AI has a lot of people on edge. Some fear it will take their jobs away. Dystopianists envision AI rising up and taking over everything. On a smaller but still apocalyptic scale, digital marketers fear Google’s AI search will steal their company website’s traffic.
Google, which still retains more than 80% of online searches, has rolled out Google Search Experiences (GSE), which uses AI to provide more comprehensive and personalized results. It has some marketers trembling in their boots, fearing “zero click searches” where users don’t need to click to your website to find the answer.
Wherever your anxieties, AI is here to stay, and now more than ever, digital marketers need to roll up their sleeves and strengthen their company’s website and marketing strategies.
Google is a Librarian
To put AI in persepctive, consider Claudia Higgins’ analogy of Google as a librarian. A librarian’s job is to provide the best book or resource for the reader’s question. Google’s job is to deliver the best webpage for the searcher’s question.
If the librarian can provide the answer without you reading a book, you’d like that, yes?
If Google can provide the answer without you reading a webpage, isn't that preferable? As a user, yes, as a website owner, no.
When optimizing your website, keep thinking about how you can make your site, and your webpages the best information on the internet, so that your pages will be served by Google the librarian.
With AI, Google the librarian won’t have to give searchers your book. AI can answer queries quickly and build on answers and questions to provide more customized answers and further detail for the user. A personal librarian in AI Overviews, formerly known as Search Generative Experience.
AI Overviews
AI Overviews, gives more detailed results and anticipates the user's additional needs before they ask.
With AI overviews, Google envisions a world where you would get answers not just to your basic question, but also to your next question. For example, if you were looking at moving services, you might get the option to upload photos of your belongings, but also information on rental cars, flights, tips for moving, packing supplies, Realtors, etc.
Google Zero
While AI is a big shift, search has always been evolving, answers without clicking through has been creeping in for years.
For example, Google’s “People Also Ask” snippet meant that people could get the answer to a simple question straight from Google Search. This has been called Google Zero.”
AI is already providing answers in search results with People Also Ask and other snippets.
Bing: CoPilot
Microsoft is also in the AI game. Copilot is Bing's verson of AI search or generative search, using both large language models and small language models (LLMs and SLMs) to provide dynamic content. Bing rolled it out in December 2023 under the name "Deep Search." Like Google, the goal is to provide the best answer to a user's question.
Bing is enhancing Copilot with more "how to" query answers. Copilot is included with Windows.
A Wired article called Copilot aspiring to be your "digital coworker." It's a long evolution from Clippy, the big-eyed paper clip that would help write documents in Microsoft Word.
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Positives of AI for your business website
There are some positive aspects to Google’s new change to search.
- Gain Domain Authority- If AI is continually using your content in its SGE, that’s actually good – Google sees your site as authoritative with high-quality content. Over time, this can help your domain authority score and organic keyword rankings.
- Increase Visibility – AI does provide attribution for its answers, so the more people see your site as providing the answer, that increases your visibility and brand awareness.
- Improve Click Quality – While you may lose the generic clicks of people just looking for simple facts or top of the funnel searches with low purchase intent, the clicks you do get may be ones that have higher intent to purchase your product or make an appointment.
How to Prepare Your Website for AI Searches
What does this mean for your business website? It’s time to dig deep and make your website and digital presence meet the demands of today’s searchers. Time to take a closer look at your content and provide more creative and thorough information. Google’s algorithm updates tend to reduce rankings for thin, outdated website content.
You may lose clicks when it comes to answering basic questions such as "heart attack symptoms." But you can offer more expertise, examples, how to, and authoritative information on your site to answer the user's next question, such as "Compare the symptoms of an anxiety attack to a heart attack in men over 60." Or spotlight your physician's latest research on a new drug for hypertension.
Provide more thoughtful and extensive content to provide position your company as the expert, authority, and trustworthy source.
Here’s How to Prep Your Business Website for AI Searches:
- Increase domain authority. The notorious Google leak in 2024 found that Google (despite its disavowal) in fact does use a bespoke metric of “Domain Authority” as a ranking factor. Domain authority is wrapped up in a lot of different factors website, but strong SEO is a great start to start to improve your DA. Focus also on linkable content and backlinks.
- Improve your content. Go beyond the basics to cover your industry topics in depth, providing valuable content that strives to be the best page on the internet for that topic. This helps fulfill the "EAT" strategy, highlighting your company's Expertise, Authority and Trust. Get testimonials from influencers and colleagues. Enhance text with visuals such as images, infographics, and videos. Add diverse content such as podcasts, long-form videos. Get links back to your content and promote it on social media.
- Envision Users’ Next Questions - A Google search for "What date did Abraham Lincoln become president” may provide a Google Zero answer. But if your site has detailed information about why the election was significant or other interesting perspectives, it will give people a reason to know more, which can lead to a click. If you're a health care facility, your patients or prospective patients may search for a diagnosis of a skin rash. Make sure your physician pages are up to date with the latest services so that they're not just learn about their rash, they'll request an appointment from your doctor. Add detailed pages of new procedures or treatments and videos or blog posts of doctors talking about the rashs. Provide more than the basics. How can you add unique and valuable content to the topic? What new perspective or expertise can you provide?
- Monitor Keywords - Keep an eye on your analytics and understand what keywords you're ranking for. Check Google Search Console to see what the top search queries are. Use an SEO platform to find questions people are asking, alternative keywords, intent-based keywords and more opportunities for new and unique content.
Make friends with AI
Like it or not, Google is providing the answers to your users' questions – with or without your website. Keep your website relevant and you'll see just how good your website can be.
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