Smartwatches are this year’s hot new tech-consumerist thing. The advent of ‘Smart wear’ is something that has been mooted for a long time now but it seems like it’s finally starting to take off. There’s been quite a number of different smart wear items coming through over the past few years. Does anyone remember smart trousers?

The three main firms battling for that space on your wrist are Apple, Samsung and Pebble. Apple offer the imaginatively named iWatch – slightly pricier than its competitors but with way more gimmicks.

Samsung’s version is the ‘Samsung Gear’ which will be loved by anti-apple warriors everywhere and there is also the ‘Pebble Time Steel’ – designed by an independent Californian agency but funded via a Kickstarter (yawn!).

They all vary in their capabilities but the one function that unites them is that they offer the ability to search for local businesses on the go. This could be a dramatic game changer in the world of the local SEO services.

Here are some tips to future-proof your business against the upcoming changes:

Tweak the way that you design your content.

You are now going to have to think about your site and content with squares in mind because the interface of a smart watch is a square as opposed to a rectangle. You now have to have a conversation where you ask, ‘how will it look on a watch?’ You might even have to make text blocks smaller as a result.

No one is going to be wanting to scroll through a site that isn’t optimised for mobile. I can only imagine that it would be very time consuming.

This could really spell the end for outdated companies that don’t regularly update their website with new content.

Change the way that you design

The way that websites will look is going to be affected as well. Sites are now going to have to be cleaner and simpler to look at. Complicated imagery and themes with multiple colours will have to go out of the window as well. Everything is going to be as simple and natural as possible because it’s going to need to look good on a smart-watch.

Location based advertising

A larger part of your paid search budget is going to have to be location based. From a business owner’s viewpoint, smart wear should be really beneficial. This will be because most watches will feature NFC technology, which allows users to pay for things by tapping their smart wear in a similar manner to contact-less cards. iWatch users will also have the capability to use Apple Pay – a wallet on your phone where you can store money and coupons.
The best way to ‘tap’ into this is through location based advertising, if a consumer needs something quick and you appear first on their search then that should convert quite easily.

The power of coupons

It might have seemed quite gimmicky in the past but coupon advertising will be invigorated by the advent of the smart watch. The main benefit of advertising to smart wear users is that it should take advantage of the devices inherent spontaneity. A push notification from a coupon app could inform the user of a great deal near their location.

It’s happening now

On the surface it might look like smart wear is going to be a fad and that could well happen. However, nearly every tech industry expert has predicted that it will be part of our lives. Like it or not, the smart-watch should be here to stay.