Google has a variety of tools for business owners and if you know how to use them correctly, they become invaluable to your business. One of the most well-known and used by prospective customers is the Google Assistant. In this article, we’ll help you understand what Google Assistant is and show you how you can leverage this tool in your business.
We’ll cover:
- What Is the Google Assistant?
- How Prospective Customers Use Google Assistant
- How You Can Use Google Assistant to Help Manage Your Business
- Optimizing Your Business for Google Assistant
- Making Online Marketing Easier & Getting More Leads
What Is the Google Assistant?
The Google Assistant is an artificial intelligence helper that uses voice prompts to perform tasks. The devices are personalized with your information so that they can, to some degree, anticipate your requests and locate the information you seek without wading through a number of listings.
The Google Assistant is available everywhere: as a wearable device, on mobile phones, including both iPhone and Android devices, on smart TVs, in some vehicles that have enabled connectivity, and more. That means you can have the assistant available to you practically anywhere you go.
Activate your assistant simply by saying, “OK, Google,” or “Hey, Google,” followed by the command you want it to carry out or the request for the information you need. The Google Assistant will respond, either by providing you the information you need or completing the task you have commanded.
How Prospective Customers Use Google Assistant
In order for you to get the most from this tool, it’s important to understand how your customers use Google Assistant.
- Play music – A few functions are available immediately after setting up the device, but with a subscription to a streaming service such as Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, or Google Play Music, customers can play thousands of songs by simply asking the assistant to play their choice.
- Set reminders and manage schedules – Your prospective customers can program their calendars into the assistant and also set up special alarms, allowing the assistant to alert them regarding upcoming events or appointments.
- Get the latest news – The Google Assistant, like other voice assistants, can highlight newsworthy events and information on trending topics filtered based on preferences selected when the assistant was set up. These preferences can be adjusted or changed at any time to further fine tune the news Google Assistant provides.
- Take hands-free notes – While driving to an appointment or busy on the job, your customer can “jot down” things they don’t want to forget or organize their ideas by telling the assistant to make note of them.
- Find information quickly – Your customers can access the internet to research products, services, terms, or other info like business locations.
- Connect with local businesses – After researching the business or the location, your customers can call you without ever dialing a number.
How You Can Use Google Assistant to Help Manage Your Business
You will probably use your Google Assistant, or other voice assistant, in similar ways as your customers. Additionally, there are many applications you can tap into that will help you work more efficiently.
Organize Your Day
Have your Google Assistant give you a rundown of your day as you get ready for work. Of course, you could ask it individual questions, but you can also set it to perform a list of regular tasks each morning when you give it a voice cue. You might say, “Okay, Google, tell me about my day,” or choose a voice cue as simple as, “Okay, Google, good morning.”
With this prompt, the virtual assistant can:
- Unmute your phone.
- Turn your thermostat up or down.
- Read you any texts that came while you were sleeping.
- Give you news briefs.
- Tell you about the weather.
- Tell you about your commute — things like traffic and construction.
- Remind you of your schedule for the day.
- Play music.
- Complete any other tasks you pre-program it to perform.
Similarly, you may want to set it to do an evening routine as well. It can silence your phone, turn down the thermostat, advise you about your important next-day calls or appointments, and more.
Manage Your Workplace
While Google Assistant can’t bring you coffee, it does allow you to send messages to employees, screen your calls, and even make appointments and set up meetings for you. You can also compose a text message and ask your assistant to send it at a future date and time.
The call-screening ability is especially useful with all the potential spam of today’s world. Your assistant will answer the phone and ask why the person is calling. You simply listen and decide whether to take the call or whether your valuable time will be better spent on more important tasks.
Simplify Life on the Go
When you are traveling for business, whether on your morning commute to the office or job site, or driving from location to location as you travel to various clients throughout the day, Google Assistant can perform tasks for you on the go, giving you both the important information you need and allowing you to focus on the road. These hands-free operations will save you time, enabling you to multitask and use your travel time productively.
The following are some specific tasks your Google Assistant can do:
- Access GPS and give you voice directions
- Read text messages to you
- Send text messages or emails that you compose verbally
- Add events to your calendar
- Order necessary supplies and materials
- Take notes that are then sent to your phone
Explore All Apps and Settings
When first introducing Google Assistant to your work routine, take some time to explore everything it can do. You can program the assistant to respond to your pre-set routines through personal voice commands, use it to ensure your apps stay up to date, and even discover some apps you cannot be without or identify and disable the ones that are just eating up valuable storage space on your device.
Optimizing Your Business for Google Assistant
As Google Assistant continues to make lives easier, more of your potential customers are likely to buy devices that are compatible with this AI feature. Make sure your business can keep up by optimizing your online presence for Google Assistant and offering your audience a host of helpful options.
Google My Business
To help Google Assistant find your business, make sure you have claimed your free Business Profile on Google My Business. It’s key to check periodically and make sure your business name, address, and phone number remain updated and accurate so potential customers can connect with you once Google Assistant has located your website. Also, be sure to select appropriate business categories as these may offer you different category-specific features that make your Business Profile more engaging and even more convenient for prospective customers.
Keywords
Just as keywords are an essential part of SEO for web browsers, choosing appropriate keywords are an important part of optimizing your website for Google Assistant search queries. Do some research into your competitors’ content to help narrow down what works and what perhaps doesn’t. Take this a step further by using local keywords rather than general words or phrases that may apply across your entire industry. This will help voice searchers in your immediate area find your business.
In addition to using keywords that are relevant to your audience, focus on keywords and content overall that is conversational. When typing a search query into a browser, users are more likely to use quick, shorthand phrases. Because voice search is so much easier, the user is more likely to ask the whole question, similar to how they might speak to a friend during an everyday conversation — think, “moving companies near me” versus “Hey Google, who is a top-rated moving company near me?” Because they’re more natural for voice searchers, you’ll want to target keywords phrased as questions as well as long-tail keywords.
Mobile-Friendliness
While Google Assistant may be available on a wide range of devices, most voice search queries are being asked on smartphones these days. Pay attention to the mobile-friendliness of your website and content. A mobile-responsive website should be readable without the user having to zoom, have key content front and center, should avoid horizontal scrolling, link addresses and phone numbers, and use short forms that are easy to fill out.
Making Online Marketing Easier & Getting More Leads
This is where we come in. You are doing everything you can to make your business more efficient and relevant. Surefire Local can help you translate your effort into greater marketing success and into finding promising customer prospects.
Marketing
You spend a lot of time and money on marketing programs. Your Google Assistant can keep you apprised of trends, stock ups and downs, and unique customer facts, but to get the most out of your investments, you need a company that knows how to put all the facts together and create a great online marketing strategy. That’s our job at Surefire Local. In fact, statistics show that we can increase your return on marketing investments by 385%. We can boost your search rankings and increase traffic to your website. We can also show you how to make your business more visible in terms of voice searches.
Get More Leads
At Surefire Local, we’ll show you the data and help you track the results of your marketing efforts. Let us assist with the task of identifying viable prospective customers so that you don’t spend your valuable time on leads that likely won’t yield sales. You can concentrate on the promising customers and build relationships, which translates to returning and long-term customers.
If you would like to know more about how Surefire Local can help you make the most of local search engine marketing and optimize your website for Google Assistant, contact us today. Get a demo to see for yourself how we make online marketing easy for small businesses.