Hi Reader,

Earlier today I sent you an email to tell you about the change Google Announced that puts Search within Google Assistant. This may not seem like a big thing. I mean, voice search has been around for a long time right?

I'm sending this episode of Marie's Thoughts to all of my subscribers, not just the paid ones this week. This topic is incredibly important and I want to share my thoughts with all who are interested.

Read this in the Search Bar ​Click here to read or comment online (or keep scrolling to read in this email.)​ ​ Information for paid subscribers who can't log in to my new system. ​ In case you missed this week's ​Search News You Can Use: Study on SGE shows potential for significant change Do author bios impact rankings? GBP websites discontinued Using Bard to create personal agents

This week Google announced changes to Google Assistant. Assistant will now show us snippets from Search Results. It is essentially voice search, except, the way that the snippets are assembled along with conversation, they really seem to be good at answering my questions.

I think that with these changes, Google introduced a whole new search ecosystem -- one that I am already finding incredibly helpful. I expect others will as well. Google seems to be blurring the line between what is Search and what is Assistant.

I wrote an article with more on this change. You can find it by asking your Google Assistant, “Now that Search is a part of Google Assistant, how does that change the SEO industry” or who knows, perhaps your Assistant will show you something different.

Look at me…my first attempt at optimizing for a question that my audience is likely to have is a success!

You can also read this article I wrote here if you can’t find it with Assistant.

With all of this excitement, unless I want to be typing until midnight, I have decided to limit myself to 3 hours for this session of examining the content that Google is surfacing from websites in Assistant. Originally I had asked you for examples of keywords that I was going to analyze in SGE. Rather than focusing on SGE, I’ll use one of the keywords submitted to me and we’ll go on a search journey.

From what I’ve seen of Assistant so far, it’s like it figures out which features you might find useful. Rather than an entire SGE, it’s just the part you’re most likely to find helpful. Perhaps it’s a map, maybe some websites, an answer snippet, or, eventually, when Bard is connected, perhaps some back and forth conversation? A few weeks ago my Discover feed reminded me that Google had said previously that Bard was coming to Assistant “in a few months”. It will be here soon.

Along the way in this episode, I’ll share examples on where Assistant recommends websites. And some thoughts on why those were included. I believe that those sites that get recommended in Assistant will have all sorts of opportunity to create content and turn that into profit.

We’ll look for evidence to support my theory that Google is rewarding is content that aligns with their guidance on creating helpful content. Really though, it’s not that complicated. Google is rewarding content that people tend to find helpful and reliable. Assistant is recommending content that it thinks you will find helpful and reliable.

The first query that was submitted when I asked for suggestions was “meditation”. I think this is an excellent place to start.

Analyzing this search journey

Traditionally my analysis tends to start with a keyword.

I’d fire up Ahrefs or Semrush, or do a live search myself, and report on which sites were ranking in the top 10 positions. Let’s look first at the organic search results that I see today.

Here’s what I see for the organic SERPS for the keyword, “meditation”. We see a website, People Also Ask Results (inside of which are more websites searchers can choose), and a followup box where I can ask additional questions about meditation.

This opens up a whole new search experience. I typed, “is there science to back up that meditation works” into the followup box and got a whole new set of search results to explore.

Going back to the original search results, if I continue to scroll, there are other options that a searcher could choose including a YouTube video, a Wikipedia article on meditation, information from the Mayo Clinic and more.

Some people will want to explore everything they can when searching on a topic. Search is like browsing around in a library. You can navigate through the variety of options and choose what you want to engage with. Assistant however, is like asking your personal librarian to do the search for you and pick out the bits that I’m most likely to find helpful.

What happens if I do this search on Assistant?

I double tapped the power button on my phone, which opened up Assistant, and simply said, “meditation”. It sounded dumb, because we don’t really voice search with a single word like that.

Oh boy, this sent me on a journey. Let’s take a pause here to talk about Voice Search.

Isn’t Search in Assistant just Voice Search?

Here’s why it’s different now.

Voice Search till now has been an exercise where you ask a question and Google provides some sort of an answer. When Bard is integrated into Google Assistant, it means that now, voice search is a conversation. This conversation is with a personal agent, an assistant that is learning how to do things for you. Right now, it might be things that don’t seem immediately useful like, “put this in a spreadsheet”. Soon, I suspect Bard will be able to reliably do things like book you a flight ticket and add everything to the appropriate agendas. Or perhaps put together a personalized news feed that gets sent to you at a certain time each day. Or, order your Uber for you simply by saying, “Get me an Uber.” A few minutes later, “Hey Marie…your Uber is close. Looks like you’re in the right pickup spot. Expect your driver soon in a white Honda SUV with licence plate….” No need to open or install apps.

People were talking about a device called Rabbit that took CES by storm. There will be no need for this type of device in my opinion, as our phones will do all of this work for us, connecting with apps and businesses as needed.

Picture this.

I’m in the garden. I tap my ear or say, “Hey Google” or whatever phrase you want, “Assistant…what is going on with my plant.” I hold up the phone which opens up the camera app and snap a photo. My assistant tells me it’s likely to be x, y or z problem. It knows I like to read a lot, so it recommends a few science backed articles with helpful images to help me learn more. After a bit of reading and a bit more back and forth conversation, Assistant and I decide that it’s probably something we should buy a product for.

Assistant recommends a few products, based on its knowledge of the world and what products it is that people tend to buy and where they buy them. It suggests a few stores where I can buy these products. If pressed, it will choose a product for me.

“How far is it to the nearest store?”

My assistant pulls up a map. “There are a few places that sell this. It’s 30 minutes by car to the closest one. They are not usually that busy at this time of day.”

Really though, a few bucks of a delivery fee is worth more than the 90 minutes of my time it will take, so I say, “Nah, just order me one please.”

My Assistant knows the stores I shop from and which ones offer same day delivery. It’s always learning from the shopping graph which has so much information it can draw from, and from the actions and choices of real people when deciding what’s likely to be best to show me. It puts in an order, charges my credit card, sends me a receipt, and later that day, a delivery arrives with the product I need to treat my plant issue.

Can you see how voice search has changed? Conversation inside of Google Assistant radically changes how we can communicate with computers. I predict that more and more people will start using voice search. And in doing so, the way we get our information online will change.

This brings up a lot of questions about the search industry. What questions do you have? I’ll share my thoughts, and would encourage everyone to join the conversation. If you are shy to respond publicly, or if you are not a member of the Search Bar Pro / Marie's Thoughts you can respond to this email.

Back to our example. What does Assistant show me?

If I say, “meditation” into Assistant, I get a nice image and the Wikipedia definition of the word. That’s it. Along with a button I can click if I want to see search results.

You might be thinking, who would find this useful? Why would you want one answer when you could have many to choose from?

If you did do a voice search for the word, “meditation”, you probably want a definition. But what if you want to know how to do meditation? Then I’d ask a different question, like perhaps, “how do I do it?”

I asked that and my assistant found me this general advice from Headspace, a brand that is known for the topic of meditation. This is helpful content. Some people will click through to this page to read more.

Are there other ways to do meditation? Of course there are. However, my assistant decided that this answer is what I’m most likely to find helpful.

I went on a little journey, sometimes tapping the suggested questions that I found interesting, and sometimes asking my own question.

I asked about breathing during meditation as I know there are many different theories on how to breathe.

My Assistant showed me something that looked like a People Also Ask Carousel, except it was called, “From sources across the web.”

When you open these carousels, they are not normal looking search results. Here is one.

Here are my notes on the sites and content my Assistant recommended.

Ehancedapp.io. On the topic of Chakra meditation, they have a reputation. They have an app on guided spiritual meditation. Google Play Store tells me it has 1K+ downloads. Not a lot but likely enough to show they are a legitimate company that understands this topic! The article my Assistant suggested is extremely thorough and answers most questions I would have. It was a very helpful suggestion.

Medical News today. They have a reputation for being trustworthy for writing on this type of topic. A site: search tells me they have over 40K results related to meditation. Having a large body of helpful content on a particular topic likely improves the chances that Google’s systems will consider your content as the most helpful to put in front of people. This article was called, “What is the best type of meditation”. It gave a short summary of the different types of meditation people commonly do, along with reference links to studies if I want to read more.

There were more results in this carousel, which unfortunately I cannot reproduce to screenshot again. Each offered a different thing I might find useful. One was a more thorough discussion on the science behind meditation and breathing, for example.

Along the journey, one of the filters my Assistant suggested was, “bubble level”. It gave me this simple game to play. I suppose this was a form of meditation!

Assistant is not just Search. It’s determining what you are most likely to find helpful, and when that is likely to be search, it draws on search results. And again, soon, assistant will have the conversational power of Bard in it as well.

I had hoped to review more examples. I expect throughout the weekend I’ll be using Assistant on my phone and watch as often as I can. I’ll share screenshots in the Search Bar news feed when I find things that are interesting.

I've made this episode of Marie's Thoughts available for free this week as I feel it's important that we spend more time investigating Assistant and how it might change our industry.

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I would encourage you to play with assistant. If you have an Android phone, it's built into your phone. On iPhone it's an app you can download. I feel things are changing quickly. The most common response I get when I talk about this to SEO’s is, “I feel so behind. I don’t know how to keep up with all that is going on.” You're not alone if you feel lost!

I’ve felt this wild urgency to write all I can on what is happening because I think it is monumental. Even more monumental will be the introduction of Bard to Assistant.

Please do comment with your thoughts, concerns or questions.

I'm doing my best to have a relaxing, refreshing weekend. Hope you can do the same!

Marie