The Impact of AI on SEO 2020 & Beyond

Hello!

This is Monica Thomas, the Search Marketing/SEO Manager for medresponsive.com

This week’s podcast will cover “The Impact of AI on SEO 2020 & Beyond”

Artificial intelligence known as AI was apparently first coined by Computer Scientist John McCarthy back in 1955. According to the modern definition, artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. In this podcast, I will discuss how Artificial intelligence is being used by Google and its effects on SEO strategy.

Google’s official Artificial intelligence website, ai.google defines their artificial intelligence use, as making it easier for people to do things on Google every day, whether it’s searching for photos of loved ones, breaking down language barriers in Google Translate, typing emails on the go, or getting things done with Google Assistant. AI also provides new ways of looking at existing problems, from rethinking healthcare to advancing scientific discovery.

According to recent statistics, approximately 50% of all searches today are voice searches. Most of the searches are used to find local businesses, restaurants, products, encyclopedia, celebrity, music, movies information and more. According to some statistics 2 out of 5 people say that voice search is critical to their everyday living and 19% of people use Siri at least 2X a day. The demographics of users are 55% Teens and 45% Adults. To improve voice activated search results, Google is continually fine tuning their search-based products like Google Assistant, Google Translate, Google Maps and others along with their Google search algorithms.

The question in 2020 and beyond is, “How will AI and voice-based results affect your SEO strategies?” According to the top SEO strategists, it is imperative that all Internet marketers adjust their strategies to include AI. In general, Google still will reward sites that have valuable, relevant, fresh content and an engaging user experience (UX). The basis of all search engine optimization (SEO) relies on content, keyword research, meta, title, H1 & H2 tags optimization, link building and of course the analysis of user intent.

To help your website be found for voice queries and successfully satisfy algorithms and bots responding to voice search, internet marketers should continue creating relevant, fresh content. However, there are some new simple additions you should add to your SEO strategy to help you gain and maintain your visibility in the search engines.

First, your keyword research should now include researching the search volume of questions pertinent to your targeted industry. Queries via voice search are usually longer and start with “how to…”, “how do I”, “what is…”, “where is…” etc. Using search tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Google Search Console, MOZ Keyword Explorer can help you determine the type of questions and search volume of keywords and phrases that people are using. Google Suggest also gives keyword suggestions based on search frequency, past searches, search location and more.

Another very valuable keyword discovery tool is Answer the Public answerthepublic.com  Answer the Public is an insightful tool that combines the suggested searches from Bing and Google and visualizes them in a search cloud categorizing by the start words how, where, which, are, can, will, who, why, what and when. The queries can be downloaded in an image or csv format.

After you analyze your keyword research, you can use the most pertinent queries and answers on your “FAQ” page or create a new “You Asked” page. You can also add questions/answers on any page of your site or on your blogs, articles etc. Make sure that you add location specifics if relevant. Location combined with questions about your business are very prevalent.

After you create your new Question/Answer pages, make sure you include the proper FAQ schema tags. FAQ schema tags will be seen in your page code by search engine bots when they index your pages. With the proper FAQ schema tags, your page’s Questions & Answers will have the chance of being chosen as a featured snippet when your specified query is asked. Your page can also possibly be selected to be featured in the Knowledge panel of Google’s SERPs. Even if you do not come up in their snippets, you are still providing valuable answers to FAQs. You can create your FAQ schema tags via Google Tag Manager, schema.org or via Technical SEO’s Schema Markup Generator technicalseo.com/tools/schema-markup-generator/

Researching and understanding how to devise the correct SEO strategy for AI and Voice search can often be tricky and time-consuming. The SEO, Web Design, IT and Search Marketing team here at MedResponsive can help you with any of your SEO, Google advertising, web design or internet marketing needs. Please contact us via phone or email with any questions.

Have a great day or evening! Thank you for listening!