Are you ready for Augmented Reality?

Every day, the average person consumes an extraordinary amount of data, through a plethora of digital devices. These devices, at times, seem almost ubiquitous, considering that we are never more than a few meters away from our smartphones. All of these devices offer an avenue of communication that was unimaginable only a few years ago. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter use these devices to their fullest potential, making use of hardware capabilities such as GPS, cameras and voice.

Not only have we started to consume large amounts of data but so have the devices themselves, apps use the data they pull in from us to perform ever more powerful and useful functions. GPS for example has become an extremely powerful tool for applications such as Google Maps, Foursquare, Facebook and many others. Unsurprising then, that GPS has become the linchpin for many of the technologies that we use today; Google Glass for instance would just be an interesting fashion accessory were it not for the GPS module inside, allowing it to know where you are and feed you highly specific information straight in front of your retina.

This is where technology is heading, at times it will feel quite invasive but it will represent the next paradigm of mobile devices. Google – one of the biggest influences on marketing money in the world – understand that this is the next paradigm and they have positioned themselves to profit most from the shift. We know the shift is coming so like Google, businesses’ should position themselves appropriately.

How do we get ourselves into the right position?

We need to think about the services that best use the GPS technologies that will be implemented in devices such as Google Glass. One of the main features of Google Glass will be the ability to look at a business and for it to recognise the geo-location, pulling up information on the business. Glass will get this information directly from its Places platform, so our first port-of-call would be to optimise our Places page. I believe more options and functionality will be added to Google Places nearer to the full release of Glass, such as restaurant menus and the like. Until then though, we can make sure that all of our information is up to date, including opening hours, services, images etc. The idea is to make it as enticing as possible with Glass in mind, imagine someone looking at your shop using this technology, what information would you want to appear?

Other services such as Foursquare can also be optimised, register your business there knowing the likelihood of people using such services is to rise. Game dynamics are going to become increasingly important in this new paradigm, people will want to become the so-called King of certain venues, make sure your business is one of them. We want to remind people “Have you checked in today?” this will update on other services such as Facebook and raise your brand awareness. Optimising these services should also improve your organic search rankings. Google is actively making SEO go hand in hand with the optimisation of this “Augmented Reality” that they are pushing. They already make G+ influential in your Google position so it’s clear they are taking into account how visible and influential you will be in the augmented reality arena.

This new paradigm will usher in an exciting new role for SEO, where they not only optimise their clients’ online presence but also their presence in the augmented world. Perhaps we might have a different name by then, Augmented Reality Optimisation? Who knows, but make sure you position yourselves to take full advantage in the world of augmented reality and game dynamics.