SIRI Optimization for Your Business

Since smartphones replaced feature phones as the preferred mobile device, their rate of use as a tool to browse the web has only increased. According to a study conducted by comScore, a company specializing in the analysis of consumer activity in a digital medium, 7 percent of Internet use is done via a smartphone. By 2014, analysts predict mobile Internet browsing will surpass desktop browsing. 

Given this changing landscape, businesses whose operational model relies heavily on Internet traffic to generate revenue must adapt to keep their website and thus their business at the forefront of consumer awareness. 

One way of adapting in a new smartphone-oriented world is incorporating the functionality of digital voice assistants, like Apple's SIRI, into SEO optimization methods.

Mobile Website
With the digital assistant, mobile users now have the option of dictating web search queries to their phone. The phone then performs the search and pulls the top results. Since this operation is done on a smartphone, websites optimized for a mobile platform will perform better. It's therefore imperative that businesses optimize their websites for the mobile platform and SIRI. 

Long Keywords
One way of optimizing a site to perform better with SIRI is to utilize long conversational keywords in your SEO optimization. Instead of entering three or four important keywords for a search, SIRI users are speaking full sentences like, "Where's the nearest theater showing 'Les Misérables?'" The more keywords your site can match to a search query, the higher your position will be in the results. 

Location Queries
Studies have shown that a third of mobile Internet users perform searches for businesses in the vicinity of their location. Whether you're a restaurant, dry cleaner or printing shop, optimizing your website for location-based queries is important. One way of doing so is listing your business hours and location on multiple social networks or review sites, thus extending your Internet presence beyond your website, and including location-specific information in your meta description tags.