When we say augmented reality (AV), the first thing which might come to your mind will be either a science fiction movie or capturing a Pokémon. You must have experienced augmented reality as a part of your daily life. Thus, you need to pay attention to how this technology can impact the digital ecosystem & overall marketing.
It might sound a bit complex & confusing. AR uses technology to create a virtual & realistic environment. Even though this technology is in an emerging stage for marketers, still we need to keep a close eye upon how augmented reality can affect our brands.
To be a successful businessman you should be up-to-date and informed about the latest trends. And augmented reality is one such topic for you. Thus, it needs to be considered while working & planning for your next SEO strategy.
But before that lets first understand what exactly an Augmented reality is & why should we include it in our digital marketing strategy for search engine optimization.
What is Augmented reality?
Using augmented reality, we can overlay information like video, images, text, etc. into the real-world surrounding.
Google had brought Augmented Reality to Search Results
For instance, using a smartphone & searching for a 3D model and placing it in a physical space with the phone’s viewfinder.
Augmented reality is not just used for games or social media apps. It has been gaining popularity in recent years, & users are wholeheartedly accepting its existence in their lives.
Are you feeling all murky?
Is virtual reality the next thing coming in your minds?
Let’s first clear up the confusion between augmented reality & virtual reality.
Understanding the differences between AR and VR
Often it is observed that people do get confused between augmented reality (AR) & virtual reality (VR). Since both the technology looks similar when it comes to user experience, but both are quite different from each other.
Virtual reality makes a much deeper impact on the users as we entirely create a whole new world for them using new sounds, images, videos & senses generated by computers.
Then why are we majorly focusing on augmented reality? Because as per recent research by Statista, by 2023 there will be an estimated 2.4 billion mobile augmented reality (AR) users worldwide.
Does that mean AR can be the next big thing in Digital Marketing?
Let’s look at how augmented reality can influence the future of SEO by providing a better user experience.
AR’s Impact on SEO
AR will be an inherent part of Google search experience soon. As Google himself had shown its interest in this technology. AR is a major influence on how businesses can promote their products and services. We can leverage SEO with AR creating a better user experience & engaging audience.
Is Augmented reality the Next SEO trend in Search?
Let us dive deeper into the SEO aspects of AR.
AR is beneficial for the brands who want to be on the top in their industry & SERP. AR content can potentially improve your chances of ranking higher in the search (like images, videos, infographics, etc.). Additionally, search engines like Google himself had employed the AR feature into the search to improve user experience.
Perhaps it’s the right time for you to start working on creating a new AR strategy for your brand.
Strategy #1: Enhance Local SEO
As a beginner, you need to acknowledge how AR can affect Local SEO. Since the local searches are dependent on different locations of the users.
For instance, if you are searching for a plumber in Florida its result might differ from that of someone searching for it in California.
Often Mobile apps are used for giving ratings & reviews to the local businesses. Here we could start deploying the AR technology. Similarly, for Google my Business (GMB).
We can walk past the traditional way of a customer to walk by your store. Preferably he can directly search for your business online on their mobile app taking advantage of the AR feature.
We have already seen its potential like Google Lens to create a more widespread and interaction using AR services to find business & read reviews online.
As well, Google has indicated its plan about making changes in Google Maps using augmented reality (AR). However, it’s still in the experimentation phase.
Strategy #2: Focus more on Website Experience
With the dawn of augmented reality, a more interactive & immersive website experience is emerging for the audience. However, we haven’t considered the impact of augmented reality on the website yet.
But as we start revamping the website with augmented reality, we can understand its impact on the user experience. Another thing to notice here is that Google has started giving more importance to the user’s experience while ranking the website post the launch of Web core vitals. The major benefit of AR is that it offers a 360-degree experience, which can makeshift in web design for Mobile.
The only traction here will be the interaction design. So, the first question here will be – what will we interact with?
The two main types of AR objects we will be interacting with are 3D Volumes & Animated Media. Let’s see how one can interact with the environment & handle the AR experience.
Interaction depends on what goal do you want to achieve as a user experience. Think about how people will interact with your website. This will help you to build a better site.
This is a very good example of how businesses can make use of Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance their customer experience online.
Strategy #3: Emphasis on AR-based content
Considering how Google has employed the augmented reality (AR) in its search result. Soon, website content will be crawled, indexed & ranked higher in the Google SERP for AR-based content via visual search. Thus, the organic search professionals will have to involve the augmented reality technology into their content strategy.
In SEO, we often refer to Content as a King. While talking about augmented reality content, it can be of various forms like video, social sharing, reviews, 3D objects, etc.
Thus, content marketers will have to invest more on visual content such as infographics, videos, images, etc. Smartly optimized content will help you to please your audience & boost your SERP rankings.
For instance, in fashion retail e-commerce, augmented reality can be used as a “virtual dressing room” experience for the audience. In this, the users can point their desktop camera towards themselves & scroll through multiple outfit choices available on the screen.
Thus, user-generated content will be very good for SEO and will help to reach the top position in the SERP results. This feature can be leveraged by focusing on the audience’s location.
Strategy #4: Location-based Geo-Targeting
Most of the marketers are already using Geo location-based targeting for better user experience. But when it is merged with augmented reality (AR) it will bring digital marketing to a whole new level.
Geo AR helps and allows the developers to include interactive & informative digital and visual content to the location-based markers. This is an ideal feature for industries like gaming, tourism, navigation, retail, communication, entertainment, etc.
In this digital & AR-based content is virtually placed over actual physical surroundings of the users. This allows access to AR ready devices such as smartphones via their location detection capabilities.
A few best examples of location-based AR are in games like Pokémon GO and Ingress. We have created similar user experience in popular social networking apps like Snapchat.
You could consider walking by a famous burger joint and see the image in front of you flashing with a Burger Combo deal. We called this a form of Marker-based AR experience which is triggered via physical objects. Such a Marker-less AR experience can be triggered by user-location or preferences and search queries etc.
Strategy #5: AR-based Interactive Apps – Improve ASO
We already have many interactive AR-based Apps in the market such as IKEA – which is an Augmented Reality Furnishing brand. A few other examples include Pokémon Go, Snapchat and Facebook photo filters, etc.
Execute augmented reality (AR) in your mobile app & infuse it with geofencing technology. Encourage users to interact with your app. Entice them with incentives & rewards for using AR features. This will help to grow your app’s popularity & eventually ranking of your app in app stores.
This improves the user experience to help you convert more potential customer & increase overall sales. This will benefit from maintaining the retention rate of the app. AR apps can bring us more profits.
Amazon is the perfect example to consider how AR can help you improve user experience. Amazon has incorporated augmented reality experience in their app. Amazon’s augmented reality experience lets you view thousands of products in your home, even before you buy them.
Let us look at this video of Amazon’s AR view feature:
Tap the camera icon in the Amazon app to try AR View now.
Closing Thoughts
We feel augmented reality (AR) has a very bright future which is full of innovations. We can say that AR technology is proof of what humans can accomplish via technology. We can aid AR in everyday life to make it more comfortable.
Apart from the pointers mentioned above, marketers can get an idea about how the SEO world is going to change & what all planning is needed to be done, as AR will soon become a part of life.
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