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SEO in 2025: How to Prepare for the Future of S...

SEO in 2025: How to Prepare for the Future of Search

Future of SEO talk for Spotlight by Semrush.

Michael King

October 30, 2024
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  1. 1 1

  2. 4

  3. 6 6 In 2016, I Said the Future of Search

    Looked Like the Movie “Her”
  4. 8 8 Where Do we Stand with the Required Tech?

    In the video I talk about everything required to make the Her chatbot and assistant real. We have had all these things since 2016 and they have only gotten significantly better since. ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 😬 😎 ✅ Location Persistent User Context The World’s Information Always-on Device Natural Language Processing Machine Learning + Computing Power Speed Good User Experience
  5. 10 10 In May of This Year, OpenAI Rolled Out

    Voice-Mode that Sounded Eerily Similar to Scarlett Johansson
  6. 11 11 Where Is Search in its Maturation Search is

    currently in its Minidisc era, where there’s innovative functionality that shows promise, yet isn’t gaining widespread traction. Much like the Minidisc offered better sound quality, flexibility, and compact storage but failed to capture the market, search engines today offer advanced features—like AI-driven query understanding, personalized experiences, and semantic search—but users often stick to simpler behaviors or don’t fully explore these innovations. Vinyl 8-track tapes Cassette tapes Compact Discs MP3 Players Streaming Minidisc
  7. 13 13 What Do You Need to Accomplish Bespoke UI

    Search? Location Persistent User Context The World’s Information as structured data Natural Language Processing with Transformers Always-on Device Machine Learning (GenerativeAI) + Computing Power Speed Good User Experience The innovations of of the past 8 years have made all of this possible now.
  8. 14 14 Until we get there, we are trapped in

    the messy middle of Search.
  9. 15 15 Then Google is Facing a Series of Existential

    Threats Some threats were more real than others (e.g. TikTok never got more traffic than Google), but it’s the perception of Google being in a downward spiral that they to contend with.
  10. 16 16 OpenAI attacks Google on two fronts: 1. Polluting

    the index. 2. Disrupting the modality.
  11. 19 19 Google Has Four Advantages Over Any Challenger to

    Search Multiple products with 1B+ Users More behaviorial data They invented the tech They don’t need Nvidia
  12. 20 Government Remedies Are the Only True Threat to Google

    Search If the US government issues remedies that destroy Google’s monopoly on Search, that could change the complexion of the competition, but right now none of the competitors, including OpenAI can stand a chance. Google is positioned to chill out and watch everyone burn through all their cash while Google refines its product.
  13. 21 21 There is a Precedent in the EU of

    Google Having to Share Its Data with Other Search Engines
  14. 22 22 Remedies Could Also Include Breaking off Chrome or

    Android This would be somewhat meaningless because Chrome and Android are open source projects and Google could continue to steer them by dominating contribution.
  15. 23 23 Some Say The Alphabet Setup Was Preparation For

    A Breakup It’s hard to know how a Google breakup might impact the digital marketing world, but it’s safe to say that Alphabet is prepared for that potential eventuality.
  16. 24 24 Whatever Happens, The Future Will Be Built On

    the Past On-Page Content Structured Data Topic Modeling Behavioral Signals Content Layouts Page Performance Internal Link Volume External Link Quality External Link Velocity
  17. 26 Gen Z Has A Higher Propensity to Use Multiple

    Channels for Search We can expect that younger generations will look to get their information needs met in various ways rather than just going to Google.
  18. 27 27 Track Where You Appear in Generative Search Companies

    like Profound are popping up with solutions to track how brands are showing up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. As these platforms grow in usage, there is value in understanding how you appear.
  19. 28 28 Google’s Share of Advertising is Shrinking Google has

    seen softening in its dominance of search advertising in recent years. This is a threat to the business since search ads are its primary driver of revenue.
  20. 31 31 The Last Time People Said Search Quality Was

    Bad we Got Panda and Penguin Panda fundamentally changed Organic Search. You could no longer create “SEO content” and rank. The SEO community then embraced content marketing knowing that it’s the only way forward with creating content that yields utility. Penguin did the same for links. Google’s Helpful Content update is the new sheriff in town.
  21. 32 32 Many Sites Using GenAI Content Got Crushed by

    the HCU The Helpful Content Update stared as a benign series of algorithm adjustments, but has become more aggressive as cries about Google search quality have gotten louder. h/t @LilyRayNYC
  22. 33 The TikTok Threat will Mean More Visual Content Ranking

    To compete with the visual content channels, Google is surfacing more visual content in the SERPs and adding more features that allow users to get exactly where they want to go. This will threaten standard Organic positions for web content.
  23. 34 34 Short Form Video is About to Get More

    Competitive The video and image real estate in Google is going to become even more competitive since marketers recognize short form video as high ROI and the primary way to reach Gen Z.
  24. 35 35 Action: Publish Your Short Form Video on your

    site A primary mistake that content marketers make is only publishing their short form videos on a channel like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. You should also publish them on your site using tools like Wistia and marking them up with structured data so they can appear in the SERPs.
  25. 36 36 Ad Sales Being Down Means more Ads What’s

    up with all this whitespace? What’s up with this featured snippet?
  26. 37 37 The real estate will get smaller, so your

    content must be that much more effective when it shows up in the SERPs.
  27. 38 38 Action 2: Monitor SERP features for your target

    keywords to see if you need to pivot Monitor which keywords start showing SERP features like videos, images, and AI Overviews. If you don’t have competitive content in those formats, you’ll need to rebalance the keywords you’re targeting.
  28. 39 Action 3: Indexing is Harder; Monitor it It’s not

    being talked about as much, but indexing has gotten a lot harder since the Helpful Content update. You’ll see a lot more pages in the “Discovered - currently not indexed” and “Crawled - currently not indexed” than you did previously because the bar is higher for what Google deems worth capturing from the web. Action 3: Monitor your Crawled - currently not indexed and Discovered - currently not indexed pages reports in GSC.
  29. 40 40 Google Wants to Crawl Even Less Gary Illyes

    has indicated that he wants to have Google crawl less. Search quality certainly cannot suffer, so crawling has to get increasingly intelligent.
  30. 41 41 Action 4: Monitor your Crawl Rates Settings >

    Crawl Stats in GSC. ProTip: You will often see that there is an inverse relationship between crawl requests and average response time. The faster you make your site, more Google will crawl.
  31. 43 43 Google is Turning Up the Dial on Information

    Gain Conceptually, as it relates to search engines, Information Gain is the measure of how much unique information a given document adds to the ranking set of documents. In other words, what are you talking about that your competitors are not?
  32. 44 What You SHOULD Be Adding to the Conversation To

    avoid being a copycat of the content that currently exists on the SERPs, publish the content that only you can publish: • Personal insights • Relevant stories and anecdotes • Original research • Expert opinions • Brand-generated content (videos, infographics, thought leadership) In other words, create the content from ideas and expertise that only you (or your team of experts) would have.
  33. 47 47 It’s Goog Enough As @AJKohn discusses in his

    “It’s Goog Enough” article - https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/its-goog-enough, Google is continuing to go in a direction that is more self-serving than user serving. Intent mismatches Overreliance on UGC Too Many SERP fe
  34. 49 Affiliate Content Appears over Experts Why doesn’t a sleeping

    blog post appear in the top results for best mattresses?
  35. 51 51 AI Overviews are here to stay, and they’re

    changing… April, 2024 October, 2024
  36. 55 Query Refinement Google continues add query refinement and navigational

    tools that also clue us into how Google is identifying relevant topics. Source: https://blog.google/products/search/re fine-search-results/
  37. 56 New Tests: Local - July 2024 Announced in May,

    Google will be rolling out AI-organized search results for local searches on mobile devices Source: https://blog.google/products/search/g enerative-ai-google-search-may-202 4/
  38. 57 New Tests: Shopping - October 2024 Google announced that

    they’re rolling out new AI-Organized Search results on the Shopping tab Source: https://blog.google/products/shopping/ google-shopping-ai-update-october-202 4/
  39. 58 SEOs Will Realize the Power of Search as a

    Branding Channel How search behavior is changing.
  40. 59 59 SEOs will Finally Embrace Brand It’s no secret

    that big brands are rewarded by Google both via rankings and SERP feature placement. The signals that brands generate are reflected in how Google’s scoring functions work.
  41. 60 Search is a Brand Awareness Channel Brands understand the

    value of being seen in the channel even if a click isn’t driven. SEO will need to shift from a pure performance mindset to partially brand mindset and adapt brand visibility metrics.
  42. 61 61 The Helpful Content Update was about BRAND? Source:

    https://moz.com/blog/helpful-content-update-not-what-you-think
  43. 62 Brand Authority Brand Authority™ is a score (1-100) developed

    by Moz that measures the total strength of a brand. Contrasting the BA:DA ratio of tens of thousands of sites in the Moz corpus allowed me to test a theory—that Google's Helpful Content updates heavily leveraged brand signals. It looks like they do! ~ Tom Capper
  44. 63 The Helpful Content Update was about BRAND? Based on

    Tom Capper’s findings, there is a high correlation between the ratio of authority and brand performance and performance in the HCU updates.
  45. 64 64 Action 6: Track Brand Visibility Track your rankings,

    impressions, and visibility in SERP features in a separate report to indicate brand health. Specifically, you should track average position, rankings, impressions, and presence in featured snippets, AI Overviews, and People Also Ask.
  46. 65 Use this Dashboard as a Start We’ve created a

    Looker Studio dashboard that combines data from Semrush and Google Search Console to track brand visibility. https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/re porting/create?c.reportId=3ad27fb0-dd4 1-4a6b-a509-7d61895d93a7&r.reportNa me=iPullRank%20%7C%20SERP%20Feat ure%20Brand%20Visibility%20Tracker&c .mode=edit
  47. 66 How to Ensure Your Content Continues to Perform Four

    tactics you need to employ to maintain visibility in the future of Search
  48. 67 67 The Four Things You Should Do We don’t

    have time to cover them all, but these are four things that you should do to navigate the future of Search. See the post-credits scene for the remaining two. Topical Clustering Content Pruning Leverage All the Structured Data Embrace Retrieval Augmented Generation
  49. 69 69 You May Have Heard That About.com Split into

    Several Websites and they All Collectively More than Outperform About.com Source: https://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/about-com-domain-splitting/
  50. 70 70 One Reason is due to Better Topical Clustering

    The more related content is to other content on a site, the more authoritative the site appears to be on that subject.
  51. 71 Here’s an Example of a Topic Cluster You should

    be orienting your site in a logical topical structure where related subjects are connected together by the internal linking structure. This reinforces the relevance of the subject matter that you cover. When the content is also recent, heavily linked to externally, and provides a strong user experience, that is the ideal state.
  52. 72 Site Embeddings Are Used to Measure How On Topic

    a Page is Google is specifically vectorizing pages and sites and comparing the page embeddings to the site embeddings to see how off-topic the page is. Learn more about embeddings: https://ipullrank.com/content-relevance
  53. 73 Content needs to be more focused We’ve learned definitively

    that Google uses vector embeddings to determine how far off given a page is from the rest of what you talk about. This indicates that it will be challenging to go far into upper funnel content successfully without a structured expansion or without authors who have demonstrated expertise in that subject area. Encourage your authors to cultivate expertise in what they publish across the web and treat their bylines like the gold standard that it is.
  54. 74 74 Check How Focused Your Site Your Site Is

    Use this tool with your site to score how focused your content as as part of your content auditing efforts. https://ipullrank.com/tools/site-focus-c alculator Anything below a 0.7 is worth reconsidering.
  55. 75 Build Topic Clusters Well defined topic clusters can position

    your website and brand into an authority in your space and strengthen your entities in the eyes of Google. A site that focuses on a series of topics that are relevant to each other are going to benefit in rankings. Here are a few tools that can help you design and build your topic clusters systematically. Thruuu https://thruuu.com/keyword-clustering-tool Keyword Insights https://www.keywordinsights.ai/features/keyword-clustering/
  56. 79 79 Content Decay The web is a rapidly changing

    organism. Google always wants the most relevant content, with the best user experience, and most authority. Unless you stay on top of these measures, you will see traffic fall off over time. Measuring this content decay is as simple comparing page performance period over period in analytics or GSC. Just knowing content has decayed is not enough to be strategic.
  57. 82 82 Interpreting the Content Potential Rating 80 - 100:

    High Priority for Optimization 60 - 79: Moderate Priority for Optimization 40 - 59: Selective Optimization 20 - 39: Low Priority for Optimization 0 - 19: Minimal Benefit from Optimization If you want quick and dirty, you can prune everything below a 40 that is not driving significant traffic.
  58. 83 83 Combining CPR with pages that lost traffic helps

    you understand if it’s worth it to optimize.
  59. 84 84 Step 1. Pull the Rankings Data from Semrush

    Organic Research > Positions > Export
  60. 85 85 Step 2: Pull the Decaying Content from GSC

    Google Search Console is a great source to spot Content Decay by comparing the last three months year over year. Filter for those pages where the Click Difference is negative (smaller than 0) then export.
  61. 87 The Output is List of URLs Prioritized by Action

    Each URL is marked as Keep, Revise, Kill or Review based on the keyword opportunities available and the effort required to capitalize on them. Sorting the URLs marked as “Revise” by Aggregated SV and CPR will give you the best opportunities first.
  62. 88 88 Get your copy of the Content Pruning Workbook

    : https://ipullrank.com/cpr-sheet
  63. 89 How to Kill Content Content may be valuable for

    channels outside of Organic Search. So, killing it is about changing Google’s experience of your website to improve its relevance and reinforce its topical clusters. The best approach is to noindex the pages themselves, nofollow the links pointing to them, and submit an XML sitemap of all the pages that have changed. This will yield the quickest recrawling and reconsideration of the content.
  64. 90 90 How to Revise Content Review content across the

    topic cluster Use co-occurring keywords and entities in your content Add unique perspectives that can’t be found on other ranking pages Answer common questions Answer the People Also Ask Questions Restructure your content using headings relevant to the above Add relevant Structured markup Expand on previous explanations Add authorship Update the dates Make sure the needs of your audiences are accounted for Add to an XML sitemap of only updated pages
  65. 91 How to Review Content The sheet marks content that

    has a low content potential rating and a minimum of 500 in monthly search volume as “Review” because they may be long tail opportunities that are valuable to the business. You should take a look at the content you have for that landing page and determine if you think the effort is worthwhile.
  66. 93 93 Preparing for the Future Publish short form video

    on your site Monitor SERP Features Monitoring Indexing Monitoring Crawling Focus on Content Quality Not Content Volume Track Brand Visibility
  67. 94 94 Focusing on Content Quality Topical Clustering Content Pruning

    Structured Data Embrace Retrieval Augmented Generation
  68. 95

  69. Thank You | Q&A [email protected] Award Winning, #GirlDad Featured by

    Download the Slides and Check out the Post-credits scenes: https://speakerdeck.com/ipullrank Mike King Chief Executive Officer @iPullRank
  70. 99 Embrace Structured Data There are three models gaining popularity:

    1. KG-enhanced LLMs - Language Model uses KG during pre-training and inference 2. LLM-augmented KGs - LLMs do reasoning and completion on KG data 3. Synergized LLMs + KGs - Multilayer system using both at the same time https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.08302.pdf Source: Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap
  71. 10 0 Action: Revisit Schema.org and Incorporate Anything Relevant to

    Your Content Historically, we’ve only incorporated structured data that has yielded rich results. Now is the time to use anything that is relevant to your content because generative systems use it all.
  72. 10 1 10 1 Blocking LLMs is a Mistake. Appearing

    in these places will be recognized as brand awareness opportunities very soon.
  73. 10 9 The GEO team shared their ChatGPT prompts The

    GEO team also shared the ChatGPT prompts that help them improve their visibility. You can augment them and put them to work right away. https://github.com/GEO-optim/GEO/blo b/main/src/geo_functions.py
  74. 11 1 11 1 Combining a Search Engine with a

    Language Model is called “Retrieval Augmented Generation” Neeva (RIP), Bing, and now Google’s Search Generative Experience all use pull documents based on search queries and feed them to a language model to generate a response. This concept was developed by the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) team.
  75. 11 2 11 2 Documents are Broken into Chunks and

    the Most Relevant Chunks are Fed to the Language Model to Generate a Response
  76. 11 3 11 3 The Three Laws of Generative AI

    content 1. Generative AI is not the end-all-be-all solution. It is not the replacement for a content strategy or your content team. 2. Generative AI for content creation should be a force multiplier to be utilized to improve workflow and augment strategy. 3. You should consider generative AI content for awareness efforts, but continue to leverage subject matter experts for lower funnel content.