Are you unlocking new SEO opportunities for your business?
AI search is arguably the hottest trend in digital marketing right now. However, SEO novices might think they only need an AI chatbot to 'get rich quickly.' When everybody begins to big something up, it is best to be cautious and resist the initial hype (for now).
After all, focusing on the fundamentals – optimising your website, creating content and attracting natural backlinks – still drives SEO results today.
However, suppose you want to expand your business online and get ahead of the competition. In that case, here are our SEO opportunities worth investing in this year.
SEO opportunities to invest in this year
Although AI will undoubtedly impact our online presence, until we know its impact, I have listed what is correct to continue doing for your online business strategy this year.
Helpful content update – change in content focus
The helpful content update (HCU) rollout was completed in January 2023. Afterwards, Google declared it a permanent ranking system, not just a new core update.
Google released the following: "Google Search's helpful content system generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to ensure better people see original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results. This page explains more about how the system works and what you can do to assess and improve your content."
However, what was fascinating is that Google's guidance is noticeably shifting from "just create great content, and the rest will follow."
Now, Google stresses that helpful content is imperative instead of only 'quality content'. Google has become less reliant on backlinks and directly determines the quality and usefulness of content algorithmically.
If you have always followed Google's advice, your website is likely filled with high-quality content. However, today, you will need to do more.
We are used to seeing quality content that gives context, cite sources, or provides additional links. Helpful content is more than this and should have the following components:
Content should convey expertise
Helpful content is written by industry or subject experts who are specialists within their field of content writers who have interviewed those who are experts. It was a core part of Google's original E-A-T.
On the other hand, automated AI content or other cheap, mass-produced content merely summarises sources located across the web. It is secondhand, uses older sources (likely outdated) and is unrelated to experience – equivalent to hearsay or gossip.
Solves particular problems
Quality content has become more academic and journalistic.
Content writers must check sources, verify the information and follow other links for additional context and insights.
Helpful content solves respective problems from the outset and:
It does not distract but offers what people need when they need it.
It is not content for content's sake.
It is not made for virality.
It should have a specific use case.
Explains how to remedy a common problem or deal with a known issue.
It provides an individual solution that does not require a click back to Google.
Offers additional sources and links to them if the reader wants to learn more on the same topic (think how Wikipedia does many links).
Offers actionable advice
Helpful content explains achievable solutions by offering step-by-step actionable tips for implementation.
For example, many 'how to create a website' guides only explain how to set up a base website like WordPress or Squarespace without actually advising about what the website wishes to achieve, for instance, e-commerce, non-profit, SaaS or gaming. If they did, they would, for example, recommend Shopify for e-commerce.
Another example is food recipe websites. Although they include the ingredients and recipe to make the final product, they also have a lot of 'fluff' beforehand in an attempt to rank higher for rankings. Most of these guides or recipe URLs contain affiliate links so that the site owner can obtain as much revenue as possible from clicks on the links.
Straightforward, actionable advice is needed here, not what the website owner wants to do (make more money) but what the site visitor wants to know (learn how to cook or build a business website).
Helpful content is straightforward and all-encompassing
Helpful content does not require users to complete forms, sign up to get a quote or download gated content, or pay unless they buy a product.
Helpful content should contain all the information a user needs and not distract them with a service or product sale or the need to hit the back button to the original results. 'Pogosticking' (clicking back to the search results impacts whether Google believes a site is worth visiting.
Lastly, the landing page should not be a transit place or 'blog spam' linking elsewhere.
To repurpose your content and make it helpful, you should:
Answer specific questions.
Make body text readable/scannable.
Provide and list solutions.
Optimise for specific user intent.
Recognise your existing web pages as an opportunity. Invest resources to repurpose into helpful pieces by solving problems people search and ask for (see the final section).
Google's people-first ranking criteria: E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T is a significant change to Google's guidance for search quality. Experience significantly adds to the principles of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
Whilst Google does rate the user experience highly and is fond of websites and articles with a clean UX, optimised for site speed, with uncluttered ads above the fold on webpages, UX is not part of E-E-A-T.
The new "E" in E-E-A-T refers to the experience that people who created the content have. Google will reward firsthand experience. Again, it is clear that they want to rank content from people familiar with a topic instead of merely auto-generated content.
AI tools do not have firsthand experience in dealing with many manual processes. However, AI cannot cook, do yoga or play basketball. It can only study the theory and existing content and paraphrase it - and they take sources across the internet that may be outdated or questionable.
Even though AI can drive a car and chat with us, it is usually not the same AI that generates content. Unless the Tesla AI bot starts blogging about our daily commutes, there is no firsthand experience to benefit.
Gain a competitive advantage by finding the right people and making them write for you. We are talking about experienced subject-matter experts who also exhibit authority on the web and have gained considerable trust from audiences.
Either invest in yourself, your team and the capabilities required in your field or reach out to people who already have them.
E-E-A-T is an excellent opportunity to stand out and differentiate your business from the millions of mass-produced and often automated mediocre content.
In an era of overhyped AI content, Google wants to prioritise passionate people who fully understand the subject they cover. E-E-A-T is evident proof of that.
Google's favourite SERP feature: 'People also ask' questions
To guarantee the deliverance of helpful content, respond to actual demand. There is no better way to do so than by looking at People Also ask (PAA) questions. Google already shows them below most results for main search queries.
I noticed that PAA questions benefited my SEO when I got thousands of visitors for one of the most popular navigational queries on the internet.
Initially, I was sceptical because I've experienced bugs and worthless traffic spikes.
Not this time.
After further study, I became a fan of PAAs. They began helping our clients, particularly newer ventures to grab lowing handing fruits and get started on their organic traffic roadmap.
According to Semrush and RankRanger data, the lion's share of search results had PAAs. Thus, making PAAs the second most important SERP feature after site links.
Enjoy their benefits traffic-wise whilst they are around. In the past, we had to mine third-party resources, such as:
Forums (LinkedIn and Facebook groups).
Q&A sites (Reddit and Quora, AMAs).
Keyword research tools.
You can still do these.
However, it is better to go straight to the source. Visit Google, search for most, even broad one-word queries in your industry and then look up the questions served.
Before PAAs, featured snippets were the next big thing. Nevertheless, there were 10x more PAAs than snippets on Google by 2022, and featured snippets often led to zero-click searches. You usually need schema markup to rank for snippets, which means additional work.
PAAs are different.
They increase traffic to previously less prominent websites.
To mimic these tactics, you must provide a helpful resource with straightforward text formatting (tables, lists) that is easy to read and understand.
Take Google's advice with a grain of salt, but do not ignore them
We do not want to follow Google and believe everything they say blindly. They might omit things they do not want you to focus on or use language that is hard to decipher. Read between the lines when it comes to official announcements and documentation.
Implement sustainable SEO strategies that will work long-term. They may not be as shiny as the latest AI-powered tool, but they will help you stay in business for years.
