I recently conducted research for a digital marketing roundtable I’m facilitating and participating in with a bunch of fellow digital marketing experts this week. The SCORE Boston roundtable provides the opportunity for small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs to get their burning digital marketing questions answered. I knew one of the biggest questions that was going to come my way — being a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert — was going to be related to AI search.
What Does AI Search Mean?
“AI Search” is a very broad, general term that is used to refer to/encompass:
- the tools aka search engines used by individuals to gather collected and streamlined information related to various questions and topics on which they are searching online
- the way/means that many searchers want and expect to gather information using search engines today vs. the way they did several years ago
- individuals don’t want search engines to just spit back a series of websites or other online/digital properties and profiles that they would, then, need to separately visit — they want content served up to them that most closely answers their questions/challenges without having to figure out which online properties served up in search engine results they should visit/would most directly answer their question(s)
- the serving up of content by search engines that best suits a searcher’s needs/reason for searching based on signals the search engine is getting from the searcher; the consolidation and gathering of content all in one place — saving searchers time and money; in addition to serving up consolidated/summarized content that search-engines believe will best meet a searcher’s needs, the serving up of websites (from which summarized/cited/consolidated content is drawn) that will provide more detail (in case the searcher wants to dig deeper), plus the provision of videos, infographics, and images in search results that may answer a searcher’s question. We bolded the aforementioned statement because this is a very important shift related to SEO and how search engines present information of which organizations wanting and needing to be found online need to be aware.
In sum, AI search is all about gathering and summarizing various digital properties and assets that will make it as easy as possible for the searcher to understand a particular topic and be able to take action, based on getting sufficient, digestible/consumable information to take the next step.
Numerous AI Search Engines Fighting For SEO Supremacy
At the time of the research we referenced completing at the top of this blog post, we were able to identify approximately 30 different AI search-engines fighting for SEO Supremacy, and there’s likely more to come. Plus, because Google recently lost an antitrust lawsuit, it’s likely that other search engines are going to gain a greater foothold in the world of search, particularly Bing. In general, in the past, SEO best practices were geared toward pleasing Google and responding to Google’s ranking algorithms (however, note that most past SEO activities related to ranking well on Google should have also supported ranking well in other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.).
So, What Should An Organization Who Wants And Needs To Be Found Online Do On The SEO Front During This Big Search-Engine Shift And Period Of Uncertainty?
We believe that, regardless of which search engines become the dominant ones in the world of AI search, each and every search engine is going to want to serve up helpful content that answers pressing questions of searchers. Because, hey, that’s what AI Search is all about. As SEO experts, we believe what we’ve shared in these past blog posts still holds very true and will support organizations ranking well in whatever search engines individuals start using most, including AI ones:
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The blank H1 heading and empty snippet make it difficult to understand the article’s topic or intended takeaway. Adding a descriptive title and a short summary would give readers useful context.
The article appears to contain only an empty level-one heading, so there isn’t enough substantive content to comment on yet.
The empty level-one heading and repeated blank snippet make it difficult to identify the article’s main topic or takeaways. Adding a descriptive title and a short summary would give readers useful context.
The article appears to be missing its actual title and content, so there isn’t enough detail to comment on meaningfully.
The minimalist presentation is intriguing, though I’d appreciate a clearer heading that signals what the article covers.
The article content appears to be missing, so there isn’t enough detail to comment on a specific point.
The article’s H1 appears to be missing or not rendering correctly, so it’s difficult to tell what topic the post is addressing. Checking the heading markup would make the content much easier to understand and navigate.
The article’s heading structure is clear, but the empty snippet makes it difficult to understand the main topic or takeaways. Adding a brief introduction beneath the level-one heading would give readers useful context.