Whenever we want to search anything online, the obvious page that we visit is www.google.com. Many have even set Google (GOOG, Financial) search as their homepage. The clever and versatile management has managed to make Google synonymous to searching. Today, Google has reached the top in the search engine sector. Through the search based platform, Google has launched several apps for PCs and laptops, making it easy to search anything from any corner of the world. Google has also been the hologram of innovation in the IT world. From search engine, to driverless cars, it has always strived to add shape to imagination. Let us see what imagination is getting life in the Google shop.
Google for phones
Recently, Google has been driving a huge marketing campaign for Google Now. Google Now is all over the place, in TV ads appearing on primetime shows, banners and billboards across downtowns of major cities, and even taxicab advertisements in Times Square of New York City.
So, is Google Now the perfect search engine partner for our smartphones? At least that is what Google wants us to believe through its widespread campaign. Being an app from the Google stable, it is worth taking a note of it.
Google Now has been around since 2012, though it has yet to gain much mileage. It is a versatile search engine for smartphones. Google Now can essentially be described as a personal digital assistant plus a mind reader. It is available for Android, iOS and Windows operating systems. Besides your phone, it also works on Google Glass and Google Watch and the app is a serious competitor for Apple’s (AAPL, Financial) Siri.
Google Now has certain stark differences from its peer, Siri. One of the most prominent difference is how info is displayed. In Google Now, the information is delivered via cards or small text boxes on the screen. A few of the popular cards or text boxes are: weather, traffic, flights, appointments, ordered packages, etc. Google Now generates information on these cards through auto popups without us asking for them. But then how do they find the suitable information according to our requirement? This is where Google sets a new benchmark in the search engine world. It pulls together and serves up personalized information you’re likely to need, by gathering data in the background of our phone. It’s able to predict what information we need and when we need it by creating a data pattern map of our internet usage.
For example, we plan to attend a concert in a nearby town. Pulling info from your previous interactions with Google via search, Google calendar, etc., as well as our location, the app collects relevant and timely information and presents it via cards. These cards may contain traffic reports near the venue, the best restaurants nearby and the weather forecast for the evening.
Predictive search is not something new from Google, as we find them in instant search and auto complete features that generate options of probable search when we key in the beginning of our search string. But Google travels those extra miles and presents the information in cards without any action from our end. Hence, this is a step ahead of the current Google search engine in use.
Similar to Siri, Google Now can also recognize natural language queries; for instance, “Where’s the nearest Walmart store” rather than “Walmart’s locations.” It also remembers previous queries so you can ask things like “Who was Abraham Lincoln?” followed by “When was he born?” Users can simply tap the microphone icon or say ‘OK Google,’ if the app is open, to access the software. This makes Google Now speech savvy as well.
SEO restructuring
With such personalized information, presentation and common language recognition, SEO companies now need to shift their focus towards common language-based conversational search tag designing rather than short phrase, and have elaborate access to Google products like Maps and Local. This is particularly true for local businesses. Let us elaborate further the requirements of Search Engine Optimization companies.
Firstly, the SEOs have to now focus on longer, more conversational key phrases. Research suggests that up to 78% of local-mobile searches result in offline purchases. Mobile users are often ‘on the go’, and are conducting more specific, thorough searches. For instance, ‘miter wood cuts for a playhouse’ rather than just ‘miter cut’, or ‘where is the nearest coffee shop’ rather than ‘coffee shop Vancouver.’ Hence it is important that the SEO companies work towards making their search words more colloquial than technical and enrich their database with more and more local information.
Secondly, the data served up by Google Now cards is largely pulled from Google products like Google+, Google Maps and Google+ Local. This means that if Google has to return your business in its card results, being present and active on these Google-based platforms is a must.
Last but not least, since the whole internet market is shifting paradigm from PCs to more mobile options like smartphones and tablets, optimizing business information for mobile searching is quite important. Mobile optimization goes much beyond an interactive website or a mobile app. It means properly optimizing your content for mobile: ensuring that your headlines pop, that your content reads vertically and that you serve up content easily consumed ‘on the go’ – meaning succinct, to the point and actionable.
The road ahead for Google Now
Google Now could create ripples in the tech market, and this might concern the rivals. There is a lot to witness in the days ahead when Google Now starts selling like hot pancakes and becomes the favorite amongst the tech savvy users. Let’s stay tuned and keep watching how Google Now carves the ultimate niche.
