businesses to become competitive as Google opens more ways to rank in search results. If a user asks a question, you can be the one single answer Google Assistant can speak of when answering a query. Imagine the possibilities this can benefit your business.

A Brief History of Google Assistant

In the center of all this continuously advancing voice search technology is Google Assistant, the search engine giant’s very own virtual assistant that helps users find what they’re looking for through voice recognition technology. This artificial intelligence-powered search feature is what’s making the future happen now. However, it hasn’t always been this way.

Looking back, it’s clear that Google’s AI owes a lot of what it is now to at least two past services. The first and considered the oldest part of Google Assistant is Google Voice Search. It made its first appearance on Android-powered smartphones and the Chrome browser for computers back in June 2011. While the way it functioned was basic compared to today’s standards, the way we could give our phones voice commands sparked a massive change in the way we started to interact with technology.

But when Google Now entered the scene, it marked a massive shift in artificial intelligence. It was built on Google Voice Search and was code-named “Majel” after Majel Barrett, second wife the man behind Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, and voice actress of most onboard computer interfaces used throughout the series. This Easter egg clearly shows Google’s intent to achieve Star Trek’s utopian tech.

Google Now formed the framework of Google Assistant’s highly personalized service. It was first introduced in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which helped deliver your schedule, the weather, and other useful information through cards and notifications.

While Google Now was serving its purpose on Android smartphones, Google Assistant had its humble beginnings as an extra feature on Google’s Allo chat app. It was first tasked to pop up when needed or when invited. Its function was limited, but it wasn’t long before Google Assistant broke free of its limiting chains and had its first starring role in the original Google Pixel and Google Home. 

Google Assistant finally achieved superstar status when it arrived on smartphones starting from Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above back in 2017. This has put Google voice search on the map, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Google Assistant Statistics, Facts, and Trends for Your Voice Search SEO

1. Nearly 70 percent of requests to Google Assistant is delivered in natural language, and not the standard keywords typed in when performing a web search.

Voice search is changing the way we perform queries on the internet. What once was focused on keywords, has now evolved to asking questions or stating commands in a conversational and hands-free fashion. This kind of convenience is proving useful to users who are frequently on the go or multitaskers who always have their hands full.

This kind of search query is changing the way businesses rank on search engine results pages. So instead of ranking for specific keywords in standard search engine optimization, you’ll be taking a different route since your objective is to claim position zero, or what’s called the featured snippet section of search results.

A featured snippet is your ultimate goal if you want your business to appear in voice search results as the best answer to a query asked in natural language.

2. Based on a digital assistant IQ test made up of 800 questions, Google Assistant delivered the most accurate answers, garnering a score of 86 percent.

As part of an ongoing effort to better understand the practical use and the rise of voice as a computing input, regular tests are done to digital assistants and smart speakers. After focusing solely on smartphone-based digital assistants, it seems that Google Assistant got the better of Cortana, Siri, and an Alexa-powered iPhone.

In an impressive performance, Google Assistant understood all 800 questions under different categories. It convincingly showed that Google Assistant has the edge in the Local, Commerce, Navigation, and Information categories, but was outdone by Siri in the Command category.

One of the largest discrepancies in score was in the Information category, where Google Assistant achieved the highest percentage at 93 percent. This stems mostly from its “featured snippets” search function, which is the holy grail when it comes to voice search.

3. Active users have quadrupled since last year, and Google expects the Assistant to be available on one billion devices.

Google is continuously making improvements to the Assistant to make sure it’s evolving as AI technology advances. In 2018, it learned to speak new languages, expanded to new countries, and became smarter with all its new features that can help you throughout your day.

Google had a great 2018 when Google Home notched another record year after selling millions of Google Home family of devices during the holiday season. Google Assistant was also taught to speak new languages and understand local cultures, with 30 languages and 80 countries under its belt, a significant increase from eight languages and 14 countries the previous year.

4. Google Assistant is compatible with over 10,000 smart home devices from more than 1,600 popular brands.

The smart home trend is slowly picking up with Google Assistant now entering the fray. More people recognize the fact that devices powered by a virtual assistant can help run a smart home more efficiently. Just last year, the number of smart devices that have been connected to Google Assistant increased by 600 percent.

A total of 52 million Google Home devices were sold worldwide in 2018, and this number is expected to grow as the technology gets better and more devices become compatible with the actions it can execute.

5. Google Assistant has become a smarter conversationalist to better understand and respond to you naturally.

Google recently introduced the Continued Conversation setting, which allows you to have a natural conversation with the Assistant. It can also understand more complex requests, so you can ask about many things in one query such as, “What’s the weather like in Los Angeles and New York?”

As Google Assistant gets smarter, expect users to become more comfortable in adopting and adapting the technology. For this reason, businesses should shift their focus on Google Assistant voice search SEO.

6. Around 65 percent of people who own a Google Home can’t imagine going back to the days before they had a smart speaker, and 42 percent of them say voice-activated devices have become essential in their lives.

You can’t blame these folks who already had a taste of what’s it like to have Google Assistant to help them get through the day. Voice recognition technology has come a long way, and Google Assistant is the most advanced AI currently running these devices.

Despite these impressive numbers, the days of digital assistants are still in its infancy, and there’s a lot more to look forward to in terms of the development of the technology.

7. Google Assistant was the most popular voice assistant for shopping-related research at 24 percent.

Millennials are known to be the generation who mostly cater to the e-commerce industry. Beyond smart speakers, Alexa typically trails Google Assistant by a more considerable margin since it lacks a smartphone OS, but in this retail-specific sector, two-thirds of millennials in the study said that more than of their online shopping activity was done through Amazon.com.

So if you want your business to influence millennials to shop online using Google Assistant, you’ll need to optimize your website for Google voice search. Keep in mind that showing up in the knowledge graph alone may make your product or service discoverable, but it’s still going to miss big parts of your market. You should always aim for the featured snippet place so that you can come up as an answer in a specific query related in your industry.

8. Google Assistant actions hit a total of 4,253 in January 2019, which is up 2.5 times in the past year, but just 7.5 percent of Alexa’s total skills in the US.

Artificial intelligence plays a vital role in the development and growth of digital assistants. Google Assistant’s actions may have grown to 2.5 times last year compared to 2.2 growth for Alexa’s skills. However, Google Assistant’s action growth was taken from a much smaller base. As of January 2019, Google Actions in the US officially reached 4,253, which is about 7.5 percent of Alexa’s 56,750 skills.

Three of the 18 categories cover a third of all Google Actions listed. On top of the list is the Education and Reference category, accounting for 15 percent of all listed Actions. Games and Fun together with Kids and Family came in at 11 and 9 percent respectively. Surprisingly, the least popular were Local and Weather.

Weather makes sense since it’s considered as a narrow topic. Local is not all that narrow, but this is likely because only a few smaller organizations have tried to optimize for Google Assistant voice search.

9. 76 percent of parents say they typically use their smart speakers while doing other things, compared to 62 percent of non-parents.

It seems that parents find it more convenient to use Google Assistant-powered smart speakers than their non-parent counterparts. Parents generally have their hands full when tending to everything they need to do at home while looking after their kids. It’s a tough job, but smart speakers can help make their lives easier.

Running the kitchen can be one of the most difficult to manage while taking care of children. A Google Home device can help them do other tasks while preparing a meal. Parents can set a timer and have Google Assistant notify them if they need to take something out of the oven. In a time-sensitive and busy place like the kitchen, Google Assistant can prove to be invaluable when kids are around.

10. Duplex is set to change the game as being the smartest chatbot there is.

Google is now moving a step forward in upgrading its artificial intelligence technology with Duplex, an extension of Google Assistant that’s able to carry out natural conversations by mimicking the human voice, including fillers, common phrases, intonation, and response latency to exactly sound like you’re speaking to a real person.

While Duplex can autonomously carry out a conversation, it can also recognize situations where it cannot complete a task and sends out a signal to a human operator to finish it. Duplex is currently in development and had a limited release in 2018. During the presentation, Pixel users can call to schedule an appointment at the salon or book a restaurant reservation as easy as asking Google Assistant.

Conclusion

Google Assistant has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a virtual assistant within a chat app. It continues to thrive in its use and audience by bringing its smart design to different fronts. Google Assistant is built into the Android OS of most modern devices, making it easily more accessible by Google’s existing audience.

The real value of Google’s hardware is to provide a platform for Google to develop and deploy its artificial intelligence technology and allow for more ways to serve ads. Businesses should start taking advantage of this opportunity and find the best partner that could ramp up their Google Assistant SEO efforts to appear on the best answer result.

The need for a partner that knows how to do it right is vital for your business’ success when considering voice search, and this is where Voice SEO comes in. Voice SEO is run by a team of skilled experts who can help you stay competitive in your industry when using Google Assistant. You’ll be able to appear in voice searches through specific queries that involve your product or service, which would substantially grow your business.

The competition to rank on the top of the first page of the search engine results page (SERP) is more cutthroat than ever. It’s not enough that you offer outstanding products or services, you need to develop an effective SEO strategy, so your audience can find you when they search for related keywords online.

The same challenge applies to voice search SEO. Ever since the emergence of this new technology, more and more marketers started optimizing their websites. So when a consumer performs a voice search for a specific query related to their brand, Siri, Alexa, or other voice assistants will read their brand’s content aloud. 

It is said that at least 50% of all searches will come from voice search by 2020. As the adoption and usage of voice search continue to grow, the stakes are higher and the competition is tighter. So, how do you win to gain a competitive edge and outperform your competitors? Spy on them.

Spying on your competitors isn’t as bad as it sounds. Their content are published publicly and using the right tools, you can identify their target keywords and define their marketing strategies. This is the reason why competitive analysis is a part of developing a marketing tactic.

Steps to Spy on your Competition

Spying on your competitors isn’t all for the sake of uncovering their secrets. Instead, you do this to understand their voice search marketing techniques better and even understand your own market (i.e., what types of content they’re more likely to engage with, what urges them to participate in social media, etc.). 

Are you ready to go undercover? Let’s get started!

Step 1: Perform keyword research

Any good SEO strategy starts with keyword research. Start by researching specific long-tail keyphrases that render high search volumes with relatively low competitions you can target. You can use a keyword research tool, such as Answer The Public, to do the legwork in finding out what questions and queries consumers perform on voice search. This lets you get on the same page as your target market. 

Put yourself in the shoes of your consumers as well. How would they perform a voice search when they look for a product or service related to yours? Then, list down the keyphrases you need to target and move on to the next step.

Step 2: Single out your top competitors

Now that you have the keywords you need to rank for, do a voice search query for each. The results should show your other competitors ranking for the same keyphrases. Take note of the 5-10 top results and record the URLs in a Google Sheet, then run them on a keyword research tool. 

You can use Ahrefs and enter your own domain (or a competitor’s domain) on the field and click the “Competing domains” tab, this should provide you relevant competitor websites worth knowing. 

Take note of those domains, especially those competing for the geo-specific keywords you’ve found and aim to rank for (e.g., “best laptop repair service in Brooklyn”). You now have a list of your top competitors. 

Step 3: Determine the keywords your competitors are using

See what keywords or keyphrases your competitors are targeting and optimized for. With research, you can find which keyphrases bring them high organic traffic. You can then realign your strategy to aim for the same well-performing keyphrases and take advantage of the ones they aren’t targeting for (but has potential in bringing traffic and conversions).

The most efficient and easiest way to find this is by using a keyword research tool like SEM Rush using their Organic Research feature. Simply enter the competitor domain on the field, and you’ll see incredible data about their traffic sources, and the organic and paid keywords they rank for. It provides an overview of their position for each keyphrase. 

Monitor the top keyphrases, especially if they’re relatively new to your keyword research list. This can help you improve your own voice search SEO strategy. Who knows, maybe you can find a local search keyphrase that fits your business, which you should have been targeting as well.

Step 4: Start analyzing their websites

Now that you know the basics. It’s time to delve deeper into the nitty-gritty and find your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. For this step, we’ll take a look at their on-page elements to see how they optimize their website. Maybe you can learn a thing or two with your findings. 

Keyword density

Keyword density research lets you know how aggressive your competitors are when it comes to keyword placement on their page content. 

You can use a keyword density tool to check out your competing websites’ keyword placement practices. Enter the URL of the webpage you want to review. Then, you’ll see how often they use the keyphrases you both target for (e.g., laptop repair service in Brooklyn) in their page. 

You can average the keyword density for each keyphrase to give you an idea of how many times you can also mention those particular keywords on a page.

Backlinks

Backlinks remain to be a powerful strategy for building authority and credibility in the world of SEO. A study reveals that over 50% of answers with smart home assistants contained backlinks with an anchor that was included in the question. 

One of the reasons why you should study the backlink profile of your competitors is to see whether it’s worth “mirroring” their link profile. If you replicate their backlinks, you should theoretically see similar results in your site’s backlink profile. With this data, you can realign your link building tactics to outrank your competitors.

Metadata

You should also look into their meta information and study how they write their metadata.

• Are they including CTAs? 
• Do they modify the alt text on their images? 
• Are they using LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords? 

Emphasis on the last one. Google has grown smarter over the years. One way they crawl and index a page is by ensuring that the page’s content is all about its stated topic. As such, they rely on LSI to further understand a page’s content. 

LSI keywords are related (not synonymous) terms search engines depend on to deeply understand a page content and rank it accordingly. For instance, you have an article about “cooking on a budget,” the LSI keywords for these are “recipes,” “blog,” “for two,” and more. The easiest way to identify the LSI keywords tied to your competitors’ target keyword/s is via Google’s Autocomplete.

Authority

Authority can also be classified based on external and inbound links as well as social shares. Naturally, the more shares a site’s page content garners, the higher the possibility they can rank on SERPs. Quality inbound and external links, on the other hand, can help improve your DA (domain authority), which is used to determine a site’s ranking ability. 

DA is used to compare websites and monitor “ranking strength” ability. In essence, the higher the DA score, the greater the ability to rank. Using Moz’s Link Explorer tool, you can check your competitors’ DA score to see if they have more high-quality link profiles. This should encourage you to refine your link building strategies to reach for a higher score and overthrow your competitors in the SERPs.

Weaknesses

Once you’ve done a grueling deep dive into your competitors’ site data, you should have a good image of their pain points. See this as a window of opportunity for you to overcome and be one step ahead. 

Do they produce thin, weak, and low-quality content? Have they failed to prioritize a relatively rankable keyphrase? Use your competitors’ weaknesses to your advantage. You can promote and boost your quality content materials on your social media accounts to reach more visibility and traffic. Perhaps you can pay attention to the keyphrases your other competitors overlooked.

Step 5: Study the content of your competitors

High-quality content is a critical ranking signal for Google and other search engines, so your site can rank well in the SERPs. Search engines crawl your content to assess if the information is useful, factual, credible, and written at an expert level (varies by topic and industry) to see whether they can trust it enough to suggest to searchers. This is done, so searchers get the best possible answer to their query.

Word count – Do they publish long-form content? How often? What’s the average length of their blog posts? Generally, 300 words is the minimum for the purpose of good SEO. For long-form content, Buffer reportedly found that 1,600 words is the optimal length for a blog post. 

Uniqueness and quality of the content – How do you find their writing style and tone? Do their published articles cover mostly general topics? What are the types of content they create? Your content should be different from your competition. This is the aspect of your competitor benchmarking you don’t want to mirror; otherwise, the search engines will find the similarities. 

Outbound links – Are your competitors linking out their blog posts and other content? If they aren’t, then go right ahead and leverage on it. Outbound links boost your content and your site’s trustworthiness and can help you form relationships with other authority websites.

7 Tools You Can Use to Spy on Your Competitors

There’s a wide selection of tools you can use to monitor your competitors’ site performance and underlying strategies. Here’s a rundown of the best tools out there you can add to your voice search SEO arsenal.

SEMRush

SEMRush is one of the staple resources in the SEO world, and it’s a popular SEO tool for small and medium businesses. It helps brands to monitor competitor keywords, domain analytics data, competitor backlinks, and their ranking. It’s an all-around marketing tool–more than just a keyword research tool. 

The tool offers a cool feature where it displays what category (or categories) a competitor domain falls under based on the long-tail keyphrases it ranks in search engines. Identifying which valuable keyphrases your competitors use to position themselves well in Google can motivate you to challenge their ranking (to keywords relevant to your niche). 

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another leading competitor analysis tool for SEO. It has a site explorer feature which enables you to find out any domain’s top organic keyphrases. Right next to the keywords, you’ll see the estimated number of traffic it earns. The SEO tool also allows you to see your competitor’s top-performing content based on backlinks. 

Moreover, Ahref’s Keyword Explorer flexes multitudes of functionality and keyword data that offers useful additional context for a more in-depth analysis, such as SERP Overview and Position History.

Keyword Density Analysis Tool

This free SEO tool allows you to perform a keyword density analysis to get a peek at how aggressive or lenient your top competitors are when it comes to keyword distribution within their pages. 

The tool is straightforward—you input your competitor’s web page and run the check. It will show you bulleted results of the analysis, such as how many words are on the page, the number of linked words, and the frequency of recurring keyphrases.

Moz

Moz has been around the industry for more than a decade, and they’ve been helping businesses understand and simplify search engine optimization, and of course, spy on their competitors. 

Moz’s Link Explorer tool lets you track your competitors’ backlink profile, anchor text analysis, linking domains, and page and domain authority, among others. It provides competitive intelligence reports in a clean, orderly, and insightful fashion.

Buzzsumo

One of Buzzsumo’s strengths and widely-used feature is its Content Analysis tool, which allows you to compare two different URLs. Buzzsumo then shows you a breakdown of how the two URLs weigh side by side. It shows you the average shares by content type (i.e., listicles, general articles, how-to articles, infographics, etc.) and content length both websites publish. You can also find your competitor sites’ top performing articles within the tool. 

SpyFu

Unlike the other tools mentioned that offer tons of functionality, SpyFu is an excellent tool that specializes solely on competitive intelligence research. From local to global monthly search volume, ranking history, backlinks, CTR, and more, SpyFu presents exceptional and invaluable data regarding your competitors and their keyword tactics. 

What’s remarkable is it provides a list of keywords weaknesses, which you can turn into opportunities for you. It also lets you identify key phrases your competitors rank for and which your site does not.

Similarweb

Similarweb is exciting for content marketers as it shows what topics visitors search for, a handy tool for creating content optimized for voice search. They also provide features that allow you to dive deeper into your competitor’s content and see where they receive their traffic. 

On top of that, Similarweb reveals your competing sites’ website overview, analytics, and online strategy, among many others.

Outsmart Your Competitors, Rise Above the Fold

In any business or industry, it’s no secret that one of the best ways you can get ahead of your competitors is to spy on them. Back in the days, competition used to instigate fear in the business. Now, marketers and businesses alike are encouraged by competitors. Knowing that there’s a market for your services and products is good news, even if it means having numerous players in the field. 

Just as how students learn from a teacher, you can gain a lot of insights from what your competitors are and aren’t doing. This is how you can avoid fallbacks that could cost a lot of time and resources, and intelligently aim for the featured snippets display to become the first result for voice search SEO. 

Do you find the whole process of spying on your competitors a little overwhelming? Voice SEO can help you find and gain a competitive edge against your top SERP rivals! Contact us today!