Today we have seen multiple emails going out to publishers from Google’s Search Console with instructions on how to directly submit their websites and content into the Google Assistant.
This seems to be US only at the moment, however, this will no doubt roll out worldwide shortly. The message in Search Console requests website owners to claim their space in the Google Assistant Actions directory, which will allow Google to fully understand the content on the website and use it better in their voice search algorithm.
Bunch of clients got an email today inviting them to claim a directory page for Google Assistant. This is a new message to me. Haven’t seen it before. pic.twitter.com/3Ecykdz7hX
— Alan Bleiweiss (@AlanBleiweiss) January 9, 2018
Currently the websites receiving these notifications are podcasts, recipe sites and new publishers who’ve either marked up their content for rich snippets or have AMP mark-up. This gives you an idea of what Google is looking to tackle. They want to show the daily news via voice search and be able to walk through recipes via voice. If they implement this correctly, this could be huge for the performance of Google Assistant and possibly see them taking voice market share away from Alexa.
At Quibble we have been telling clients for years to ensure their websites are using schema mark-up to ensure they have the best chance of being implemented in Google’s enhanced listings and in voice search. This move further confirms the pace of which Google is moving at to ensure they are a world leader in this area.
So again, to all business large and small, please have a look at Google rich snippets and see if there is anything that can be implemented in your industry. If you implement this now, there is a good chance that once Google discovers your content it will put you ahead of a lot of the competition.
If you are creating content on your website rich snippets are a must. You can check if your website has rich snippets using Google’s tool, here. Just paste the URL of once of your blog posts and it will tell you the rich snippet data it finds.
If you haven’t got rich snippets implemented. Speak to your developer about adding it in or get in touch if you want to chat about how to do it yourself.