The way individuals search for information online has changed considerably over the years. With the introduction of virtual assistants and changes to Google’s user interface, there are now much faster and more efficient methods to access essential data online.
One of the primary disrupting technologies leading the charge in these changes has been artificial intelligence (AI). There aren’t many industries that haven’t been affected by AI in some way, good or bad. However, while businesses work to determine where AI fits into their growth strategies, they also need to react to how it has impacted their visibility and associated web traffic on Google.
As more people turn to AI-powered search tools to find the information they need, traditional methods for gaining organic web traffic have shifted. This means it’s more important than ever to customize your content creation and optimization tactics so that your website is more likely to appear within AI-generated results given to users.
Below are some practical ways to start prioritizing SEO efforts in an AI-powered world.
Focus on Deeper Topic Coverage
For years now, Google has continued to add new features to its popular search tool. While the forward-facing elements have been more about improving user experiences, it’s really what’s behind the scenes that’s important. This includes the incorporation of AI-driven algorithms that have helped to make the platform more intelligent and accurate..
As part of these improvements, AI-powered search is now much more capable of finding highly beneficial content for readers instead of focusing strictly on keyword placements. For businesses, this means that it has become incredibly important to ensure their website contains deeper topic coverage that directly answers user questions while also providing helpful supplementary information to support.
For example, if you ran a therapy office and wanted to increase your SEO effectiveness, it would be important for you to post a broad range of therapy-related material on your site. This way, when someone searches for “therapy office in [their location],” Google would not only see that the office is physically located in that area, but that it is clearly an expert in the field based on the significant amount of helpful information on that topic showing on the site.
Keep Your Writing Tone and Voice Natural
When you think about the way you search for things online and how others might look for that same information, it’s likely that you’ll find differences in formatting. Some people like to use full descriptive language when searching for something, while others may just jumble together a few keywords.
Even though individuals may search for things differently online, it’s important for Google or AI-powered search tools to be consistent in the information they deliver. To assist with this, they leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP), which is an AI feature that helps algorithms better understand and respond to the nuances of human language.
To increase the likelihood of your web content being sourced and referenced by these tools, it’s important that your website content contains these same nuances in how information is presented. Keeping your writing tone and voice natural, in the same way you might talk to another person, helps to make your content easier to locate and reference for these tools.
One way to achieve this is by incorporating an FAQ section on your site or a “key takeaways” section. This allows you to answer specific questions directly and makes important information easier to access for both site visitors and AI-powered search tools.
Make Sure Your Content Pages Contain Structured Data
As you start arranging content on your site, it’s important to look for ways to help reduce the amount of work search engine crawlers and AI algorithms need to do to find and understand everything you’re publishing. One effective way to do this is to introduce schema markup, or structured data, onto each page.
Structured data helps categorize and tag all your content into a specific group, which can then be referenced later on. For example, you could categorize your site content into recipes, step-by-step tutorials, top seller lists, online product reviews, and many other classifications.
The primary goal of using structured data on your site is to have your content appear directly on Google’s rich snippets. These are more detailed listings of your site with high-value real estate on the first page of Google SERPs. However, gaining this position also increases the chances that the content and a link back to your website are also used when creating Google AI Overviews or when being referenced in other AI-powered search tools.
Think More About User Experience
Google has made it clear over the years that it doesn’t support websites that use shady tactics like keyword stuffing or black hat link building techniques to gain better search rankings. However, it does place a high value on websites that regularly try to improve the user experience.
For businesses, this means regularly checking on your website’s performance and paying close attention to how quickly your pages load, whether or not the site is easy to use, if it’s mobile responsive, and how engaged users are on the site.
If your website performs well, it signals to Google and AI answer engines that there is real value to readers worth linking back to.
Work On Your Topical Authority
With AI being such an important factor in modern search, it’s more critical than ever for your business to increase its “topical authority.” This essentially signals to search engines that your website is a trusted and knowledgeable source on specific subjects.
Building this kind of authority doesn’t happen instantly. It requires consistent, but progressive steps to increase your standing as a go-to resource in your field. An effective strategy to achieve this is to create broad “pillar” content pages for your main subjects, and then develop clusters of related content that link back to them.
Instead of trying to cram everything about a subject into a single page, these pillar pages provide an excellent overview while guiding visitors (and search engines) to more detailed pages that cover specific, interconnected areas. This approach demonstrates to search engines that you possess in-depth expertise in your industry and can effectively address a broad range of questions related to a core theme.
Help Your Business Gain More Visibility on AI-Powered Search
With AI-powered search now becoming the preferred format for finding information online, it’s crucial for your business to make the right SEO shifts in order to gain the visibility you need to increase your organic web traffic.
By following the strategies discussed, you’ll ensure that your content is more easily indexed by search engines and AI-powered tools, while also building a strong site foundation that helps future-proof your SEO efforts.
