AI, SGE, & Helpful Content: Thrive in the new SEO Landscape - MergedFutures6
Defining the latest challenges (opportunities!) with Google's SGE (AI Overviews), Google’s E.E.A.T. guidelines and Helpful Content system, the use of AI in workflows, and the May 2024 Google Leak, to effectively adapt and thrive in SEO.
ranks first in Google Source: askoptimo.com 50% Of users can detect AI content Source: bynder.com 90% Of online content will be AI- generated by 2026 Source: europol.europa.eu
is trained with good stuff: …and compromised stuff: Wikipedia Books Scientific papers AI product and service pages AI news articles/blogs AI social media content Original, helpful content
content, but it has to be: • Original • Helpful • Reliable • People-first • Employ E.E.A.T. – Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust Source: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content
content, except…. Perfectly good content, except…. because Google clocked-on My client’s content wasn’t ranking… Free AI detector: https://www.scribbr.co.uk/ai-detector/
layers to your prompts: • Define the audience and search intents you are targeting • Research and use keywords • Filter common AI terms (e.g. “consequently”, “furthermore”) • Use unique images and rich media • Add useful info, stats, and examples, crediting sources • Ensure its original (use AI and plagiarism detectors)
launch in UK / worldwide by end of the year. To access it: sign-up to https://labs.google and use a VPN. More likely to trigger it with question-based queries, specifically: • Healthcare queries (63%) • B2B queries (32%) • Ecommerce queries (23%) Source: https://www.brightedge.com/blog/10-observations-about-transition-sge-ai-overviews-may-2024
says you don’t need to do anything, but… • Answer questions in your content and be specific • Optimise for featured snippets and use schema (QA/FAQs) • Use videos and images where possible – they are popular in AIO • Build topical authority and topic clusters • Ensure content meets ‘Google’s Search Quality Guidelines’ • Earn and build relevant, high authority links to your website
launched the helpful content system, aimed to surface original, unique, people-focused content. Updates: • Dec 2022: focus on link spam • March 2024: reduce unhelpful content by 40%, and target ‘site reputation abuse’ (low quality content on reputable sites) • May 2024: more targeting of ‘site reputation abuse’ • The results aren't perfect!
in your lane: focus on the topic/s you are an expert on • Audit your content and create a strategy: defining the purpose and audience • Optimise it for audience search intent (keywords, answers, and format) • Develop your website’s E.E.A.T. • Guide: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating- helpful-content
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness • Part of the ‘Search quality rater guidelines’ – a checklist that human quality raters use evaluate the quality of websites • A short, public version of the doc: https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf
Social engagement External article Share personal experience Accurate, reliable info Get relevant backlinks Secure website List experience Relevant content Public advocate Link to socials
Where? • Author bios • About us • Social media • Your site, partner sites, publications The content Where: • Your site • Partner sites, publications • List specialist topics, education, and work experience: on author bios and about us pages, (on website, publications, and social profiles) • Be a public advocate: represent your experience with articles, presentations, podcasts, on your website (author bio/author filter on blog), socials, and external websites • Help others: contribute on social profiles, groups, and forums, answering questions as an expert • Build relationships: with other authorities, attending conferences, networking, collaborating on projects, showing this with posts on websites and socials • Respectful others: when engaging on forums and social media • Share personal experience with the topic: where relevant, include images, videos, infographics • Link to relevant, credible sources: this shows you’ve done your research • Be transparent about limitations: if you don’t have answers, be honest about it • Get backlinks: from relevant, high authority websites • Create high-quality content: Well-researched, well-written, informative, accurate, and up to date • Be objective and unbiased: where relevant • Cite trustworthy resources: via links and citations • Secure landing pages: ensure the content is HTTPS secure and uses other security features
Google said before? Clicks and engagement are ranking signals ‘Navboost’ and ‘Glue’ tracks clicks and engagement via Chrome on Search results and landing pages Google previously denied tracking clicks and engagement, despite case study data ‘siteAuthority’ is a thing Comparable to ‘Domain Authority’ in SEO tools, or Google’s old ‘Page Rank’ metric Google said they didn’t measure domain authority anymore Toxic backlinks Stating whether a page is penalised for having bad backlinks Google previously said they no long penalise sites for bad links, just ignore the links Chrome user data is used …to impact rankings Google said this data wasn’t used Quality rater feedback used Appears to be directly used in rankings systems (think E.E.A.T.) NA Confirm how links are important High quality links = regularly updated sites, ranking high, relevant topic, gets clicks NA ‘siteFocusScore ’ Measures whether a site sticks to a single topic NA
Google said before? Authors (E.E.A.T) mentioned a lot Mentioned as ‘person’ or ‘creator’, optimising for authors as an entity helps you rank NA Sitewide title match score Closely matching page title text with search queries, and having a resulting high CTR from SERPs, helps whole site rank better NA Anchor miss-match Link text context needs to match what a user will see at the destination – no clickbait! NA Location demotion If you are associated with one location, other location rankings will get reduced NA Exact-match domains Keywordy domain names will get demotion NA Navigation demotion If your navigation and user experience is poor NA
• Make product/service, and informational content more engaging • Monitor clicks and engagement (GA4, Hotjar etc) Helpful content and E.E.A.T.: • Build author authority • Produce more fresh content • Stay in my lane: ensure the site stays focused on the main theme/topic its related to
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