Recognise the value of visual elements in the world of SGE

Mufaddal says: “Visual elements are going to be incredibly important in the world of SGE.

We all know that SGE is being rolled out on Google. Along with the text that is presented in AI results, it also showcases images, videos, and a lot of other visual multimedia elements like GIFs and Web Stories.

Along with the text you write, and the content you create on the website, all of these visual elements are going to be very important in the world of SGE we are now entering.”

Will most queries have visual elements alongside the text answer?

“When SGE was open for testing in the US and India, we saw images along with the text on the right-hand side – and other articles that were linked which also had an image shown. The featured images from those articles were brought into the AI results.

Along with that, YouTube videos were also fetched for highly informative SGE results, along with timestamps of where you could find the exact information you were looking for.

Basically, along with providing very simple answers that are pulled from the website, Google also wants to push visual elements. Those elements play a very important role in helping people understand that information easily, read more about it, or explore more of those results.”

Are Google only incorporating visual elements from the web page where they source the text content?

“From what I’ve seen so far, the source is not only going to be your website, your articles, or your pages. These elements are also going to be fetched from other sources, like YouTube.

With the rise of YouTube Shorts, that is also something that Google can fetch for the SGE results. Also, long-form YouTube videos, TikTok videos, and your other social media platforms as well. Instagram and Facebook content does not usually get featured in the SGE, but visual elements from Snapchat can be.

You want to have a top-notch visual experience on your web pages but, at the same time, you should also look at the way your content is being indexed on other social media platforms. If someone is making a brand-related search, they might see your top trending TikTok or YouTube videos within the SGE results. It is becoming very important that you control how your brand SERP is being presented in the era of SGE.

Along with that, your images, videos, and GIFs can be fetched from the pages on your website. I also want to touch on Web Stories, which is going to be very crucial in the coming years. In the countries where it has been launched, it is booming right now. Every large publisher out there is creating Web Stories – and they are getting really great traffic from Discover. Now, Web Stories are also going to be featured in the SGE results as well.”

What kind of content should you be publishing on Web Stories?

“Web Stories is your visual content. You want people to consume the visual content that you have on your website.

Let’s say you’re a tour operator in India and you offer tour packages to Europe, America, Australia, etc. If you were creating content conventionally, you might be writing blog posts on the Top 10 Cities to Visit in America. That post might include cities like New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., and you would have images and video elements in that as well.

For Web Stories, your most important elements are your images and video, and there should be some text or headers that are included as part of that. If you are saying that Boston is the best city to visit in the United States, your most important element should be the imagery – of the skyline, the museums, the parks, etc. Then, you would have one or two-line descriptions of those places that people should be visiting.

That’s the way around it should be. In Web Stories, you’re flipping the conventional method of writing content and making it very visual-heavy rather than text-heavy.”

Currently, Google says that the Web Stories carousel is only available in the US, India, and Brazil. Will it launch in other countries soon?

“John Mueller has said that they are testing it out in some other countries but that doesn’t mean that it is going to be launched in those countries. They are looking at the demand from people in those countries. If a lot of people are creating Web Stories in a specific region, Google might make that a feature in Discover or Google search in that location.

However, it’s not limited to only the countries that they have mentioned. I’ve seen some Web Stories being featured in the MENA region that I work in. It’s not as common as it is in India, but some Web Stories are being featured in my Discover feed.

If you try it out in your region, Google might fetch your Web Story and put it out in Discover. That’s how they can test it too. They’ve said that they are testing it out in other regions, but they need the content. They need those Web Stories from publishers so that they can test more of them and see how people are reacting.

This is another example of why you need to be aware of what the SERP looks like in whatever region you are working. In different countries, the SERP features can be completely different.

If you are stuck with your SEO strategy, and you need to find more avenues to get traffic, Web Stories is one of the methods that you can explore. If you’re working with a large brand and you’re ranking for each and every keyword (your conventional on-page, off-page, and technical methods are all going smoothly), but you’re wondering how you can get more traffic, this is something you can explore. See if it works in your region and try and get the most out of it.”

Will having visual elements on your web page, alongside your content, increase your chances of being the primary answer for a particular query in the AI results?

“Definitely. If your content is up to the mark, and your images and visual elements also match that, Google will have no reason to not feature your website in the search generative and AI results. It’s worth noting that, from what we have seen so far, Google won’t necessarily fetch your imagery for the SGE results just because they have fetched your written content. In some cases, the content is fetched from one domain and the images and videos are fetched from other domains.

Even if your written content is not getting featured, you can dial down on your visual elements strategy and get featured with that. That can help you with discovery and get you more clicks onto your website.”

How do you optimize these images and videos on your website to make them likely to be used within AI results?

“With images, the most crucial thing is having them in a certain size. There is no official documentation so far as to what dimensions they need images to be because Google does not want to show their cards to everyone. However, you can check the SERPs and look at the size of images on the web pages that are being featured. Then, you can try and adapt your images so that they have similar dimensions to the ones that are being featured.

Along with that, the alt text obviously plays a crucial role. It helps Google understand, and the description of the images can be featured as well. Image titles are also important. Whenever you upload an image, consider what the title says, what format it is in, and what the dimensions are. That is a good starting point.

For video, the popularity of your YouTube channel plays a crucial role. In the SGE results, Google is being more stringent in what kinds of results they showcase. Your popularity, and your overall domain authority, will play a crucial role in being featured.

With that being said, you shouldn’t limit yourself to thinking that, if you are popular, you are going to be featured in SGE. Your strategy also needs to be heavily focused on helping the users get all the information that they need. Being featured in the SGE is not only limited to your authority but also what type of content you put out and how you are helping the users.

In the end, Google wants to deliver and showcase the information that’s helping their users. You can get started with long-tail queries where large brands are less likely to be trying to rank, so medium to small brands can probably get featured in the SGE.”

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

“With all the hype in the industry around AI, SGE, ChatGPT, etc., a lot of SEOs are scared. Many are spending time looking at other career options and trying to see whether or not SEO is dying.

Stop worrying about that. SEO is evolving, as it has evolved with every year and every decade. It’s evolving over time, and we need to evolve with it. Think about how you can evolve with the changes that Google is bringing to the table. You will realise that SEO is not dying in the near future, just because AI has arrived.

AI is here and it is going to have an impact. The race is becoming more stringent, and the competition is cutthroat. The test is going to be how you can adjust to all of this right now.

Before, we had 10 search results that we had to compete in. Then we were competing to be in the top 5 positions. Now, you are competing for the top position in the SGE results. It’s the evolution of what has happened in the results. Focus on how you can bear with that instead of looking for other options.

Recently, I read a study which said that ChatGPT traffic was down by 10% already. All the hype around ChatGPT when it launched has already started to die down. These AI tools are there to help us, but people are realising that they can only help us up to a point. If you need to go further, those tools have to rely on updated data from Google, Discover, social media, and all the other places where they get updated and correct information. Stop worrying about what AI holds for you, and start embracing it and utilising it instead.”

Mufaddal Sadriwala is SEO Manager at Assembly MENA, and you can find him over at Mufaddal.digital.