Recently, I have been asked by several different people to explain why the search results for their business are not showing up like they want. Upon asking them for a bit more information, I realized they were looking at AI generated search results.
A couple of people wanted to know how the AI search result overview was affecting their SEO efforts. Both questions are very relevant and are questions that I believe the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Digital Marketing industries are asking themselves.
What is an AI Search Results Overview?
An AI search overview is a search result, on Google for instance, that attempts to answer your query without having to send you to another website. You have probably seen them by now. These results appear at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) as an answer to the search query or question you used to initiate the search.
These results are often several paragraphs in length and offer a great deal of information on the topic of your search query. Many times, you can find the answer you are looking for right there on the results page without needing to go any further. This is where the term Zero Click comes into play. You never click on any links to go to another website to look for an answer, so this is a Zero Click search result.
This is very helpful for the person doing the search, but it has significant implications for the people and businesses who were hoping to get traffic to their website. If you have noticed a drop in traffic to your website, this could be one of the reasons.
Companies spend lots of time and money on SEO to try to make their website appear at the top of the results page. Now, those results are falling to the second half of the SERP and may not be seen at all.
How Do AI Search Results Work?
AI search is not creating information. It scours the Internet for information on a topic and collects all of that information. Then it produces an organized, hopefully helpful and personal, response to the query it was given. The accuracy and benefits of said results is only as good as the information it was fed.
AI gives more “weight” to content from websites that rank well and are perceived as being experts in the field of information for the requested topic. That means if you have worked hard to get your website ranked through SEO and other digital channels, the AI results could very well be using your information to answer these questions. It stinks, doesn’t it?
Are There Any Advantages of Zero Click Results to My Business?
I have tried to think of some advantages to this new search results format for businesses, but I have not come up with very many.
The best advantage comes from the fact that if your information was included in the results, there should be a small link to your site as an annotation for that segment of the results. People can click on that link to go to your site to find more information. How many people will actually do that, however, is unknown. It might grow as people get used to these results, but it may not.
Another way that AI results may help a business is that it will cut down on the amount of superfluous traffic to a website. This will mean that more of the traffic that comes to your site is closer to becoming a customer than someone who is just looking for a small piece of information. Yeah, I know, not very helpful.
This really only helps if you are a business that sells a product or service that people will buy through your site. If information or content, such as blog posts, are your product, then this will be even less helpful.
Should I Even Bother With SEO?
After reading all of this, you probably are wondering whether or not you should even bother with SEO, anymore. I have had the same thought myself.
My conclusion is that not only should you worry about doing proper SEO, but that you may even need to step up your game. Let me explain.
Good SEO will help your site rank better, and while you may not be able to directly control what appears in the AI search results, you can help give your business the best possible outcome by ensuring your SEO is not only ranking you well but also showing the content you want to be seen in those results.
Does this mean you have to change your strategy? Maybe so. As we go forward, we are going to see this change. Change, they say, is inevitable. The best way to stay ahead of the curve is to look ahead and keep up. I have been doing SEO since before Google existed and I can tell you that it will change. AI search results are here to stay, at least until something better comes along. The challenge before us is to learn to thrive in the midst of this change.
