Why Artificial Intelligence (AI) Has Changed The SEO Landscape

November 30, 2018

in SEO

Searching online has become a huge part of our day to day lives—we often take for granted the fact that it’s so conveniently available. Whether you’re at home, at the office, or in a random city in a different country, you have access to the limitless information on the internet so long as you have a phone in your pocket.
Given how easy it is to search for anything, marketers and content creators want to make sure that whatever they put out there gets on your radar. In the past, these content creators relied on suspicious techniques to beat the system, like overly stuffing articles with the keywords they know users commonly search for.
That’s all changing now that artificial intelligence, or AI, has entered the picture.

What Is AI?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a broad term that describes a machine or program that is constantly learning and evolving in a similar fashion to the human brain. For SEO its purpose is to identify, sort, and present information that a user to the user based on their search algorithms. It’s also highly dependent on variables that transcend whatever phrase you type into your search bar.

AI is influenced by existing data, including but not limited to:

Content
Links
User behavior
Trust
Citations
Patterns

The system will process that data; and together with machine learning, the experiences of users, and big data, it formulates its own ranking framework for search results that should come close to what a user needs.

On a practical level, this means that AI considers so many factors in your query, like your favorite websites, where you are, your search history, and even what links others have clicked on for a similar search.

So How Is SEO Affected?

Whether you realize it or not, AI is already a game-changer when it comes to SEO. But here are some concrete ways that show how AI has paved the way for SEO to evolve even further.

It’s All About U–ser Experiences

The algorithms of search engines have become highly intuitive, which means they don’t just take into account what you’re searching for. They also look into why you’re searching for it. This means the results that come out will be more personalized and relevant to you.

We see this AI behavior in RankBrain, Google’s machine learning system, which uses the ability of AI to go the extra step and takes previously gathered information to predict what you’ll ask next based on your search behavior. This takes into account the factors previously listed above to prioritize the results you may be looking for.

All of this matters because instead of spamming their content with keywords, brands and companies should be more motivated to drive their content to answer the questions their target audience could be potentially asking.

Are You On Mobile?

As of 2016, almost 60 percent of all Google searches are done from a mobile device. That led Google modifying their algorithm to favor sites with a mobile-friendly format over those that don’t.

This has forced brands to make sure their sites are compatible with mobile devices and even step up their app game because this could be the next step towards ranking high on Google searches.

As it stands, the desktop version of websites is the norm. But moving forward, the mobile-friendly versions could very well be the standard, while the desktop versions are the second option. It also shouldn’t be surprising if more and more brands put time and resources into having an accompanying app as it leads to better search results.

Alexa, Why Do Voice Searches Matter?

Thanks to virtual assistants like Google Now, Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, we don’t even need to type to search anymore. But there’s a difference between searching by typing and asking Siri a question.

If you’re in a foreign city like Auckland and you’re looking for the best places to eat, you can just type “top recommended restaurants Auckland.” But you can’t ask Siri a question using those exact words alone.

Voice searches tend to be more conversational, so you’ll have to ask Siri, “Where are the highest-rated restaurants in Auckland?” As a result, companies should be looking into voice search strategies to take advantage of this trend.

What we might see in the future is more brands optimizing their content to incorporate conversational language or researching which keywords work best for conversational searches. That will reflect in the tone and delivery of the actual content of websites.

What Does This Image Really Say?

In the past, search engines can only sift through text. But now, they can identify the actual content on a video, image, or audio clip.

What this means for visual artists is that they have to keep SEO in mind now when they produce images and videos, the same way writers had to learn how to incorporate keywords into their content. This includes optimizing video descriptions, length, tags, filenames, and keyword targeting among others.

It might even lead to videographers, whose work will only specifically revolve around SEO content. We’re already seeing it through social media managers, who use video sharing and live broadcasts through platforms like Facebook and Instagram. More and more content creators and marketers are learning about and implementing these techniques to optimise SEO on YouTube.

Ultimately, this could lead to the end of keywords as we know it.

Will The Type Of Content We Find Online Change?

Perhaps, but only in presentation.

We still see a lot of content that is dependent on the use of keywords. But through this new wave of SEO, the priority shifts from what the users look for, to the actual users themselves. This means that content is most likely going to be more concept-driven.

As most SEO specialists have come to realize, AI has evolved to the point that what should ultimately matter is relevance, quality, and value of content.