The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has changed so much over the years. What started as a group of scientists in the 1940s, thinking of making an electronic brain, has evolved to making AI caricatures on ChatGPT to post on our social media pages. No matter how much many resist it, AI does prove to be a useful tool in some situations.
One of these situations is AI search engine optimization (SEO). AI is currently reshaping how people research information on the internet. Search engines like Google now pull answers from AI models. These draw from multiple source pages and make a clear, simplified answer to the search question, using SEO. However, unlike traditional SEO, AI SEO optimizes to make more brands visible across all search engine experiences.
How AI SEO Is Rapidly Taking Over
AI prioritizes pages that AI systems can interpret and reference with ease. This means that clear, concise content writing is more valuable than ever, as it can be picked up by AI SEO and prioritized in searches to get your brand out there. In fact, Google AI Overviews reach over 2 billion monthly users, and researchers believe that website traffic from these AI searches will surpass traditional searches within the next two years.
AI SEO and the Zero-Click Search
With the rise of these AI Overviews and AI-generated answers to traditional searches, fewer end users are clicking through to a website, making a “zero-click search.” In fact, nearly 60% of searches now yield no clicks onto websites.
This means that users are finding the information they are looking for directly on the search results page. This shift will change how companies view their success on a marketing level. It will also impact how they track their visibility. Traffic will no longer be a good indicator of how many users are accessing your content.
What Do Users Think?
With this rapid growth, AI SEO also comes with some issues. The biggest of which is the lack of fact-checking for AI-generated answers; in fact, over 80% of users are somewhat skeptical of AI answers. Most readers who value the content they are researching still need to click through to other pages and sources to validate the answer that AI gives.
The lack of trust in these AI-generated overviews casts further doubt over this technology, as more readers report seeing misleading or wrong information in these summaries. Over 40% of users have seen misinformation in AI summaries. With these summaries replacing traditional listings at the top of searches, this misinformation can be problematic for end users.
There are ways to resolve these issues, but that partially relies on the end users and marketing teams. That is why it’s important that we learn to work with AI SEO and use it to our advantage.
Moving Forward in an AI-Driven World
As marketers and writers try to get brands out there, we must learn how to incorporate AI SEO into our work. Unlike traditional SEO, AI SEO is based more on how you write your content. It favors standalone sections and more direct language that make it easier for AI systems to track and use in their responses. It is less about keyword placement and more about clear, direct content.
Developing clear and direct content means that, instead of using marketing phrases like “best family practice,” we want to use headings for more comprehensive categories, like child wellness checks, comprehensive care management, and women’s health, to draw AI to the content.
Creating comparison tables and bulleted lists also attracts AI systems by giving them broken-down chunks to use in their overviews. Including frequently asked questions (FAQ) sections on webpages and blogs can directly answer common questions in a format that users often use to phrase their questions. It can also help pull your content to AI overviews.
How to Build Trust in the Digital Space
Even with the rise of machine learning and AI, Google still heavily favors original, expert content that is trustworthy. Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) guidelines still apply, which is why better content still matters.
AI will prioritize pages that give accounts of first-hand experience through testimonies, real cases, and original content, as it showcases your expertise on the subject and builds trust with your audience. Giving your audience tangible stories allows them to relate and visualize how your brand or service can help them achieve their goal.
Backing your experience and studies with data adds more value to your services and boosts credibility more. For example, a family practice could publish a blog about the importance of monitoring your child’s growth, wellness, and nutrition through all stages of life.
Their page can offer original research, case studies, and their unique professional insight into the benefits this can have for a reader’s child. When users then turn to Google to ask about vaccine schedules or growth milestones for their children, this practice’s content is more likely to be cited and linked in the AI Overview.
Working With AI to Share Content Further
Building a better understanding of how these AI searches work, along with knowing how to power the content they cite, helps us, as marketers, use these AI SEO tools to our advantage. As we move forward, we will continue to see growth in these AI SEO and AI-generated answer systems. It’s crucial to know how to use them to earn trust from their users.
At Better Content Matters, we help businesses navigate the ever-changing world of AI and AI SEO with content that is created by people. We offer our human perspectives and storytelling, applying them to your business’s trusted brand to bring more customers to you. We prioritize your goals for growth and visibility online. Contact our team to learn more today.
