Consider how AI will impact user behaviour

Annika says: “Consider how AI can impact the different stages of the user/buyer journey and search intent, moving forward.

Search is going through a massive transition, and we’re experiencing more personalisation, which has been part of SEO for a long time now. As we’re moving towards AI searches and AI assisting users to find the right solutions, we need to consider how that search behaviour itself will change moving forward.

We often look at the user/buyer journey in three core stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. All of these stages could be impacted by AI in the future – especially looking at Google’s plans. AI isn’t going anywhere. It will continue to become more and more prominent in search. You need to get ready for it and you need to start understanding it from the user’s point of view.”

How do you analyse AI’s role in the different stages of your users’ purchase journey and search intent?

“A lot of these AI tools (such as SGE) are still in the testing phase. A lot of SEOs are using them to figure out how their search queries are showing up and what different elements appear in the search results. That’s going to be one part of your content research and content strategy building.

When doing keyword research, we carry out SERP analysis to understand what Google thinks the user intent of the keyword is, and what types of results they’re showing. Now, you have to do the same with AI searches. There are a lot of layout shifts happening, almost daily. Also, because of personalisation, different people see different results and different elements in the result pages. You need to understand what’s available and what you can see with things like SGE.

BARD and Bing are showing similar results. They give a bit more informational content in the synopses at the top. You might have links to blogs or other informational articles, product descriptions, product listings, and perhaps even product suggestions that might be relevant. It’s quite full-on for the user.

Some of these buyer journey stages will take a bit longer on Google. Instead of doing that on the website by consuming your content, these two stages will often be conducted on the SERPs themselves. You might see an impact on click-through rates, especially for certain types of queries – which could actually relate to higher conversion rates. You will potentially have less traffic to your site, but the research has already happened before the user lands on the site, so you might see better conversions.”

Will SEOs have less control over the intent they are serving, as AI is able to pick what it wants from different pieces of content?

“Absolutely. What’s going to be even more important now is to try and serve those different user intents with your content. A lot of people focus on commercial or transactional keywords, which is great. However, which keywords are definitely commercial? When you do that search with SGE or BARD, your intent might not be very clear.

You might search, ‘I want to buy a raincoat’ because we’re moving towards conversational language. However, you might not want to buy it straight away, even though your intent says that you do. You might be trying to find information, and you might even stop the journey completely. You might decide it’s not the right time of year and you don’t need one.

The results that we get from AI combine different types of information, whether it’s informational, commercial, or even navigational searches. If you search for ‘Nike sneakers’, you might get different sites selling Nike sneakers. However, when you click on a result, you might not even get to the page; there might be a pop-up. Things are moving around a lot.

Make sure to target those different user search intents for bottom-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, and top-of-funnel keywords. It’s not enough to just optimize your product descriptions. You want to be the result when it comes to the synopses as well through blog articles providing assisting information for the user to help them make that decision and compare different features. It’s a holistic way of writing content.”

Will AI be able to deliver all aspects of the customer buying journey?

“Yes. It’s important to consider the future when it comes to data as well. Previously, when looking at transactional queries, it has been quite easy to determine which keywords are transactional. Now, you need to branch out. You can’t just trust the data that you see in the SERPs. You also need to analyse the data after the consumer has been to your site. Combining data from AI searches in tools like Keyword Hero, you can determine the click-through rates and conversion rates for certain keywords as a combination of different metrics. Analyse that data and use it to build a better content strategy.

As SEOs, we now have different information and different data which can be utilised for content strategy. Even when you do searches on SGE or Bing, they give you suggested follow-ups. When you read those long-tail queries you might be able to determine a wider strategy for your content on that topic. What kind of article should you be writing? What does the AI consider important? Therefore, what do they assume the user will consider important?

You can learn a lot from these searches, even though they’re not perfect. When you search for something in BARD, the synopses is quite a good overlay of the different features that you should be looking at for these sorts of searches where the user is trying to purchase a product. The products they offer might be from an article which lists the best products of 2023 for that specific category, without actually analysing whether they are the best for a certain reason.

However, search is changing, and all these different large language models are improving as well. You need to keep up. You need to understand how they find the information. When you write content for different user stages and intents, use clear language and make sure that the AI understands it – as well as the user. Structure it so that it is easy to find those nuggets of information that will be a bit more prominent in these synopses.

Creating helpful content is never going to go out of fashion. It’s going to be even more important moving forward. To get your article to be top of SGE and get that link, create really helpful and unique content. Google has been giving us these hints for years now.”

Will Google Perspectives be a great opportunity over the coming year?

“Definitely. Perspectives will expand your opportunities when you’re writing and building content. Working with influencers in your industry can help boost your EEAT and showcase that you are a prominent brand in your field. If you work with influencers who have a lot of prominence and visibility, it can only help you.

To gain visibility through Perspectives (or any other important area, like Google Discover) you need to branch out from traditional searches and understand how other searches work. We’re moving towards a more multi-modal search. Images and videos are going to be more and more important to enable you to stand out and showcase your expertise.”

Are more traditional searchers going to be comfortable using AI?

“It’s difficult to say. There have been ups and downs with adoption, and some surprising results as well. Younger generations have been quite open to AI searches, even though they are relatively new and can potentially provide false information. Usually, younger users are against that. However, studies have shown that 18 to 25-year-olds are quite open to these searches.

As an SEO, if you don’t use AI search that doesn’t mean your user won’t. When you’re optimising for AI searches, you’re not only doing it for the AI. Even your traditional search will be better when you optimize your content and make sure it is helpful for different user behaviours and user intent. You’re not going to lose in traditional search; you’re still going to do great.

However, when you look at these different metrics, you need to understand what the impact will be. What will your KPIs be? Will you be focusing on click-through rates? Will you be focusing on conversion rates? What will your new benchmarks be? Even if AI searches don’t immediately become as popular as they were originally predicted to be, you never know what will happen in five years.”

What does this mean for content production strategies and the type of content that SEOs produce moving forward?

“As we mentioned before, looking at the different buyer journeys and how to satisfy the user intent for those is key. When you’re doing research, you need to branch out and make sure that you’re analysing longer-tail conversational keywords as well.

When you’re looking at content strategies, it’s not from a content production point-of-view. Can you utilise this for link-building in the future, for example? Searches on BARD or Bing often serve results from listicle articles as well. How do you make sure that you’re visible in these articles, get a link, and get a mention? How does your content strategy support that?

Obviously, everything is connected: content, UX, links, and technical. When you try to optimize for AI searches, the different elements of SEO will help each other. When you’re creating great product content, you want to boost that with product schema. When you’re creating assets or informational content, that can boost your digital PR and link-building efforts. The basics of SEO won’t change massively. It’s just where we focus our attention and how we can become more strategic.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Some SEOs chase for 100% technical site health, which can be great. It is especially great for when you’re starting and trying to learn SEO and figure out what optimization does and how it improves your site.

The key thing is to consider what your competitive advantage is. You might have a very strong brand, a very strong link profile, or very strong content. Analyse your key advantage and figure out how to leverage that.

With content, you can do really well even if you don’t have a strong brand or the perfect link profile. Content can help improve your conversion rates. Links won’t improve conversions as much and a strong brand builds trust but, with content, you can drive conversions. In 2024, having a strong content strategy is where the money is. Focus on that.”

Annika Haataja is Head of SEO at Seeker Digital, and you can find her over at Seeker.Digital.