In our last post we predicted that Apple would need to launch a mobile search engine to beat Google and guess what, they did(!) but not as we know it (captain!).
If you want to take advantage of searches from Apple’s new Siri technology then you’ll need to add a new thread to your search marketing strategy.
After reviewing the content of the Apple 4S launch material relating to Siri, e-mphasis have found out where you need to be to capture Apple’s new search traffic.
Siri is a new ‘assistant’ facility on iOS 5 to help Apple iPhone (and iPod) users organise their life simply by asking their device questions. Intelligent voice recognition will interpret your every need and provide suggested solutions, so effectively a voice powered intelligent search engine.
Siri Local Search Data
One of the demonstrations of this technology at the launch event for iPhone 4S showed a search for ‘Greek restaurants in Palo Alto’, our search experts at e-mphasis have tracked down where the data presented came from. It’s from Yelp.com.
Here’s the evidence. Having analysed the numbers of reviews presented for each of the businesses in the screen shot at the launch event we checked against Google Places, Bing Local Business Center and then other sites including Yelp. Here’s what we found.
The figures quoted for top restaurants were as follows:
- Evvia Estiatorio (782) 4 stars
- Baklava – (89) 4 stars
Here are our research findings as at today’s data for each of the following sites:
Site (Quoted reviews) rating for Evvia Estiatorio
- Google (281) 4.5 stars
- Bing LBC (62) 4.5 stars
- Yelp (791) 4 stars
Site (Quoted reviews) rating for Baklava
- Google (16) 4 stars
- Bing LBC (10) 3.5 stars
- Yelp (92) 4 stars
This pattern of slightly less listings on Yelp compared to the demonstration data was consistent for all locations visible and hence the only conclusion is that this is where Apple is drawing it’s local data.
Apple Siri SEO
So if you want to be ahead of the pack and get your business in prime position for all those existing and new potential iOS users then you’ll need to get a Yelp review strategy in place. Notably the highest rated business are shown at the top in the example shown so quality will be more important than quantity.
Users will be able to see the quantity of reviews in the results list but not the comments so there is a risk of spam reviews by unscrupulous business owners or SEOs unfairly grabbing the top spots.
