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More and more search engines are adopting AI and Large Language Models (a type of AI) to understand user queries better and provide more relevant searches. There are also a number of fully AI search engines available like ChatGPT Search. So now your website not only needs to appeal to humans, and to bots, now it also needs to appeal to AI as well!
This has been quite a shake up in the industry, particularly on Google, which is still by far the most popular search engine. AI Overviews came out a little less than a year ago, and, although you could argue that they had a rocky start (advising using glue on Pizza and saying things like humans should eat one small rock a day), it didn’t stop them from being fully integrated. The technology is constantly improving because, unlike algorithms of the past, AI can learn from it’s mistakes.
The biggest consequence of this integration has been to websites that are largely informational, and use blog posts to sell affiliate links or monetize their websites. Because AI overviews provide an answer to your search question, less people are clicking on websites for their answers, creating less overall website traffic.
Another thing that we see happening is people relying more on AI to generate content to post to their websites. ChatGPT and other large language models are capable of writing a blog for your website. An AI written blog is still not usually as good as writing your own, it takes a lot less time, and posting more content can help you improve your website’s rank naturally on search engines regardless of whether that content is written by a human or AI. There is a significant downside to writing your blogs completely with AI, however. Keep reading...
As someone who works in this field, it’s been an interesting year. I’m obviously not privy to the actual algorithms and AI thought processes, but I’m definitely seeing some trends. This is how I’m interpreting the data:
Although you might think that writing expert content for your website is going out of popularity, I believe the opposite is true. The reason is because AI models need to learn, and they use content on the web to do that! If AI is using your content in their answers to queries, they need to cite you and this does give your website some favor in the search engines.
Keep in mind that AI does do a pretty good job at identifying it’s own resources, so if you want to be cited by AI Overviews, it’s unlikely to happen if you are using AI to generate your content. Having your website content be original material and written professionally to answer questions that people are asking about online is the best way to take advantage of the SEO moment.
Because AI exists, the expectation from search engines is that websites will generate more content for their websites. If you never make updates to your website and the content never changes, your website will have a hard time ranking. If you have let your website content get stale, now is the perfect time to freshen things up, but also think of easy ways you can update the content on your website on a more regular schedule. If your website doesn’t have a blog, now is the time to prioritize adding one. Maybe do a shorter bit on content in the form of a monthly or weekly tip with some industry knowledge, etc.
Think of your website more like you think about your social media profiles, and do regular updates about what’s happening in your industry. Answer common questions and create or add them to a FAQ page. Build some infrastructure on your website so updates you make are represented on the home page and users can see that you are keeping up with your website at a glance.
The bottom line is that although AI is changing the landscape of natural search, professionally written content is more important than ever! If the thought of updating your website regularly seems daunting and way too overwhelming - reach out to us - we can help!
Milly has 18 years experience in designing and developing websites, developing apps, and online marketing. She is an expert at driving traffic to websites utilizing SEO strategies and custom digital marketing efforts. Her company, Zebralove Web Solutions offers full service digital marketing and website development. Comprehensive Search Engine Optimization services, and secure web hosting services.
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