Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) came onto the marketing scene with the rise of Internet search engines like Google. Website owners want their pages to load on the first page of results, and they achieve this by optimising these pages in accordance with what the search engines look for in a quality piece of content.
It’s always been a complicated process, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) just made it way more complex. This article looks at how Internet users are altering their search behaviours, the importance of natural language in the new SEO arena, and how AI is changing SEO by focusing on user intent.
Moving from text to voice search
Performing search engine optimisation on a website used to be ‘easy’. You’d research keywords that people were using to search for related content, and insert these throughout the headings and body copy on your website pages.
Then came phrase-match SEO, which replaced single keyword optimisation with phrases that people type into search bars to find the solutions to their problems. These phrases are most common in the form of why, how, where, when, and what questions.
Today, AI has made voice searches possible, with a whopping 65% of people aged between 25 and 49 using voice search at least once a day. Holding your thumb on a small microphone icon and verbalising your search query is much easier than typing out a string of words.
However, people rarely speak the same way as when they type, which offers a new set of challenges for search engine optimisers.