SEO for Household Objects? Maybe …

Sometimes new evolution in technology may seem like a joke at the start. The idea of every appliance in our homes connecting to the internet and/or to other devices - the so-called “internet of things” - has been the target of quite a lot of satire, from sarcastic articles and blog posts to social media accounts (check out We put a chip in it!) featuring “smart” objects that have been deemed useless by the authors.

While I do agree that many of these objects are, in fact, useless - and sometimes hilarious (a clothespin that notifies you when your laundry is dry, anyone?) - I admit that I can also be a bit of a gadget hound (as I write this post I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of my new smart water bottle, which will sync with my phone and integrate with my Fitbit account). I imagine that, in time, we’ll move past the point of wanting to put a chip into every single item available at Target, but I think that the internet of things is here to stay (at least until the Cylon revolution, but that’s another story).

The concept of an internet enabled speaker that also functions as a home assistant of sorts isn’t brand new - the Amazon Echo has been available for a couple years now - but now Google is getting into the game. Released just last month, the Google Home aims to take over the management of as many of your home’s devices and functions as possible by being a central hub for your personal internet of things. It also functions as a source of information - it runs Google Assistant, which is not only capable of answering questions but of conducting two way conversations. Yes, you can now have back-and-forth chats with an inanimate object in your home.

Inevitably many SEO sites have published articles covering the functions of Google Home and providing tips about how the device affects your marketing strategy and how to optimize for it. Available information is still very limited - the device itself is very new, so many of its features are still being explored, as is the question of how many people will actually end up adopting it. Are the current early adopters at the forefront of something like the smartphone boom - will most households feature an assistant of some sort in the next few years? Or will it be more like a smart watch - something that interests a smaller, more gadget-nerdy percentage of buyers?

At this point I think that most businesses - unless they pride themselves on bleeding edge practices - can adopt a wait-and-see stance on whether optimizing for devices like Google Home should be a priority. I wouldn’t recommend laughing it off, but it’s probably not yet the time to invest a lot of resources either. In the meantime, the good news is that the practices that you already have in place (which you do have … right? If not, give us a yell!) for your SEO optimization should carry over quite nicely to Google Home.