Understand how generative AI is affecting SEO content

Itamar says: “My tip revolves around content, particularly related to what Google is doing now. The introduction of the search generative experience and having generative AI in search results is going to have a lot of implications on SEO and content. It’s probably going to be the biggest shift we’ve seen in SEO in the last 10 years.

My advice is to try and understand more about what Google is trying to surface when it comes to generative AI results. As soon as it’s rolled out worldwide, and a lot of queries start utilising AI within their answers, it’s important to understand what Google is actually looking for.

When it comes to the content you’re making for your website, try to think about all the areas of the funnel, everything that’s relevant to your niche, the synonyms, the types of language people are using, and the different areas of your business that somebody might want to know about. Then, think about the content that will help weave users down the funnel and help serve the more colloquial searches that will utilise generative AI.

Google is going to be able to understand more about nuances and context. As long as you’ve got a lot of content that can relate to that and help answer those more comprehensive queries, then you’ll be getting more clicks.

The results we’re going to see from AI are going to be a lot more saturated. We’re not exactly sure what proportion of clicks are going to be from the other organic results when AI results start showing up. It’s really important that you’re able to manage that and put yourself in a better position to get those clicks.”

Is the search generative experience going to be focused on certain types of intent and certain types of keyword phrases?

“If we think about the traditional types of intent (commercial, navigational, informational, transactional), the AI results are probably going to have the most impact within informational and commercial searches. A lot of businesses will have informational content about their niche on their website, even if they do sell products. People will be asking about what they do, and they will have other queries related to their industry or their offerings.

It’s probably not going to affect navigational searches as much. Most people are essentially using Google when they want an answer to a question (informational), or they want to buy a product (commercial). Those two intents are where AI is going to be utilised within the search results, so they’re the ones you should focus on.”

How do you make your content more likely to be picked up by Google’s SGE?

“Language is very important. Google continues to get better at understanding different nuances within language. MUM, for example, can understand the context around the words that people are using which may have multiple meanings. Within certain types of searches, a word might have a meaning that’s more relevant to that particular area, which can get very complex.

For your content, you need to make sure that you’ve reached out to the experts within your team and your industry. You need to fully understand all the different areas and hit all the different points that people might be asking. For example, if you’re on the e-commerce side, you can reach out to customer service and ask them what sort of questions people ask. You also need to be up to date with the language and terminology people are using in your industry, because that’s going to be important.

Make sure that you hit all of the different points within your content and address all the possible stages of the funnel. You might predominantly have bottom-of-funnel content at the moment, for people who are trying to buy stuff. That’s very common for businesses because they want to make content that will make people buy. However, there are loads more stages involved.

The more comprehensive you can be – in terms of the types of content you put out, the language you’re using, and making sure you’re up to date with everything that your industry entails – the better position you will be in. You will have more ammunition for Google to crawl and utilise to your benefit. Then, somebody who’s searching for something very particular will have a better chance of seeing your content, no matter what stage of the funnel they’re at.”

How do you go about mapping content to different stages of the funnel?

“Take a traditional look at the funnel. Top-of-funnel, people don’t know who you are, but they’re also not sure exactly what they want. They might be asking questions about a certain term or concept related to what you do, or about their use case or the problem that they’re trying to solve. They might not even be sure about the terminology around what you do. Top-of-funnel content will help people who either don’t know exactly what they need and are trying to solve a problem or people who have a rough idea but need to know more.

Middle-of-funnel is more precise. People already know what they want, but they want to do some more digging and maybe make some comparisons. They are generally looking for more information in that area.

Bottom-of-funnel is people who are ready to convert. That could be content that’s answering any big questions that might divert somebody away from you and towards a competitor, or vice versa. This content should be focused on your USP and why they should pick you over somebody else.

Content that fits around these different areas of the funnel will do well. The amount of content you should create really does depend on your industry. Talk with people from customer service, go to industry events, and get the gist of what people are actually looking for – but always keep the areas of the funnel in mind when you’re doing that research.”

Do you still look at the four traditional areas of intent or do you try and break it down even further?

“You can break it down even further but, for most websites, businesses, and industries the four traditional areas (commercial, navigational, informational, transactional) are quite useful – and quite accurate.

There are certain niches where you might want to delve a bit deeper but, from an ideation perspective or for a glimpse into how you should approach intent, they are the easiest way for most people to understand.”

What are the more comprehensive searches that will be relevant to SGE?

“We’ve seen different examples of SGE. A traditional Google search is typically very straightforward and a few words long. If you want to buy a red Ford, you put in ‘red Ford for sale’, or something like that. Now, you can make that search more comprehensive and add, ‘I’m a father of three. I’ve got one kid who’s two, and I require lots of space in the boot.’, and Google will understand that context, so it will be in a better position to give you the right answer.

However, that does rely on your content matching different types of use cases. You can scale your content and branch it out a lot more. If you’re selling cars, you could have potential use case pages for ‘Best Cars With a Large Boot’ and ‘Best Cars for Fathers of Three’. That will help Google to get those answers directly to the people who are searching for them.

There may not be many people making these types of searches, but they are going to be a lot more ready to buy. It’s not so much about the volume and the demand here; it’s more about making sure you hit exactly what somebody who’s ready to buy your product or service will be looking for.”

Would you recommend creating longer content with subheadings answering each long-tail keyword phrase or having individual URLs for each question?

“I don’t think that one way would be better than the other but it’s worth experimenting. SGE is going to be smart enough to extract the context within your content, even if it is on one page that contains loads of different content split up under different subheadings.

If you’re putting the pieces on separate pages, you want to make sure that it’s comprehensive and high-quality, and that it makes sense for it to be its own page. Don’t have a page without much on it. From a user’s perspective, they might stumble upon that and want to know more about the topic.”

Should SEOs give up on attempting to rank for short-tail, high-volume keyword phrases?

“You don’t need to give up. Google still cares about understanding your website in terms of the topics or areas you write about and your topical authority. It’s still important to have general types of content so that Google is able to crawl it and understand what your website does and what it’s useful for.

You shouldn’t completely scratch trying to focus on more generic terms, but what I’m suggesting helps to support that. It helps strengthen Google’s understanding and solidify yourself as an expert and authority.

This is linked to what we’ve seen with AI. ChatGPT has come into play, and we’ve seen a lot of people using it – even to write content, which I personally think is quite dangerous. With SGE and the Perspectives filter, it’s clear that Google wants to display real people and new perspectives on things. However, ChatGPT doesn’t have any knowledge from after September 2021.

You should be making sure that you have real people writing your content, who know what is happening in your industry right now. That is going to be a lot more potent when it comes to content creation.”

Should SEOs not be using ChatGPT at all?

“It’s not that you shouldn’t be using ChatGPT at all, but you shouldn’t be using it to write your content in its entirety. It’s useful for creating briefs and trying to get ideas. You can ask it hypothetical questions about how to make a post appear a lot more authoritative, what you should be mentioning, etc.

If you’ve got ChatGPT writing the content for you, but you don’t have somebody there who can edit it and fact-check it, that’s a problem. Think about the volume of low-quality content that can be produced by AI at the moment. If it’s all uploaded to the web, Google’s going to have to sift through all of that and improve its models to detect it and know exactly what to surface.

I’m not saying don’t use ChatGPT at all but use it with a strategy in place. Don’t just go and blindly create a bunch of content.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Stop getting ChatGPT to write content. That sounds counterproductive because that’s the easiest way to save time but, fundamentally, if your content’s not going to rank then you’ve wasted time doing that in the first place.

Just have a plan. Take a moment to think about what your strategy should be, if you want it to be comprehensive and sustainable, especially with all the things that we’ve covered in regard to SGE and AI. Have a plan, have a think, and then you can utilise AI to help make your life a bit easier.”

Itamar Blauer is Senior SEO Director at StudioHawk, and you can find him over at StudioHawk.co.uk.