Here's How AI Search Engines Are Transforming Search Marketing

Experts typically offer two opposing views on the question of how much ChatGPT and similar tools are changing search engine marketing.

One view is that there’s nothing new to see here—classic Google searches still drive most of the traffic. The other view is that everything that’s come before is about to change—forget what you’ve been doing so far; a whole new world has arrived.

I don't think the situation is quite that black and white. I can summarize where I currently stand on this issue in three points.

1. The website's core functionality will change
2. AI search engines build on existing foundations 
3. The Scope of Search Engine Marketing Is Expanding

Let's take a closer look at these.

The website's core functionality will change

In the past, it was standard practice in measurement settings to filter out machine traffic from the statistics.

Human traffic was the main goal; the website was created so that people would read it, become interested, and ultimately make a purchase. Visits from bots only skewed the analytics reports.

In case it isn’t clear yet: since the rise of AI search engines, your website has been visited by more AI bots than real people. So your content needs to appeal not only to humans but also to your “machine audience.”.

People’s search habits have changed; they no longer necessarily visit a website directly, but instead just quickly skim the highlights in some AI app. You’ve probably noticed yourself that you click through to a website less often to get information, since AI can summarize the key points based on your specific questions. That’s exactly why we have to allow this “bot traffic” onto our website; otherwise, we’ll never catch the attention of our potential customers.

And this is a much bigger change than it sounds at first. Not only is a new traffic channel being added to the existing ones, but the basic functionality of the websites is also changing in the process.

It is no longer enough for a website to be visually appealing and convincing to people.

The website’s new purpose is to provide accurate and comprehensive information to AI bots, which will then use that information to generate answers to all kinds of questions about your business. And yes, if they can’t find enough information, they’ll start making things up.

So from now on, your website will need to cater to three different audiences: people, Google, and AI search engines

But how does the way AI search engines work differ from that of Google's search engine?

AI search engines build on existing foundations

We already know that AI search engines rely on the information in Google's search results when you ask them a question that requires them to look for up-to-date information.

In other words, the Google search engine and the AI search engine system do not exist independently of one another or side by side, but are built upon one another.

Solid SEO fundamentals are, in fact, prerequisites for AI visibility.

This also means that the cornerstones of search engine marketing have not changed.

 We usually divide our activities into three main areas:

1. how your website is structured (this is technical SEO)
2. what's on it (this content),
3. what others say about you (and where they link to you) elsewhere on the internet (this is credibility).

Not only have these three areas remained, but they have actually deepened.

Technical SEO now also involves checking and facilitating accessibility for AI bots; one notable change to the website’s content is the much more extensive FAQ section, and when it comes to credibility, forums and traditional PR appearances, for example, play a central role, because AI search engines often cite them.

It follows from the above that anyone who sets out to optimize their visibility in AI search engines must also be familiar with the basics of SEO, since roughly seventy percent of the work will involve traditional search engine optimization, while 30 percent will consist of work that specifically focuses on the unique requirements of AI search engines.

Even in the age of AI, you can't build a high-visibility online presence on a weak foundation.

Furthermore, in the future, anyone who wants to get into search engine marketing will need to have a deeper understanding of the subject.

The Scope of Search Engine Marketing Is Expanding

In a sense, the scope of traditional search engine optimization was limited. We had to focus on keywords that were popular in topics relevant to us—in other words, the ones everyone else was competing for.

However, we didn’t weigh in on what should appear on the “About Us” page beyond the subpages that are important from an SEO perspective, what other information should be communicated about our brand, or whether, for example, it’s worth listing our prices. We didn’t need to weigh in because these factors didn’t affect whether the site would rank well for important keywords in search engines.

Since the advent of AI search engines, the situation has changed.

Now, when someone types into ChatGPT, „I’ve found three search engine marketing agencies—which one do you think is the best choice for me?”, they get a long, text-based answer.

As users, we all feel that this is a significantly different search experience than before. This has several important long-term implications; for now, I’ll just highlight one tangible example from the perspective of search marketing.

If we’ve described somewhere on the website who we work for, what methodology we use, and roughly what our price range is, then there’s a good chance this information will be included in the generated response. However, if this information isn’t specifically listed, in the best-case scenario, the AI will simply indicate that it has no information; in the worst-case scenario, the user might receive a fabricated answer about how we work.

What’s more, this will usually be close to the market average, since there’s a lot of information available about it. And the user takes it as gospel, figuring, “AI—my personal advisor—must know it from somewhere.”

So AI search engines force us to provide a lot of credible information about our company, and in some cases, we ourselves explain what our strengths are compared to our competitors—and even who our solution isn’t relevant for.

Neither black nor white

So we can’t say there’s nothing to see here, since the very purpose for which we use websites is changing. This affects every business that wants to be found online—yours as well as ours.

However, it is also not true that a completely new world has emerged, since the basic principles have remained the same and the new operating model partly relies on the existing infrastructure.

AI search engines are currently revolutionizing search marketing. Although there’s a lot of noise during these kinds of transformations, we still love it. It’s during times like these that we can really make great strides.