With Google rolling out its SGE (Search Generative Experience), Erik Wikander from Zupyak, Rana Abu Quba Chamsi, PhD from Expando, Veronika Höller from CompuGroup, and Laurence O’Toole from Authoritas join our host David Bain to discuss what impact it will have on SEO strategy.
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David Bain
What does SGE mean for SEO? In today’s episode of the Majestic SEO Panel, we’ll be covering what Google’s Search Generative Experience means for SEO and what to do about it.
I am David Bain and joining me today are four wonderful AI for SEO experts. So first of all, let’s say hello to Rana.
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
Hi. So this is Rana. I am a consultant on SEO and local SEO in Switzerland. And I’m a digital marketing expert, also in Switzerland, and in Europe.
David Bain
Superb, thank you for joining us, Rana.
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
Thank you for the invitation.
Veronika Höller
Hi, my name is Veronika. I’m from Germany. And I’m a global SEO lead. So I’m an international SEO. And I have worked in digital marketing for 16 years now.
David Bain
Lovely, thanks so much for coming on Veronika and also with us is Laurence.
Laurence O’Toole
Hi, everyone. My name is Laurence O’Toole, I’m the CEO of Authoritas an SEO software platform. It’s been building SEO tools since 2009. Suddenly, with AI overviews, rank tracking has gotten sexy again. So I’m really happy to be talking about this subject today.
David Bain
Sounds good. And last but not least is Erik.
Erik Wikander
Hi, I’m Erik. I’m the co-founder and CEO of Zupyak. We do large scale keyword research and SEO content creation using AI.
David Bain
Wonderful stuff. Thank you, Erik. Thank you everyone for coming along. So to start with, SGE provides an AI overview for certain queries. And Laurence, you’ve got some slides that explain that. So I’m going to show them just now. And Laurence, if you could perhaps just provide an overview of this, then we’ll get everyone’s comments on it.
Laurence O’Toole
Yeah, thanks, David. Obviously, this is quite new for a lot of people. And especially if you’re listening to this in Europe, or Australia or watching it and you haven’t experienced an AI overview at the top of the search engine, you may wonder what the hell we’re all talking about. But Google started its experiment with what it was calling Search Generative Experience back in May 2023. And if you were in the US and a couple of other countries eventually, and you opted into Google Labs, and you had logged into your Google account, you could start to see these new results appearing at the top of your search results.
So I think we’ve got an example on the next screen. There’s been lots of different types so far. This is a typical AI overview. And it’s a summary that appears at the top of the search results for certain terms. And it’s generated by Google’s large language models. A custom version of Gemini that it uses to produce this result. Now, why is this such a big deal? Well, certainly during SGE labs, this was appearing for lots and lots of queries. And since Google announced its full rollout of what they’re now calling AI overviews, last month. This is starting to become more commonplace in the US, the UK, and Google’s announced it’s rolling it out fully now. At the moment, we’re only seeing it for logged in users. But when it does appear, it pushes all the organic results, your featured snippets, Certainly my experience has been rank tracking since 2009. And in the SEO world long before that. This is probably the biggest change we’ve seen in living memory. So if you look at it, we’ve seen a number of different types of AI answers appear. And there’s been what we call three types of triggers.
So it’s on the right hand side of this screen. If you’re watching it, you’ll be able to see an auto generated one. This is where you type a query in, Google actually summarizes using a large language model and gives you a full new feature at the top of the SERP. The other one is a sort of a button where it just says get an AI to overview for the search and that appears above the normal organic rankings. And the one we’re seeing most commonly now is what we call a show more or a teaser, where you get a little snippet of content from the AI overview and a couple of listings and a show more link which if you click it expands fully.
We did a couple of studies during the period when Google had SGE in beta in Labs. And in January, we just studied over 1000 ecommerce keywords and we found that 86.8% of ecommerce keywords generated AI answers. And we did a study on brand terms and product terms in March and it was 91%. Since Google announced its full rollout last month, we’re seeing around about 6% of keywords showing AI overviews. And that’s data from this week. 99% of those examples have the show more type of trigger as in, they’re partially expanded at the top of the SERP. So, that is obviously gonna have a big impact on your organic rankings and the traffic you’re receiving from search, either positively, if you start to rank in these things, or negatively if you’re number one organic results, or featured snippets have pushed down the page.
I think the other thing to note in our research as well is that 60% of the URLs that are cited in the new AI overviews aren’t ranking in the top 10 organic results. So it’s important, it is going to have a big impact. It’s just rolling out and we’re not seeing it in all markets yet at all. And we’re only still seeing it for logged in Google accounts. But if this becomes mainstream to non logged in users, it’s going to have a substantial impact on traffic. It’s still early days, I think Google’s been cautious because of the well publicized, embarrassing, which we call them anomalies that have been publicized, like, you know, teaching people to eat rocks and jump off bridges, and God knows what else so. So it’s early days. But this is something as marketers, as SEOs, as brand leaders, we should be thinking about right now.
David Bain
Right, okay, shall we move on one more slide?
Laurence O’Toole
Yeah, we’ve got one more. And then just an example. On the left, obviously, the screenshot is more illustrative. But this was a featured snippet on the left hand side of the page with AI results off, SGE off. And then when you click the button, or click the Show More link, it pushes it right down the page. So what we’re seeing is, on average, around about six or so new URLs are inserted into the top of the page. The AI overviews can appear above or below adverts. But always above the existing organic listings or Featured Snippets.
Google has announced that they are going to now start testing some ads in the AI overview feature, but we haven’t seen that in the wild just yet. It sounds like they’re testing it already. And just by way of giving you one stat to take away if you’re listening, or watching, the number one organic ranking is pushed down the page by an average of at least 640 pixels, as based on our study this week. But we have seen it anywhere from 200 to 2000+, depending on the nature of the query. And if you think about a desktop viewport, that’s like two page scrolls. So you’re going from potentially getting traffic to oblivion. So, the impact is potentially massive.
David Bain
Absolutely. Thanks so much for sharing that Laurence. In fact, I love the simple phrase AI overviews, it’s such a powerful summary of what you can expect from Search Generative Experience, because I think if any marketer hears that phrase Search Generative Experience, it just doesn’t mean anything to people. But it just summarizes actually what you can expect from that and how it may actually impact search results. And I’d love to throw it open to see if everyone else has some thoughts on that.
Rana, what are your initial thoughts?
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
As Laurence has said, it’s really one of the most important changes that has touched the SEO area since a while. But hopefully, what we have to do is to adapt with these changes, for example, we have as also Laurence has said, the results, the collaborator sites that we see in the AI overviews are not on the top of the organic results. So, we should really understand how these websites have arrived at the stage and do the same. For example, in the content that we will be creating, we have to create some concrete answers to questions and the trend of having the ultimate guide to this and that should have to be changed now and on. So instead of having an article of 2000, 3000 words, we might have little blogs that can answer a specific question, like how people will talk to the AI. And it’s a continuous work on which we should look all the time on the results that are showing and the AI overviews so that we can do something similar to them.
David Bain
So, Rana, in your opinion then, just going into that specific example, is it not possible to have a lengthy article 2000 or 3000 words, but have different sub headings and navigation that gets you to different sections of that article? And sections of that article answer very specific questions, or do you think it’s much better to optimize for that specific question within its own separate webpage?
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
Based on what we have seen right now we have both, like if you are already a well established website that has great organic results, you might probably appear on the collaborator sites that we see in this AI generated paragraph, but for new brands and brands that are not exactly as strong. Now, if you want to go into this AI challenge, on the AI journey, maybe you should now focus more than ever on the long tail keywords, and try to answer specific questions so that you might be appearing in the above. But this doesn’t prevent us from seeing many examples in big articles that are showing up. But we have been surprised by some small articles that are answering very cleverly a question by, for example, writing very clear answers with a similar AI perspective that are showing from these collaborators sites in the AI area by Google.
David Bain
A further question that I want to ask you, Rana, is how do you actually select and decide upon the right keyword phrase to be targeting for AI, the right longtail keyword phrases? But maybe I’m going to park that thought, you could have a think about it. And we’ll move on to Veronika. Veronika, what are your initial thoughts on what Laurence was sharing?
Veronika Höller
So what I’ve seen, it’s not coming out of the blue, this AI overview. Since years Google prepared for better content quality, better websites, technical websites, faster websites, I think it’s also a generation switch. So now the generation set is growing overall, they are their native digital natives. And what we see is also that they put in more social media posts.
For example, It’s not only the website or the articles, it’s also social media posts, it’s images, it’s videos from different platforms. So I think, how we prepare for it, we create landing pages, they tell a whole story with different multimedia content types. And we use these content types for all of the platforms we use for social media, for example, for PPC, for all we can use this multimedia content. And what we have seen, or what we have studied the last few years is the new behavior, for example, since the pandemic. So there was a study from Google that the internet is getting more emotional, and interactive. And this is exactly what will happen.with the AI overview is to start to switch from this new behavior in the future. And I think if we make forced, easy to navigate, and really interesting with high quality landing pages or websites, then it’s not the problem to show up in the AI overviews, but we should think about the multimedia content. We have seen a lot of images and videos in the AI overviews.
David Bain
Lovely. And perhaps I’ll come back to you asking you about how you decide specifically what type of multimedia content to be using for each keyword phrase. But let’s move on to Erik. And Erik, what’re your initial thoughts?
Erik Wikander
So I think we’re moving closer to what is a good Google experience if you compare it to the old one. I think, finally we can have a good way of retrieving it from question because if you compare it to the pre AI world, that wasn’t very good if you think about it. So you put all the work on the user to click through 10 real links and hope that you find the information in these articles. And now we’re hopefully with the help of AI able to provide better answers to people’s queries. I think it’s a very interesting shift. And even though we’re seeing these early issues with Google aggregating all sorts of weird things around putting glue on pizza and eating rocks, it steps towards what I think is the next generation of the search experience. And I’m really keen on that experience, because I don’t find the current Google a great experience. I mean, if you try to look for something, you usually have to make your query a bit more stupid, because you know, you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for.
I often use the example of when I went to Barcelona in April with my family. We wanted to find something to do with our three year old. So I knew that Google was stupid, I wouldn’t find what I was looking for. So I limited my query to ‘things to do in Barcelona with kids’. And then I have to crawl through 20 pages of random information to try and find that information, which I couldn’t. But in an AI world, I would have searched for ‘things to do in Barcelona with a three year old boy in April’, and it would have given me the relevant results. So I think the moment that people realize that Google isn’t stupid anymore, this could cause people to actually go and try and find what they’re actually looking for. So our thinking is that this will sort of extend the long tail, and the long tail will be like a longer tail. So you would see search queries, moving and shifting to much more niche searches, which will put more pressure on the content creators, but also open up the opportunities to serve these long tail searches, which also plays into sort of the supply side of content, which I find is fascinating, because I think the only way to address this extended long tail is both by the research happening with AI, there is no way you control through all of these new searches using manual work. So you will have to apply AI to keyword research. And then for content creation, there is no way you can address all of these search queries that are very small in volume with manual content creation. So I think, for the next phase of AI content, we’re going to see addressing that sort of extended long tail. And I think where we will end up like, hopefully end up, my hopeful view of the future is a world where information is more easily retrieved. So I think there’s sort of a happy ending to all of this, where it’s going to get sort of a bumpy ride on the way there but I’m really excited about it.
David Bain
Laurence, do you actually share Erik’s view that we’re just on a journey at the moment that Erik has a positive hopeful view? To a certain degree?
Laurence O’Toole
Yeah, I think you described it as sort of a better experience or a good experience. I still think what we’ve got today, even with AI overviews, is antiquated. If you think about the potential of where this is going in terms of multimodal search, searches, videos, and images, in terms of multiple agents doing things for you, I’ve seen a taste of that and some of the videos that Google’s given away, you’ve seen things like that one of the Gemini launch videos at the end had, I think an example of someone organizing a birthday party for an eight year old and the AI decided that the actual format of the results would lend itself better to some sort of different type of layout or grid layout. So it sort of wrote the Flutter code to create the interface on the fly.
So I think we’re still in its infancy, AI overviews are a good positive step in the right direction, from a consumer experience perspective. SEOs may not agree or may not like them, especially if you spent months and 1000s and 1000s of dollars trying to get these top positions and suddenly you’re pushed out and you now need to start learning and understanding why but I think from a consumer perspective, I can see how it can produce a potentially a better result. In many ways it’s the landscape and the example I gave you. You know I’m looking to buy, I always use lawn mowers for some reason, a large normal for a garden. I get taken into shopping now and might get a couple of generative articles and review sites. And then I get shopping ads, a grid of products. The experience is just horrendous. From a consumer perspective, not from an SEO perspective. And, yet Google has the large language model tools at its disposal to make that filtering based, much, much better and much more like, a cross between Google and Tinder where you swipe right or left. I want to sort by that feature. And it’s quick, quick, quick, quick, and I found the best lawn mower for a large garden. It shouldn’t be as hard as that. And it cannot be waiting for the comparison from the different shops to pop up. So I agree with Erik, in terms of it, it is a small step in the right direction. But I think what it signals is a massive change that is coming over the next couple of years. And I would be surprised if in two years time the SERP looks anything like it does today. And if Google Search does, then people will be using something else, like Tinder.
Erik Wikander
To build on the lawn mower example, which I think is a good one. They showed us in some demo where they had aggregated user reviews to serve the search intent. And I think that’s so fascinating, because who has the best answer around what the best lawn mower for you is? There’s a couple of sides to that but probably it’s the user reviews that someone is saying that you have a lawn mower that’s this size, or whatever you’re looking for, it’s probably not the vendor of the lawn mower, the reseller is probably the users who have experienced that lawn mower. And I think that’s what we’re seeing now: we’re shifting to more authenticity, and users saying things. So that’s why I think we saw some of these Reddit examples, like they pulled in Reddit. And it was something someone made up, it was a joke, like they’re striving to get authentic content. And I think in that strive we have some bumps on the road, where people put glue on pizza, because someone joked about it, but the path is very clear that they want to go that route.
David Bain
Do you think SEOs have to accept that we’re now moving to a world where a lot of content will be consumed on the SERP or on AI platforms rather than your own website?
Veronika Höller
Yes, I’m sure. So we have to jump in a little bit earlier. So it’s what we don’t think about at the beginning, they have a testing phase. And nowadays it is starting, it will take time but I’m sure it will be a really good experience for users, not for SEOs. So I’m sure it’s not going to be easy for us, but for users, I think it will be really, really good. And what we haven’t mentioned is a lot of people use ad blocker. So if I use an ad blocker and go to the AI overviews, I don’t see ads, for example. So I don’t see many shopping ads, I only see what’s listed on the sides. So this is also something that people can do. And I think we have to prepare for all of this. So a lot of content, a lot of tests, A/B testing.
So I think the whole universe of optimization is open to us right now. We have to test what works best. And it’s now the time to make this. We have time to test what’s working, what’s not working. And I really believe that Google wants to be an answer machine and not a search machine anymore. And I’m sure they will get the point to be there. So I think with all our multimedia content we create for this new area. I think that we’ll get going faster this way.
David Bain
So how do you decide on the right piece of content to be trying to serve for a particular keyword phrase, the right type of media and the right level of answer?
Veronika Höller
What we have done, we are in the health sector and we have to cater for doctors for example, it’s one product for us. And what we have done all the years is prepare content for doctors. Long articles, not easy to read. White Paper checkers. I’m from Germany, we love all such text things so it’s crazy. But what we have seen right now with the generation switch and the new search, you can create short videos. For example, a short video up to 90 seconds for a keyword phrase. For example, ‘what is the best food for my breakfast’. And then we have created a video with our customer voice explaining why our software is the best in using and showing how we use it in a short form, we have created this one in long terms and in short terms. And we have tested on cartoon and real faces, so with real customers, and also in cartoon form. And we’ll also test at the moment with some teaser videos. So AI produced videos will only have an avatar, for example. And then we’re shown software in short frequencies. We also use our podcasts and make short frequencies. And if there’s a question that is really relevant, then we make only a video with this answer from discussions. And we also make a lot of infographics. So really clear images with all information. So users only have to click and see all the information. Also it is important to write metadata. And you have to use all platforms, really all platforms, not only your website, use everything you have social media, PPC, whatever.
David Bain
Out of interest, did you find your users preferred human faces or cartoon faces?
Veronika Höller
It’s funny, it’s human faces right now. So it had switched. So as we started this first cartoon, and then we started again, A/B testing and now it’s you human faces. So I’ve got a feeling they want more emotion.
David Bain
How long do your short, concise videos tend to be?
Veronika Höller
We have 30 seconds to 60 seconds.
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
And what platforms do you use?
Veronika Höller
We use YouTube Shorts and on social media, and PPC. We also uploaded under our PPC campaigns. And we put it all on the website, if it’s not too much. At this point we choose which ones we place on the website.
David Bain
Rana, earlier on you were talking about the importance of targeting the right keyword phrases. So how do you go about selecting the right keyword phrases to target for AI?
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
Actually, I check the short term answer, the long term answer in order to know what keywords are already there. If you have tested the AI overview, you will notice that not every word, not every search will show this AI generated results. So first thing, like for example, when we want to create a video, we will go to this keyword if this keyword will show up the video and the results of Google that mean this is a keyword related to videos. So this will encourage us to use them to create the video related to these keywords. It’s the same thing for the AI overview, which means I will go take these keywords and look for them on Google and see if there is an AI generated answer. So that’s a good start, of course, I will not choose any keyword, I will choose the best ones using the tool that would show moderated complexity, which will give me for example, transactional attention for the user. For the long term keywords, my answer would be to be creative, because now we are in a market that’s developing. So maybe you will believe you know your work. So if you believe some keywords, some suggestions may have more searches later why not begin working on them now? So in the short term, try Google AI overviews to see if it is used, to see if you have results and in the long term answer, be creative. And I believe that being more creative will pay its price now. So the more that we can be unique and show that we are different. This will help us to show up better on Google not only by copying the competitors and doing some old stuff related to that.
David Bain
Can we talk a little bit about measuring success? Going back to Laurence, do we have to simply count the number of times we appear on the SERP within an AI driven result as success? As people being exposed to our content and our brand or other better ways to do it?
Laurence O’Toole
So I do think the additional measures that SEOs might have used to track success are going to be potentially redundant in a very short time when this rolls out fully. So for example, as SEOs often use SEO visibility metrics and search volume times click through rate curves, for example, now, the click through rate curves are gonna go out the window. Google’s already said, they’re not going to share a breakdown of AI overviews in Google Search Console. So we’re left to try and model that which is possible in Google’s search console, which I’m sure we can discuss. Traditional metrics will go out the window. I think you’ll have to look at a number of different metrics.
So first of all, you need to understand where you’re ranking today. And then where you’re ranking if someone clicks on an AI overview link and expands it. And you will need to understand what domains and URLs appear in the AI overview, and whether you’re placed in them and what position on the page your organic rankings fall into. Even within that, there’s some nuances, you may be ranking but you may be hidden in the carousel. So if you know that you’re fourth in the carousel for a keyword but just hidden, not visible on the page, a little bit of optimization tweaking might get you into a really good position on the page for that keyword or keywords.
So, there’s definitely some nuances there. I think you need to understand lots of different things. You might look at query reformulation, for example, Google is using a retrieval augmented generation type of search now. It is taking the original query, as I understand it, and is embedding that and comparing it. So it’s a different kettle of fish. And actually, why the AI results are so different to organic is that Google is giving an additional broader context. And it is returning results from not just your seed query, but a set of related saved queries. And then getting the large language model to summarize those. So I think not a lot has done research on query reformulation, I think it is a really important aspect of this to understand exactly what Google is asking. It’s almost like an AI prompt, you type into ChatGPT.
A person who is looking for large lawn mowers might want to help their purchase decision. So I might be looking at petrol versus electric robustness, different brands, a variety of different things. And the AI overview is giving you some of that additional context. We need to understand the number of appearances in AI overviews, the number of appearances where you’re hidden, impact on rankings, positive and negative. And the other thing I would also say is, it is really important to understand the generative to organic alignment. So if you look at the top organic results, and you look at the top generative results, how close are they? Are the top generative results coming from the top organic results? If they are – great, but if they’re not, then you may need to write new content, your site may not rank quickly, Google is trying to show different types of context to the user. And then that may be a case of digital PR and link building to get placement in those sites. it’s a whole world of new metrics.
Erik Wikander
I fully agree with Laurence. And I think if you sort of extend that line of like, where’s this all going, I think the keyword rankings and the positions might be under threat. If you think about it, the better Google gets at serving the right content to the right people. The right content may be different for different people. So if search becomes truly personalized with all the data that Google has, it could challenge the whole sort of current way of operating, which is keyword rankings, because then one keyword ranking could be different from one user to another. So I think it’s interesting and thought provoking to think about what if everything resets, like what if all the ways we measure SEO today go away? And we have to find another way, which is more about Share of Voice in the overviews. So I think it’s an interesting way of thinking about it. And I don’t know if that’s going to happen or how far that way could be.
David Bain
Very cool. Erik, what does SGE mean for building personal brand authority and business brand authority?
Erik Wikander
I think it will put more emphasis on authority within your space, because we’re already seeing things, there are predictions that the crawl budgets will decrease because of all the computing needed with all the AI content, like the flood of new content being created, the rate of which new content is being created, meaning that Google are quicker to assess whether you should be seen or not in your area. So maybe it comes back to: does Google think that you’re relevant in the space that you’re in? If you’re an oil company, maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to speak about electric vehicles. So it may come back to like, what do you have the right to talk about? And how do you sort of build on that? And maybe you should have less content than you have today? Because you’re talking about two or three things that Google doesn’t think that it’s relevant to you.
David Bain
How do you decide on what you have the right to talk about?
Erik Wikander
Well, ultimately, for now, it’s Google that decides but I think it comes back to the relevance that Google thinks you have within certain niches and external mentions. Someone mentioned you, Laurence, you mentioned digital PR, like how you’re seen and perceived. And are you seen as an authority, which in the old way used to be links, and now it’s moving maybe more to social mentions and press and so on. So who knows? I think links are, of course, still a thing. But will it be a thing in the future? Who knows? It’s been talked about for like 10 years.
Laurence O’Toole
Also content authority. I think Google measures content authority.
Erik Wikander
Yeah, that’s a good point. And that factor will also increase the better Google becomes at assessing how good a piece of content is using the LLM. So I think you’re right, Laurence, I completely agree.
David Bain
Rana, is there anything you’d like to add to this particular sort of thoughts?
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
I totally agree. I believe that social signals will play a role more and more. Because how can Google know that I’m an expert in this domain? We do it in SEO thanks to the backlinks. But now more and more the social signals, the customer feedback will sharpen this and take it to the point. Like if you have tried, there are many, and many blogs, where they have been discussing that the results and the AI overview is changing quite fast. So if you use the search now, and you will do it later within a few days, maybe you will find the results changing more quickly, than what we have used to see in SEO normally on the organic search.
So I see that it’s still not stable, it’s still not clear, and it will need some time to be here. But I believe that more and more social signals will play a role. The feedback of the user, if he will stay, if he will go and see the page. Then if he will do, for example, if he is looking for something to buy, then one of the results in the AI overview, then he will buy from me. So this will be a great signal. It’s about social signals, and about what the customer will do after seeing this website.
David Bain
Veronika, what are your thoughts on that, social signals having a significant impact on AI results?
Veronika Höller
Yes. So this is something that we have seen also in the past year. I think it will be really important and it’s really important to have a holistic digital marketing strategy. So the times where we have channels like social media, PPC, SEO are over. If we want our brand to be strong and our message to be seen by people, we have to be in an holistic approach. So all channels have to work together to show up. I don’t measure SEO and click rate or how we show up and AI overviews, for me, it’s only important, how much profit do we get from. And for me, it doesn’t matter from which channel the profit comes. It’s important that we don’t lose profit, because it’s such a strong change in the search. So we have to test it. So now we can’t say this is the real strategy yet, we have to test as much as possible. And I think it’s a really great time at the moment.
David Bain
Lovely. Okay, I’d like to finish up by going round each of our panelists and getting each of your opinions on one thing that SEOs need to do now, to get better prepared for AI driven search results. So if you can have a think about your one thing that SEOs need to do now to get better prepared for AI driven search results that’d be great. Thanks. And then after that, if you just remind the listener, the viewer, who you are, and where they can find out more about you. So let’s start off with Erik.
Erik Wikander
Yeah, I’m a bit biased here, because we’re building an AI platform. But I think the only way to counter this is by becoming more effective. And I think the only way to become more effective is by applying AI in your work as well. So AI can be applied across the entire process. And I think we will see more of that, from the research bit understanding what the users are searching for, at large scale, because the complexity will increase, you will need AI. And also content creation, I think we are only in the early days of AI content, where that will go is more amplification rather than recycling, which I think recycling has been. The first two years of AI content has been just repeating the same information that’s out there. So then you can also apply it in other areas of SEO. So I think that’s what you should do, we should go out and test some AI tools and see how you can apply AI in your daily work if you’re not already doing it.
David Bain
And where can people find out more about you?
Erik Wikander
Zupyak.com. You can try our tools completely for free.
David Bain
Lovely. Well, thanks for coming on. And Laurence, what are your thoughts on one thing that SEOs can do now to get better prepared for AI driven search results?
Laurence O’Toole
Like Erik, I’m probably a little bit biased. But I think his general advice is good. We are tracking results already for brands. So I’d say the most ambitious brands and SEO teams are already collecting data on AI overviews for the keywords that they care about, the keywords that are bringing them business today. Yes, it may not have rolled out in France, Germany, Italy, etc yet, but it’s coming. So the earliest you can get an understanding of how Google’s implementing it for your sector, the better. And I think you’ve got to think beyond traditional keywords, you’ve got to understand that Google is taking your keyword and reformulating that query. And it’s given a large language model, a set of documents, so you need to understand how well the generative results, marry up to organic and also where you’re performing in there. And then you need to understand your customers and segment and do research and then produce the kind of content that customers want, whether that’s short form videos on YouTube, which will work great for some brands, or in depth articles, or short to the point answers for lots of different topics. The only way you’ll know that is if you start collecting data now to really assess how it’s going to impact your brand and your customers.
David Bain
Thank you, Laurence, where can people find out more about you?
Laurence O’Toole
If you go to Authoritas.com. We’re publishing lots of AI overview, SGE research there. Or you can find me on LinkedIn.
David Bain
Rana, what are your thoughts?
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
Actually, I want to highlight that we are lucky to be witnessing this. What’s going on in the SEO world right now and to be part of this, and to join the journey. So first thing, I’m happy to be here today. Then I advise everyone, either the end user or an agency to be unique. So yes, we should use AI tools. Of course, we should try to make everything smarter and quicker. But the more we are unique today the more it will make more impact because this will attract the customer and this will find the way to take us to the top of the organic and the AI overviews. Another thing is to always keep an eye on what’s going on. Don’t stop learning. It’s now the period in which we should keep learning. Everything is changing. Even Google is developing its work day and month by month. So keep updated, read everything that’s going on, see what others are doing and keep an eye on your competitors. It’s always our secret in SEO, keep your eyes on competitors. What are they doing? And what’s going on and the AI overview, why there are some websites appearing then disappearing, how they are doing their blogs, what’s changing? It’s exactly like every SEO website, it will depend on the niche and your final customer. And don’t hesitate to A/B test everything. Try, try and try again because that’s the only way that you will be on the AI overview.
David Bain
I think you sneaked in about 10 different tips. They’re all great tips as well. Thank you, Rana. And where can people find you?
Rana Abu Quba Chamsi
On my LinkedIn page on RanaChamsi and on my website, expando.digital. It’s my agency, the agency that I have created in Switzerland.
David Bain
And, Veronika, what would be your key tip that you’d like to share with people about how SEOs can get better prepared for AI surge?
Veronika Höller
Yes, so like the panelists before me said, think of your customers. And what I want to add is, please think holistic, and go work with your departments together with your freelancer or in-house, if they work on social media, or on PPC, if they are not in your house, or other agencies or other freelancers, work with them together and also work with your UI and UX team.
So this change means they want to make it better for users. And sometimes we have only our SEO view. This is not the right view sometimes. So be open and profit from the knowledge that other ones have. And then you have a clear branding and a clear strategy and a strong brand.
David Bain
Sorry. I just pictured you wearing a t- shirt. ‘Just because I’m an SEO doesn’t mean that I’m always right’.
Where can people find you, Veronika?
Veronika Höller
On LinkedIn, Veronika Höller.
David Bain
Wonderful. I’ve been your host, David Bain, and you’ve been listening to the Majestic SEO Panel. If you want to join us next time, sign up at majestic.com/webinars. And of course check out our other series at SEOin2024.com. In the meantime, bye-bye for now. Thank you.
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