Abstract
- The rise of AI. How advancements announced at Google I/O 2024 are going to redefine search.
- Blue links… and now AI? Adapting to AI-driven search engines: Traditional SEO tactics are becoming less effective and the focus is shifting towards brand-centric content.
- AI and content strategy. Insights from marketing experts: Original, value-driven content is crucial for AI awareness and marketing success.
Google's announcement of new AI features for search at Google I/O 2024 last week was a wake-up call for SEO and marketing professionals. These features highlight a shift in focus from traditional keyword-centric strategies to brand storytelling and the application of AI. Moreover, as Google continues to innovate with its Gemini AI model, marketers are being forced to rethink their approach in the evolving search landscape.
“This is a shocker for all SEOs,” says Mary Owusu, CEO of OwnMyNiche.com and LEADSABLE. “SEO as we know it has become too easy to manipulate. The idea of ranking for keyword-rich content is gone. SEOs must become storytellers for their brands. Previously, 'doing SEO' meant creating keyword-rich content, primarily in written form, to rank in Google. In the AI world, 'doing SEO' means creating brand-centric content in a variety of formats across all platforms your brand's customers engage with.”
At Google I/O, Google announced a slew of AI features that will have a major impact on search. Marketers spoke to CMSWire about which search strategies the industry should pay attention to as consumer adoption of AI grows.
Google's announcements at Google I/O always get developers talking, and this year at I/O they introduced a range of Gemini AI models to address a variety of AI modeling needs. There's even more capabilities for developers using Google Cloud services, and some key features are impacting Google Search. Marketers should pay special attention to how these features highlight AI trends that are currently shaping up.
What search tactics are emerging with the advent of AI?
Much of Google I/O 2024 was focused on upcoming features scheduled for release between now and the summer, including Gemma 2, the next generation of Gemma, a small-scale language model that will expand on tokenization and parameterization.
Gemini has many promising features. People are already using Gemini and competitors like Claude and OpenAI to find information. As it gains buzz and steadily grows in usage among consumers and experts, AI is increasingly being treated as a search engine and is elevating itself as a “recommendation engine.” People are using prompted queries to solve their personal workflows and find information in the same way that traditional search engines have helped people find information online.
However, for proper AI model recommendations, queries must incorporate modern prompt engineering techniques. Search engines typically rely on links to rank results in SERPs, a concept that is well-known among business owners, marketers, and developers. AI models associate tokenized prompts based on the data they are trained on, so users must craft queries precisely to align with the underlying AI engine.
New features include: Multi-stage inference AI overviews give users more control over their queries, and marketers need to consider how these capabilities feed into users' information search behavior to reduce the need for extensive iterative efforts to summarize relevant models and explain what users are looking for.
(Editor's note: We're not too thrilled with the introduction of AI into Google Search, at least for now):
What are the big benefits? @GoogleWhat about the generated AI search results? They look like exaggerated snippets. I don't see any significant difference from the basic search results. pic.twitter.com/ByaVghomGW
— Dom Nicastro (@DomNicastro) May 20, 2024
Related article: Google I/O 2024: AI will redefine the future of search
The Attribution Challenge and the New World of Search
After hearing news like Google's announcement and the arrival of ChatGPT4o, marketers shared their thoughts with us via LinkedIn.
SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin points out how AI is compounding the reality of search: attribution.
“The rise of generative AI answers, the bias towards native content in social feeds, and the shift from a world where users are willing to click to visit websites to one where they don’t – all of these things are linked together.”Fishkin argues that the solution to this problem is something his company calls “zero-click marketing.”
Instead of posting direct actionable links or over-investing in SEO-targeted content to get traffic, creators, entrepreneurs, marketers and influencers need to look to unattributable and hard-to-measure investments in brand marketing and spreading their message across the web, he added.
If Google isn't sending traffic to your site, Fishkin recommends not trying to boost your rankings, but instead working to influence AI-generated answers, the snippets that are shown, the Reddit posts that people still click on, brand mentions, and lexical relevance between search terms and product names.
“In a strange way, digital marketing in the 2020s is beginning to resemble traditional marketing in the 20th century,” Fishkin says. “Marketers in 1965 didn't expect a driver to see a vacuum cleaner sign on the highway and immediately change their route to stop at a store to buy a vacuum cleaner. Instead, they relied on advertising influence to influence future demand and brand preference. Similarly, in 2024, Google results have changed from an opportunity to change a driver's route to an opportunity to influence future demand and brand preference.”
Related article: Will search become generative AI or blue links? Actually, it’s both
Utilizing AI search and original content
Marketing expert Jeff Beale (Mr. Marketology) believes marketers need to embrace AI-powered search and adapt their strategies to take advantage of new AI capabilities. “This means using AI tools to understand how users are searching and create content that matches those search patterns,” Beale says. “Search engines are already building artificial intelligence into their algorithms, so it's important for them to lead the change in the market.”
Alison Ver Halen, content marketing and SEO strategist and president of AV Writing Services, says your content should explain its purpose so that an AI that incorporates purposeful content is more likely to refer to it.
“One of the most important (yet most overlooked) aspects of SEO is that Google prioritizes original content,” she explains. “One big problem with 'generative' AI is that it doesn't 'generate' anything — it just scrapes and reuses existing content from the web. If you simply type prompts into ChatGPT and copy and paste the results into your website, you won't get recognized by Google, or by people who see you as just saying the same thing as everyone else.”
To provide value, Ver Halen added, your content needs to answer the all-important question, “So what?” That means that in addition to providing information and updates, your content needs to offer a unique perspective on each topic you cover. What does this mean for your audience? How can they apply it in the real world?
“The answer is what provides value, grabs Google's attention, and convinces real people reading your content that you're real,” Ver Halen said.
Ryan Levander, founder of analytics firm Rednavel Consulting, is also concerned about attribution and suggests examining current touch points with customers. He points out that one of the earliest evolutions of search, including Google's earliest form of AI, Search Generative Experience (SGE), is having a major impact on search and content strategy.
“I think marketing analytics have gotten less accurate over the years,” Levander explains. “Especially as fewer users need to click and more SGEs. You need a content strategy that aligns with the user journey. If you only create top-of-funnel content (targeting high-volume keywords), you'll typically see more SGEs and less clicks. The same thing is happening with featured snippets and rich results.”
Marketers should make their content as unique and valuable as possible so users have a reason to click and read it, he said, adding, “Make sure your analytics are set up correctly so you can see which blogs are generating revenue.”
