How AI Is Changing SEO
How AI Is Changing SEO
Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, has long been a buzzword in the tech world. It was promised as a life-changing piece of technology for many years, with very little to show tangibly for all the hype. But through recent advancements, we’re now experiencing AI’s impact on our world every day.
AI-powered chatbots help with research and writing—both words and code—and they can have conversations with people in a human-like way. Beyond chatbots, AI has been integrated into self-driving cars, robots, healthcare, manufacturing, and much more in the last year alone.
But where AI is brushing up with people every day is online, whether that be on social media like Instagram’s use of Meta AI in their search, or in Google’s AI-powered search engine. That leaves digital marketers wondering what the rise of AI means for SEO and the future of search.
AI’s Impact on Search Algorithms
No doubt about it, AI is changing SEO and search engines. For instance, OpenAI recently introduced their new search engine called SearchGPT, a search tool powered by artificial intelligence, which they hope will rival Google and Bing.
However, AI is not replacing SEO. If we define SEO as “the tasks needed to improve search engine visibility” then SEO needs only to accommodate AI. AI digital marketing leans on SEO to find the most relevant sources of information and provide a snapshot response. Sometimes, Google’s SGE—or Search Generative Experience—compiles multiple websites’ information on a topic. And for some queries, it generates content directly from one source, word for word, and lists that at the top of its search results.
In the latter example, it’s not much different than the way we’ve experienced search engine results pages (SERPs) for years. When Google’s SGE selects one source to use in its snapshot of information, usually a link to that source follows the AI-generated answer. In other words, while AI is changing SEO, the highest-ranking result is still being found and used by Google the same way it has been in the past.
When SGE is incorporating multiple sources in a snapshot response, Google is pulling from the top ranking SERPs, putting an emphasis on great SEO and high-quality content within sites.
Do SEO Companies Need to Be Concerned?
It isn’t bad if AI takes over Google. AI needs information, too, and it will have some mechanism to let one website be listed before another. From a business perspective, this really doesn’t change anything. People are going to AI for information purposes, which is a threat to things like Wikipedia and big blogs (information websites). But people are not going to AI to find a list of plumbers or HVAC companies. If they do use AI to find businesses, then SEO still applies. AI reads websites, finds the ones that best match the question best, and provides a list. Naturally, websites that are optimized to accommodate AI, and search algorithms, will perform better.
All of the SEO content optimization SharpNet does is perfect for AI. Also, AI like OpenAI, actually leverages the Bing search engine for real-time data, and then augments the results with AI responses. Every way that AI is getting information, SharpNet—and SEO—is doing what is needed to be relevant. You can experiment with searches and see how ChatGPT is gathering details from search engine results. For example, if you ask ChatGPT to “provide a list of SEO companies in Fort Collins,” the first on the list is SharpNet. But we certainly didn’t do anything specifically for OpenAI to be first on the list. Our normal SEO processes are doing just fine.
How AI Is Supplementing SEO Practices
“Content is King” -Bill Gates, 1996.
Nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates authored an essay predicting the future of the internet and how crucial content would be to that future. Now, we’re seeing his predictions on full display. Not only is written content still king, but content creators—mostly, those who make videos on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube—are so effective in marketing, more than half of Gen Zers want to be influencers.
Google E-E-A-T
When it comes to marketing content, specifically ranking in SEO, quality content is still king. AI can assess content quality extremely quickly, and it prioritizes high-quality, relevant, and authoritative information when people perform searches. Google determines the caliber of content by using E-E-A-T, or Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
And those factors are what our content experts at SharpNet Solutions focus on bringing to each and every landing page, service page, and article we write. Our marketing professionals treat each project like a research paper, investigating the specifics of product and service offerings, performing deep keyword research, studying the brand, and establishing credibility to boost E-E-A-T scores for optimal rankings.
We also understand how important user intent is. Many folks have heard of clickbait, or headlines that entice readers to click, but the content doesn’t actually address what the headline was about. Our content helps answer actual user needs and questions, providing a positive experience for them on the site.
While we optimize content using keywords, we also focus on semantic SEO. AI uses semantic SEO to understand and recognize the different meanings of words depending on the context of the search. That’s where our use of long-tail keywords comes into play. And how our unique, well-written content works to help websites rank and see increases in organic traffic. We craft content that makes our clients’ phones ring, versus content that gets the most clicks and looky-loos.
AI-Powered SEO Tools
On top of utilizing our world-class content team, SharpNet is also using AI-powered SEO tools to change the way we do digital marketing.
Because, as our CEO Chris Sharp explains, “As things change over time, we change too. That is what great SEOs need to do.”
Advanced Content Creation Tool: What if you trained an AI bot to create great content (like ChatGPT or Claude), but could train that bot to match the voice and style of your brand? Then train another bot to understand the rules of Google’s E-E-A-T. Follow that up with a bot that can research technical topics and relevant keyword demand. We’re not done yet; we still need a bot that understands SEO SharpNet’s way. Finally, throw in a bot that can take AI content, and then humanize it. We have designed a proprietary tool—an advanced system of professionally trained AI bots that aid our team in producing high-quality, optimized content, specifically catered to make Google happy. Originally envisioned by SharpNet’s Director of Innovation Nick Kaperonis, our advanced content creation tool does exactly that. This tool allows us to create a brand profile, complete with brand voice and intended audiences. It then scrapes the company’s existing website using AI to discover their history and background, as well as their unique selling points. Once that company profile is created, we use a variety of the most recent AI agents to help ideate new topics, create content strategies, and even provide drafts of blogs. It’s an amazing, technologically advanced tool we developed that will continue to grow within SharpNet as we move into the future.
“For any company these days, AI can do extraordinary things if you combine it with automation,” Kaperonis explains. “This is something we’re leaning into heavily, not to replace our employees, but to aid them. AI is the vehicle, but humans are the drivers.”
SEO Automation Tool: Another AI-powered tool SEO we use at SharpNet is our exclusive, in-house SEO automation tool. This allows us to input any website’s URL and it crawls the site, giving us a quick breakdown of the content already there. AI then lends us keyword idea suggestions, which our team researches to make sure pages rank. It then offers page title and meta description tags based on the keywords selected by our SEO team, a sales-friendly version of the website content.
The Future of Search With AI and SEO
As we continue to move forward in an AI-integrated world, the rules for SEO will continue to evolve. And we’ll work to stay on top of how AI changes SEO and digital marketing as a whole, as we have already demonstrated for 25 years.
User experience (UX) will undoubtedly continue to be a key player in search engine rankings. While it’s not “officially” a ranking factor currently, page load speed, mobile-friendliness, and bounce rate are all part of UX, and they can impact your SEO. Page load speed, specifically, can negatively affect SEO when Google’s crawling can’t effectively read what’s on the page. SharpNet not only optimizes websites, but we design and develop websites, too, ensuring optimal UX and core web vitals.
As AI tools improve in analyzing for SEO, the amount of time users spend on websites will continue to be important for UX. We help increase that time with our high-quality content, which provides users with necessary and helpful information, ultimately driving leads and conversions.
Partnering With AI
AI-driven tools will continue to supplement content creation and SEO, improving the efficiency and productivity of our marketing professionals. But we won’t lose sight of the importance of a human touch and human voice in order to ensure our content resonates with human readers.
As we see it, the future of SEO is bright in terms of the use of artificial intelligence. Just as we have evolved over the last 25 years, SharpNet’s professionals will continue to grow, becoming more adaptable and tech-savvy as SEO is changed by AI.
As CEO Chris Sharp explains, “SEO is just the science of knowing how to engineer a website so that our clients are on top of that list, regardless of how that list is generated.”
Embracing an Evolving Industry
AI is impacting the world on a daily basis. In many ways, it’s making things better. And while it’s certainly starting to impact SEO, AI isn’t replacing SEO. High-quality content, which we deliver to our clients, is still king. Great content creates a positive user experience and drives rankings.
Any solid SEO professional understands there are basic principles to the business, but SEO is an ever-changing industry. At SharpNet Solutions, we embrace changes, evolving and growing with technology to continue to deliver effective digital marketing services to every client we serve.
Get in Touch
To learn more about our SEO, content marketing, web design, or other digital marketing services and how we can help your business achieve your marketing goals, reach out to us today!