AI-Powered Search Engine Tools: How They’re Impacting the SEO Landscape

Search engine optimization (SEO) has always been one of the most effective strategies for generating organic web traffic for business websites. While general SEO guidelines have changed over the years, the same foundational rules have generally applied for organizations wanting to create more visibility for their sites on Google.

However, while these same principles are still important today, introducing newer AI technologies is challenging how digital marketers prioritize their content optimization efforts. 

With solutions like Google’s AI Overviews and other AI answer engines completely evolving how users search for and access the information they need, it’s becoming critical that businesses adapt their SEO efforts so that they’re more likely to be listed in these AI-generated search results.

How Search Engine Algorithms Have Changed Over the Years

Years ago, if a business wanted to gain more visibility on Google, incorporating more relevant keywords was relatively easy. Fifteen years ago, all anyone needed to do to climb the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) rankings was increase the number of keywords they used on a page.

However, it didn’t take long for Google to realize that businesses were taking advantage of this and would simply spam their pages with irrelevant keywords and phrases to get more visibility and increase their click-through rates. Today, though, things are much different.

Over the years, Google introduced several significant updates to its search algorithms that focused on enforcing best practices when creating and marketing new web content. These updates penalized site owners who tried to game the system with spammy SEO tactics and instead rewarded those who placed higher priorities on creating great user experiences.

A major turning point in Google’s search algorithms came in 2018 when it introduced BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), an AI language model designed to create more intelligent search engine spiders that leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and focus more on user searches' intent than just keyword matching.

New SEO Trends Being Impacted By AI

The introduction of AI technology has been transformative for a wide range of industries, especially when it comes to improving online search experiences for users. However, the introduction of new AI-powered search features has also impacted certain aspects of SEO. Some of these notable changes include:

Less Focus on Keywords and More Importance on Search Intent

One of the primary reasons Google has introduced AI-powered improvements to its search engine is to continuously improve the user experience. Part of these improvements has been focused on providing much more accurate responses to their queries.

To support this effort, AI tools are designed to look past the type of keywords or phrasing that individuals use to describe their needs. Instead, they focus more on the context of the inquiry using advanced machine learning capabilities and NLP. 

This means that many organizations' traditional SEO focus needs to shift from keyword relevancy to content development that directly addresses users' needs.

The Importance of Topical Authority

Generative AI tools and Google’s most recent search algorithms use topical authority as a primary factor for deciding what type of content to reference when generating search result summaries. This type of content is harder to replicate and often comes from highly reliable, trusted websites and online resources.

Topical authority comes from exploring topics in detail, often touching on various subtopics that help to provide much more comprehensive coverage of niche ideas and concepts. When websites structure their content in this way, it’s easier for AI tools to provide more valuable references for their users, often making these the preferred sources to train their AI models on.

Meeting all of Google’s E-E-A-T Guidelines

With the extensive amount of information available online, Google has created specific guidelines to help differentiate between quality content and content that offers little value to readers. Search engine crawlers and AI tools now actively search for information that provides Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

For businesses, this means that simply meeting a certain word count or keyword density has much less bearing than it used to on whether or not the content actually gets seen.

Strategies for Creating More Resilient SEO Campaigns

Using Conversational Writing Formats

Many of the devices most people use every day, including smart home assistants or voice search applications on phones, leverage conversational AI to turn voice prompts into text-based commands. This is what allows them to understand precisely what you’re trying to search for, even if you ask for it in different ways.

For businesses managing company websites, it is crucial that the content on your site supports this type of conversational structure. Speaking to readers like a real person and avoiding overly confusing jargon actually makes it easier for AI tools to reference that content when providing relevant results to users.

Leveraging Schema Markup

To help AI answer engines and search engine crawlers better understand the type of content your site provides, structure each of your content pages with structured data, or “schema markup. "This essentially categorizes your content for search engines so they know the primary goal it's trying to achieve.

When you use structured data on each of your content pages, it makes it more likely that information will appear as rich snippets in AI Overviews or on the first page of Google’s results pages. This can significantly increase the visibility of your site and increase the amount of organic traffic you bring in.

Deeper Topic Coverage

Topical authority and Google’s E-E-A-T are critical factors in establishing content relevancy, so businesses should focus on deeper topic coverage when developing their content marketing campaigns.

One way to achieve this is to establish topic pillars that discuss a main idea or niche and then branch off into individual pages focused on various supporting subtopics. When AI crawlers find that your core topics are backed by deep research and have a number of supporting pages linked to them, it tells them that your website can be relied on as a valuable source of information and increases your chances of being referenced in AI-generated results.

Building a Strong SEO Foundation for Your Business

Today, building a strong SEO foundation for your business means structuring your site content so that AI tools and answer engines are able to better understand and reference it. By following the strategies outlined, you’ll be able to future-proof your business’s SEO efforts and ensure that regardless of new algorithm shifts, you’re still able to maximize your site’s visibility.

Ricardo Gonzalez

Jason Khoo started freelancing in SEO in college, sold his first agency, and now is the founder of Zupo, an Orange County-based SEO consulting agency helping construct powerful long-term SEO strategies for our clients. Jason also enjoys multiple cups of tea daily, hiding away on weekends, catching up on reading, and rewatching The Simpsons for the 20th time.