Creating content for your website has always meant using effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies: producing the types of blog posts, headlines, landing pages, and product or service pages that would enable search engines to help your customers find you. Employing best practices helps your website show up in a Google search – or any other search engine search – at the right time.
AI is changing the way people search. Learn new ways to help bring visitors to your website.
With the advent of AI, search has changed. You may have noticed the difference during your own internet searches. When you search for something, instead of getting a list of links to websites that will answer your question, you will often just be served the exact information that you’re looking for in an AI overview. The information you seek shows up in neat paragraphs or bulleted form through the power of AI. In other words, you are getting what you need to know without having to click on a link and visit anyone’s website. This new modern convenience is also now challenging many businesses.
How AI Search Affects Website Traffic
If a potential customer can find the answer to their search without going to your website, they are much less likely to visit your website. If the answer to their question: What time is today’s matinee? or How often do I change my AC filter? can be answered without having to click on additional links, the prospect will most likely not take the time to visit your site. That means you lose the opportunity to capture their attention, address their need, become a trusted source of knowledge, and hopefully convert them into a customer in the process.
Adapting Your Website SEO for AI Search
Attracting visitors to your website via search will mean making some adjustments to your content strategy. “Fortunately, about 80% of SEO strategy on most websites will stay the same,” advises Stephen May of Crescent Leaf Technologies, Trillion’s long-time SEO consultant, “but the 20% that’s going to change can make a crucial difference and generate opportunity.” The need for authoritative original content has always been important, and there are a few ways it becomes even more important now.
The sophistication of AI can recognize much more nuance and complexity in writing, and it can recognize original insights. Posting original, clear and relevant content that demonstrates your subject matter expertise is crucial to make your content valuable and discoverable to AI.
Improve the Authority of Your Content
Clustering your content, that is, creating numerous pages supporting one topic, can increase your authority. A pillar page, which features the broadest version of a topic, can then be supported by other pages with more detailed articles on sub-versions of the larger topic, and all pages can share internal links with each other for support and continuity.
AI Search responds well to original content that is regularly updated. If content is pulled from your website in response to a search, the AI answer will link back to your site as its source.
Trillion appears as a Gemini AI Overview at the top of Google’s search engine results page when querying “brand refresh.”
How to Rank in AI Overviews
Ranking in AI overviews, as Trillion does in the example above, is closely linked to your blog structure. Making some updates to how you conceive and write content will help you adapt to the new search parameters. Keywords are still important, but the content in your paragraphs takes on heightened importance now, particularly if it can be concise and directly answer the search query.
Structure your paragraphs to specifically answer a question. The challenge-solution structure of your paragraph is something AI is actively seeking: a defined answer to the question posed in search. Although blog content has always focused on being useful, the tight structure of question and answer is an even more powerful way to create your blog posts so that, ideally, a paragraph can be clearly and concisely served to the searcher in the form of an overview.
Other Ways to Optimize for AI Overviews
- Cover your most important points or biggest “answer” at the beginning of the blog, and then summarize and elaborate on the solution as the blog progresses.
- As before, good headings and subheadings are important. Using strong headings, numbered lists and bullet points are great ways to help Google find you.
- Regularly update content so that you are providing the most recent and relevant information possible. AI can distinguish original content that is pertinent to the query.
- The higher quality content and more trusted source that your site is, the more likely it is to be featured in an AI overview.
- The answers that AI produces do have links to their sources, and these links can lead prospects to your site as they seek to learn more.
Brainstorm AI Search Topics
Rather than focusing on keywords in your content creation, consider brainstorming what people may be querying. Questions like, What is my state’s policy on alimony in divorce? Or How can I find the right freelance graphic designer? These are questions that your brand can answer succinctly and authoritatively, which should lead AI search to rank your site in their answers.
You can use a tool like alsoasked.com to help you explore what people are querying on any given topic. These strategies can help achieve a more focused yield relevant to your brand, which can produce a better quality of leads.
AI-Generated Content: What Helps and What Hurts
You may be wondering about the viability of using AI to generate content for your website. Does AI Search treat AI-generated content any differently than human-generated content? Google does not officially penalize AI-generated content if the content is high-quality. AI-generated content needs to follow the same principles that all content should follow: demonstrate expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity can be effective at creating content as long as that content has good value. They are excellent for support or a starting place for your content generation–but not a replacement for thoughtful content creation.
Using AI-generated content in such a way as to mass-produce low-quality content or to manipulate search results would violate Google’s anti-spam policies and most likely would be penalized by Google. Regardless of the AI tools you use, focus on creating content that is original and pertinent to your brand. That is the best way to improve your AI search rankings.
Use Schema Markup to Help AI Understand and Feature Your Content
Schema markup, also known as structured data, is the language search engines use to read and understand the content on your pages. “By tagging elements like product details, reviews, videos, FAQs, business information, and articles in a standardized format, schema tells search engines exactly what each part of your page means,” explains Stephen. “This allows AI Search to pull more precise and rich results, like featured snippets, review ratings, event dates and overviews that link back to your website. Optimizing schema markup can improve your SEO overall, while also improving the chances of your information being surfaced in AI-driven search results.” Using a trusted web designer or developer can help you utilize the correct types of schema across your website.
AI Search Benefits Local Content
AI search is especially powerful for local businesses. Detailed answers to local queries (“Best Tacos Near Me”) can increase the chances for well-optimized local businesses to appear in top search results. Brands that rely on local business traffic should ensure their website is optimized for AI search so they can reach their target customers.
Let Trillion Create a Website that is Optimized for Search AI
Creating a website that can take full advantage of the new AI search capabilities is a fundamental piece of an effective marketing plan. Using the new technologies to increase relevant traffic to your site and then converting those leads is the type of smart marketing that the Trillion team provides our clients. We have solutions for strategy, content and web design. Contact us to update your strategy for search AI or call us at 908.219.4703. We love to see our customers thrive.
