Search engines are losing
In February, Gartner predicted that search engine volume would decline by 25% by 2026. The overall market share would be transferred to virtual agents and AI chatbots.
“GenAI (generative AI) solutions are completely replacing today’s com aileen mcgann vice president marketing monly used answer tools, replacing user queries that could previously be performed in traditional search engines,” says Alan Antin, vice president an uk data d analyst at Gartner.
This situation will force companies to rethink their marketing channel strategy as GenAI becomes more integrated into all aspects of the business.
For this reason, it can be expected that SEO will change again.
It is estimated that around 8.5 billion searches are performed on Google every day. The key to a successful business is to optimize your content for AI-powered searches and play into Google’s hands. Here’s how:
4 Ways to Win in Search with Artificial Intelligence
Google Search Center says publishers don’t need to do anything new to benefit from AI insights. The same could be true for LLMs and chatbots. To rank in AI search, pick up where you left off.
A recent study on AI insights by Rich Sanger revealed significant overlap between rankings in AI-driven search results and traditional search rankings.
This finding suggests that as AIO continues to impact search results, it is important to focus on key strategies to improve and maintain visibility.
This is what you should prioritize to give AIO more control over the ranking:
Continue to rank well in Google’s SERPs
Sanger’s study pointed out that a website ranked #1 in the SERP has a 53% chance of being included in Google’s AI reports, but a page ranked #10 has only a 36.9% chance. The higher a page ranks on Google, the more likely it is that the AI will select it as the answer to a user’s query.
Let’s now look at the factors that will help you rank high on the SERPs.
High-quality, authoritative content
Google has always encouraged website owners to create reliable, useful, and human-centered content. Publish content that will be valuable to all readers of your site.
Modern content should include multimedia such as images, videos, charts, etc. to keep visitors on the page for as long as possible. Great content also leads to more backlinks. The more quality and relevant backlinks you get, the better your chances of ranking.
Technical SEO and schema markup
Technical SEO is an absolute must if you want search engines to crawl and understand your website. Pay attention to the following aspects:
- Page speed and mobile optimization – Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics focus on aspects like load time and interactivity. Adjust your content to optimize for fast loading and mobile responsiveness.
- Schema markup – structured data such as HowTo and FAQ schema.
- Crawlability – your website should be well crawlable by search engines. Use an updated sitemap, maintain a clean website architecture.