The StudioHawk team have had the pleasure of attending a variety of SEO conferences recently getting to see new and old faces, share wisdom and learn even more about the changing landscape of search engines.
We made it to Brighton SEO where the wonderful Sophie gave a fabulous talk on the value of the <head> function in technical SEO and our very own Itamar and Anthony also had the pleasure of introducing speakers. International insights were made as Courtney and Remi attended Search’n’Stuff in Turkey as well as Itamar giving a talk at the SEOVibes in Estonia.
AI
The main theme of many of this year’s talks was clear - AI is on everyone's minds. From a number of talks sharing AI powered tools to streamline SEO processes to in depth explorations of the use of LLMs to produce optimised content, it was featured across the board at conferences this year.
Consensus was however mixed as to how to implement this tool within our work. Some argue that shying away from the inevitable trend towards AI production would set companies behind, whilst others warn to move with caution, encouraging rigorous testing of these systems and slow and controlled roll outs. An important point was made in Tom Winter’s interesting talk ‘A Fool With a Tool is Still a Tool’ in Brighton, highlighting the fact that hyper-reliance on AI tools without extensive human input creates poor output.
We are also aware of the responses from search engines to the stratospheric rise in AI generated content online. Many of Google’s recent updates have clearly been targeted at deplatforming AI generated content over human-made, encouraging helpful and relatable writing that demonstrates experience. Evidently the gap between using AI and still being able to provide content that is useful to audiences has not yet been closed and tools ought to be used with effective oversight and not in total replacement of personalised, personified content.
Future of Search Engines
AI was not only a hot topic in the processing of content production, it has also presented itself as an increasingly prominent feature in the future of search engines and search behaviour.
The marked rise in augmented search features such as Google’s AI overviews,
Suggested strategies for featuring within the changing face of search results tended to lean towards a single consensus, diversifying content. With the range of forms within which web pages can be platformed increasing, it is now more important than ever to produce content to meet the variety of search results that it can feature in. Offering high quality and optimised images within content as well as videos offers another medium in which sites can feature on a SERP. Podcasts were also highlighted as a fruitful medium through which to gain traffic to businesses and present a content opportunity that can double to create worded content through transcripts of recordings. Seeking diversity in content output has always been important for user experience, now it appears that it may be crucial to establish sites within SERPs as they become busier with features.
Increasing User Engagement
An alternative response to the changing SERP landscape was to focus more on retaining visitors to web pages and double-down on engaging attention to content. This was explored in the fascinating talk given at Brighton by Carla Dobson-Elliott posing the question ‘Is SEO killing curiosity?’. Exploring ways in which the content you produce is satisfying the curiosity of your visitors could be crucial in encouraging user pathways that keep customers engaged with your site and lead them to purchases. Pages that offer personalised insights for viewers can be an effective method in capturing curiosity, helping users identify which product best suits their needs through quizzes as well as internally linking to other content that may inform them on their interests.
The Future of SEO?
Over the past year the impact of updates to search engine algorithms and the increased integration of new ai-driven features have certainly seen a significant shift in the search landscape. In the face of change, it seems that the best thing we can do is continue to produce helpful and informative content that can be diversely formatted in order to target multiple areas of search. Focusing on increasing the length of attention and time spent on websites through intentionally structured, internally focused navigation and content that feeds curiosity will also help build resilience to shifting search results pages. Building strong links with and collaborating with professionals across the search marketing space will also be important moving forward as we can share knowledge and collaborate to produce even stronger performing sites.
If you want to learn more about how your website can build resilience within the changing search engine landscape, get in touch with our team.
