We kicked off this week with a webinar covering advertising trends of local businesses along with a great presentation on how businesses need to adjust their SEO and content for voice search.  Local businesses are using multiple channels to keep up with where consumers search for and need their products and services. In our Survey of Advertising & Marketing (SAM)™ of local businesses we look at the promotional media that businesses use. SEO is used by over a third of local businesses and it’s in the top three most used media just after Facebook pages and video.

Voice search is no longer the future of SEO – it’s the present. Voice assistants including Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Samsung’s Bixby are smarter than ever. Finding these assistants helpful, people from every generation are using them regularly.  According to Bernadette Coleman, CEO of Advice Local, “The use of voice search is revolutionizing the digital marketing industry. Since most voice assistants deliver the top results when answering a query, local businesses cannot afford to place further down in search results.”

Media, sellers, and local businesses should make sure their SEO strategy incorporates voice search. So how do you make sure your client or businesses is voice search ready? Advice Local has created a voice readiness score.  To determine if a client business or your business is voice search-ready, run a free online visibility report.

To learn more about local businesses’ use of SEO and other media, you can read about BIA’s new SAM survey here.