As a digital marketing expert, you know the importance of optimizing your content for search engines. But you will be surprised that a recent survey has found that SEO delivers the highest ROI of any digital marketing activity at over 29%, compared to just an 18% ROI on average for social media marketing.
While SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has always been the most preferred tactic for digital experts, there has been a rapid change in the way search engines work. The latest technology SGE (search Generative Experience) has left many experts thinking about the way to approach SEO and SEM (search engine marketing) going forward. Let’s have a look at how SGE might impact SEO and what you need to do to make your content rank high.
What is SGE?
SGE or search Engine Generative refers to AI systems that create their content. SGE organises web results in a new layout that helps users get more from a single search. The new AI-enhanced results page expands the traditional Google search experience with rich features.
Some of them include:
- Search engine users can now ask more complex, detailed questions and can get their detailed answers.
- Each SERP in Google will now have a cluster of information and links, arranged in an interactive way that is referred to as a snapshot by Google.
- It seems that Google’s snapshot will replace Google’s “featured snippet” SERP ranking, which currently uses AI to locate the most relevant match for the searcher’s intent.
- The users will also have the option to ask conversational-style follow-up questions and get answers, the same way you can prompt and interact with chatbots.
How SGE will impact the organic traffic and SEO?
As SGE is still in its early stages, it is tough to predict exactly how it will impact SEO. Google has said that Ads will continue in the same way as before and relevant ads will appear in a separate area of the user interface. As SGE gets better at understanding languages and generating results, it’s going to impact how people find information online and how businesses rank in search.
- There are chances that if your website relies more on tricks for ranking instead of producing informative and useful content, traffic on your site may suffer.
- SGE will improve rankings for sites with quality content. SGE can grasp the depth and authority of the pages, so they will climb higher in results.
- SGE also considers technical factors such as page speed, responsiveness, and security of the website. If your site is not optimized for mobiles or the page loads slowly, the site will rank lower. Ensure to improve all these technical factors, otherwise there is a risk of lower rankings as SGE evolves.
- With SGE understanding the language in high depth, it will look at synonyms, related phrases, and the semantic meaning of only a single keyword. So try to include synonyms and key phrases naturally in your content.
The future of SEO in SGE
While SGE brings in many challenges for SEO and digital marketing, it will also offer new opportunities. By starting at an early age and using the right tactics, you can read your brand for improved findability in the AI-driven future of search. It will still be more important to produce high-quality and original content that answers exactly the way your reader wants. Keep yourself updated, adapt SGE to your strategies and stay ahead of the curve.