From Search Engines to Answer Engines: How is SEO Evolving?

How Is SEO Evolving?

If You Are Still Doubting, If SEO Is Important In The Age Of AI? You Are Not Alone!

I am a business owner.

I use SEO for generating organic traffic for my website.

I use SEO for distributing my message to my target audience.

Before we get into evaluating SEO’s relevance in the age of AI or more specifically generative AI. Let’s do a quick recap of SEO’s benefits.

SEO Benefits!

Create brand awareness for your business

SEO is used to create brand awareness with your prospective buyer. Most buyer’s begin their buyer’s journey with google search.

By optimising web pages, you increase your business’s brand awareness with prospective buyers. This is achieved by getting your pages highly ranked for keywords that your buyer searches for in their search queries.

This will put your business in front of prospective buyers while they are looking for a solution to their problem.

Create useful content that addresses your buyer’s need at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Your content will help your buyers form a perception about your brand.

Useful content helps build trust with potential buyers. When they are ready to evaluate solution options, your business will most likely make it to their consideration list.

Increase your credibility in the industries that you operate

Creating quality content together with link building (an SEO activity) will help increase your businesses’s reputation. This will increase the likelihood of your content being ranked higher in google search engine results pages (SERPs).

The more your business website is referenced by credible sources, the higher your credibility. Your business will be seen as a source of credible information. This will increase trust with your buyer.

Increase your website traffic

Increasing website traffic is a marketing goal pursued by many businesses.

The higher your keyword rankings, the higher the probability of Google showing your web pages and blog posts to prospective buyers.

The top three positions in google search engine results pages accounts for majority of the clicks. This will increase the number of clicks and your website traffic.

Your buyer will start to form a perception of what you have to offer. When they are ready to make a purchase, they will add your business to their consideration list.

Increase conversions for your business

Deeply understand the needs, goals and challenges of your target audience. This will enable you to create quality content that addresses their needs at different stages of the buyer’s journey.

In the process, you will attract the right audience to your website and increase the likelihood of conversions. Create and test the placement of call to actions (CTAs) on your landing pages.

How Is SEO Changing?

Let’s start with an example to see how Google Search results compare with Microsoft CoPilot and Gemini AI.

I typed in the following search query into Google Search, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini AI.

“What does INNMCO do?”

These were their responses.

Google search (AI overviews) response

what does INNMCO do - Google Search.jpeg

Source: Google Search (AI Overview) results for the query “what does INNMCO do?”

Microsoft co-pilot response

Source: Microsoft Copilot’s answer for my prompt “what does INNMCO do?”

Gemini AI response

Source: Google Gemini’s answer for my prompt “what does INNMCO do?”

My take: A key difference between AI answer engines and Google search

AI answer engines provide you with an answer in comparison to Google search.

In the case of Google search, I would have to go through all the individual links in the search results page before coming up with an answer myself.

In contrast, AI answer engines provided me with an answer instantly. The answers from AI answer engines will get better with time, as they continuously make improvements to their LLMs (Large Language Models).

If I was not satisfied with an answer from an AI answer engine, I can explore the reference links associated with the content. Most AI answer engines provided me references to their content sources (which includes web pages, blog posts, third party websites).

My take: A key similarity between AI answer engines and Google search

They all source answers from your web pages, blog posts, third party websites (you may have guest blogged at one of them), review sites etc.

It is important for your content (either on your website or third party sites) to be discoverable by search engines or AI answer engines.

Some of these systems (Search engines or AI answer engines) place greater emphasis on content from third party websites and review sites.

What Does This Mean For You As A Marketer?

Google is still the place where people go to search for information.

This as per the latest search engine market share data, which shows Google still has close to 90% market share in comparison to search engines like Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Baidu.]

Source: Global search engine market share by Statcounter, GlobalStats

Brand building matters

As search become more fragmented across platforms such as AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot), social media platforms (Instagram, LinkedIn), YouTube or Reddit, it is very important to build your brand across platforms.

Associate your brand name with key topics on your website and third party sites. This makes your business more discoverable across platforms. Incorporate your brand name in your case studies and services.

Be found by AI answer engines

Make sure your business website is found by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft copilot etc. Type in questions associated with your brand and see what results you get.

Ask questions like:

What does X company do?

Who is the founder of X company?

See what results you get.

You will find that most AI answer engines source content from places such as your blogs, third party websites, reviews. Some AI answer engines may place greater emphasis on content from third party websites and review sites.

EEAT is still important

Your content quality is still important whether your prospective buyers are using a search engine or AI answer engine to find information.

Use the EEAT framework to assess the quality of content on your website. EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

Experience - Google looks at content that demonstrates the creator’s first hand experience on the subject matter. Write about topics where you have first hand experience in solving a particular problem.
Expertise - Expertise often overlaps with experience but they are not the same thing. Google looks at, whether the authors have the knowledge, qualifications and credentials to give reliable information. As an example provide a link to your BIO which showcases your credentials on the topics that you specialise in.
Authoritativeness - Google reviews the authoritativeness of the creator, the content and the website. Building authority on a topic that you specialise in, takes time. When your industry peers start referring to your articles or blog posts, you have started to establish authority in the areas that you specialise in.
Trustworthiness - Cite trustworthy sources while writing your articles. Evaluate and update your content on a regular basis to ensure it’s accurate, relevant and informative.

Search intent is still important

Search intent is still important whether your prospective buyers are using a search engine or AI engine to find information.

Your prospective buyers are increasingly using longer prompts while querying these answer engines.

Incorporate long tail keywords while writing content for your prospective buyer. Make sure you are creating content, keeping in view your buyer’s search intent in mind.

There are 4 main types of search intent. Your website needs to be found by buyers who have different types of search intent.

While optimising your web pages, consider using keywords for the 4 types of search intent.

Navigational search intent - If your buyer is looking to navigate to a particular page. They have a navigational search intent.
Informational search intent - If your buyer is looking to learn more about a topic. They have an informational search intent.
Commercial search intent - If your buyer is looking to compare two services providers or solutions. They have a commercial search intent.
Transactional search intent - If your buyer is looking to schedule an appointment or a demo. They have a transactional search intent.

How Is SEO Evolving? Here’s My Take!

You need to optimise your content for information search across platforms.

As information search become more fragmented across platforms such as AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot), social media platforms (Instagram, LinkedIn), YouTube or Reddit, it is very important to build your brand across platforms.

Associate your brand name with key topics on your website and third party sites. This makes your business more discoverable across platforms.

How?

Make sure your business website is found in AI answer engines. As mentioned before, you will find that most AI answer engines source content from places including your blogs, third party websites and review sites. Some AI answer engines may place greater emphasis on content from third party websites and review sites.

Your content quality is still important whether your buyers are using a search engine or AI answer engine to find information. Don’t loose sight of this! Use EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness) to assess the quality of content on your website.

Create content for the different types of search intent. Your prospective buyers are increasingly using longer prompts while querying AI answer engines. Make sure you are creating content, with your buyers search intent in mind.

Grow web traffic, leads & sales!

If you are looking to create content that ranks, check out our on-demand content writing services and search engine marketing services. Our clients have seen a 600% increase in leads in the first 6 months. Schedule a strategy call with Anees!

Written by Anees Misbahudeen

Founder & Digital Marketing Director, INNMCO

Anees Misbahudeen - Company Profile (700 × 436 px)

I’m a Digital Marketer, Writer & Entrepreneur. I help SaaS companies grow traffic, leads & sales. My expertise lies in transforming online marketing visions into cohesive digital marketing strategies. Recent notable achievements include a 600% increase in leads from SEO and Google Ads, a 27% increase in email marketing CTR, and a 60x growth in leads from inbound marketing. I hold an Executive MBA from AGSM, UNSW.

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