AI Decoded Series: AI & SEO

AI & SEARCH OPTIMISATION

Snack-sized summary:

The internet search world is changing, but the importance of relevance in the results isn’t going anywhere. In fact, AI is making even more of ‘relevance’ in

search, looking at context and conversation. To be viable as an answer in an AI summary, business websites must think more about the conversations they have with customers beyond the initial question/answer.  

Short-winded background for context

Google is going the way of the Dewey Decimal system and making way for the new research assistant, Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now, rather than seeing a list of results on-screen, we’re going to see a summary of the results AI has found. This means the last few decades of how internet websites are ‘optimised’ to appear at the top of the results is about to change.

First off, how does search work?

Once upon a time when we wanted to find something out, we went to a library and dug through the Dewey Decimal System to find books with content that might give us answers. Roll on a few decades and the World Wide Web (www) came along. The World Wide Web was an interconnected network of web ‘sites’ containing content. Content was now accessible through your computer so, rather than going to a library, we jumped on a keyboard to search through information.

As everyone uploaded content onto websites and the volume of content grew, we needed a way to sort through it all to find what we wanted – and along came Search Engines to help us. Search Engines took key words from the question you typed in e.g. ‘where can I find a painter?’, crawled through the content on the web looking for matching key words, and spat out the thousands of related website results it found for you. As search methods grew more sophisticated over time until Google developed a Search Engine which refined results to content it determined were most ‘relevant’ to what was typed into the keyboard.

Because humans have little patience, we would rarely get past the first 10 – 15 results because, well – time. To get our money, businesses wanted their websites to come up as close to the top of the results as possible. So they started looking at ways to optimise their websites to please Search Engines like Google.

And lo, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was born.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

As businesses cottoned on to customers’ lack of patience, it became clear that if your website wasn’t up near the top of results, a potential customer wouldn’t see or visit your website which created less chance of a sale.

To combat that, businesses started optimising their websites to appeal to Google, using tactics like including the key words and phrases customers used in queries into their website content, making sure their website was technically ‘easy’ for Search Engines to find and crawl through, and putting links to the business website on websites related to their industry (think Directory listings and Industry websites).

As time went on, Google and other search engines continued to refine how they defined ‘relevance’ and prioritised the results (what’s known as the search engine ‘algorithm’) leading to a push-me/pull-you game and thousands of dollars spent by business to refine how optimised their website is.‘ This has been the state of things for a good two decades.

But now a new player is in town, enter AI.

To the delight of time-poor humans, rather than displaying a list of results, AI checks through the data it has available and returns its ‘answer’ in the form of a summary of what it’s found. These summaries aggregate data from a range of sources including business websites, forums, reviews, and media platforms.

While how ‘results’ appear online to people searching on the internet is changing dramatically, the importance of those results being ‘relevant’ to what the user is typing isn’t going anywhere. But there are a few key differences with AI to Google - Instead of just matching key words in searches to key words in web content, AI tries to figure out what someone actually needs when they ask a question.

To do that it employs a few tactics:

• ·AI reads between the lines: Modern search doesn't just look for exact keyword phrase matches - it ‘looks’ for the meaning behind your question, even if you don't use the perfect keywords. This is referred to as ‘semantic search’

• AI remembers your conversation: AI search follows the thread of what you're asking about. So if you ask "What's the weather like?" and then "Will I need an umbrella?" it knows you're still talking about the weather.

• AI uses all types of content, not just text: Some AI search tools can look at images, videos, and text all together to give you a more ‘complete’ answer

• AI loves structure: AI pulls insights from long-form copy so it loves well-organised content on web pages. If the copy easy to understand with clear headings, bullet points, and quick summaries, it’s more likely to be used in the AI summary.

As AI use increases, it’s important to ensure your website is attractive to your customers’ new way of searching for and digesting information.

So how do we optimise now?

In order to make it into the AI summary, a new game has begun. Updated content optimisation strategies are needed for AI to discover and show your website. That’s because where Search Engines primarily needed to be able to find your website, see the content is relevant and easily read it, for your business to come up in an AI search, content must align with how the AI-driven search engine model interprets, summarises, and presents its answer.

Several terms have emerged to describe the new content optimisation strategies needed for AI to discover and like your content. One of the most popular is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), which describes how AI seeks to give you a summary ‘answer’ rather than a list of results. We’ll stick with the term AEO for this article.

Key principles of AEO include:

• Credible: Including data-driven insights, statistics, and expert citations to increase trustworthiness and demonstrate expertise

• The Celebrity effect’: Authoritative and credible sources e.g. citations, expert insights, and validated data

• Human: AI search engines favour content that mirrors natural, conversational language and provides direct, well-structured answers. (Ironic I know.)

• Conversational context: Include answers to the additional questions a customer asks when they’re considering your product or service e.g. factors that impact on buyer decision making like price, reliability, availability.

• Easy: Make the content easy to follow by structuring content with clear formatting and logical flow for easy AI interpretation and enhanced user experience

• Up-to-date: If it’s content that needs checking and refreshing: do that, regularly.

Conclusion, for the moment at least.

At the moment, humans are using AI search alongside internet search engines. But as AI adoption grows, change is coming. Any businesses wanting to be found online must take into account the evolving landscape of how customers search online and integrate AEO tactics into their website content. So, as we shift into this new world, it’s a great time to review your website content to check it matches customer needs. Talk to your website developer to find out their plans to ensure your website stays search-friendly for AI.

Tune in next week when we'll be diving into the world of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)

GEO focuses on making your content discoverable and influential in AI-generated responses. Think of it as aiming to 'show up in the AI's brain' as opposed to Answer Engine Optimisation which focuses on just 'owning the answer'.

I know, complex! Fear not, we'll decode it.