People aren’t just using Google anymore. There’s perplexity, there’s ChatGPT… the phones are even coming out with their own solutions. So how can you get your business to show up in all of these new special search tools? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. Also in this episode, I’ll share a digital marketing tool recommendation and follow that up with suggestions for other episodes of mine that are related to today’s episode and also of other podcasts that I’ve enjoyed recently, both in business and personally.
Resources
- SEO Power-up Plan
- Ahrefs Websmaster Tools
- AI Search Grader
- Tracking AI Traffic in GA4: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Other episode recommendations
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People aren’t just using google anymore. There’s Perplexity, there’s ChatGPT, the phones are coming out with their own solutions.
So how can you get your business to show up in all these new special search tools?
That’s what we’re going to chat about today.
Also in this episode I’m sharing a digital marketing tool recommendation, followed by suggestions for other podcasts episodes of mine that are related to today’s episode and of others podcasts that I’ve enjoyed recently.
The good news is, showing up in these new platforms isn’t much different than what’s considered traditional SEO.
And as of today, and this comes with the splat or the asterisk disclaimer, because the information I’m about to tell you can become outdated at any moment…
You don’t need separate strategies for traditional SEO and AI SEO.
What you need is this…
- High-quality, authoritative content meaning your content can be trusted
- Clear structure and organization of your pages like headings and subheadings and easily readable.
- Regular updates and maintenance, keep your content fresh and up to date, make sure your site is free of errors
- Strong expertise signals, things like website street cred in the form of mentions and links to your website.
That said, there is one thing that I think is slightly different. In traditional SEO, it is recommended to target one topic per page. Because traditionally, Google is serving up a page, not a whole website. What’s different with AI search engines, is that because they synthesize a bunch of pages together to form the response, it’s best to include possible tangents to a topic if you think your reader is going to ask it after they get their first question answered.
And now that I’ve said that, it reminds me that even this is like traditional SEO as a tactic for creating content as it was to include information in your blog posts from the People Also Asked section on the Google Search results pages.
Other things remain the same however. Different engines are going to show different results. Many are based, like Google is, on personalized results, your browsing history, location sometimes. Some engines allow you to customize your results.
Now let’s talk about tracking. How can we see if we’re getting traffic from these new fangled search engines? One way is with an SEO tool. There are some claiming to be able to tell you if you show up in AI search results. One of them is actually free. It’s ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools – however, I went to search for me and I couldn’t validate this is actually correct. It said I have 7 keywords showing up in results that come up in AI search engines. But when I went to type them into a couple of engines, I never saw my website.
But I do have it set up in my Google Analytics as a segment and a channel grouping so I can see the traffic there, and what page they landed on. Two Octobers, a company I follow, had a post about how to set this up. I’ll put the link for that and the ahrefs in the supporting blog post to this episode in case you’re interested into looking into that further.
And Hubspot has this thing called an AI Search Grader. “Uncover your brand visibility in generative AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Identify strengths and pinpoint opportunities to boost brand awareness and sentiment.” I tried it. I didn’t find this very useful for me. But you might.
Please remember, don’t get caught up in the hype of “new” SEO strategies. Focus on diversifying your marketing efforts and creating truly valuable content.
That’s what works for all search engines – traditional or AI-powered and more importantly, your audience, which is what really matters.
Please do check the supporting blog post for this episode. I’ll have links to the things mentioned plus to links to related things like how to set your content apart from AI generated content and repurposing so you’re making the best use of your time.
Next up Digital Marketing Tool Recommendation
Thruuu.
This tool automates a manual process of analyzing the results in the Google search results. You can see at a glance all the page titles, how many headings they have, images, and a bunch of other stuff.
Go try the free version if you’re interested and let me know what you think!
Next up other podcast episodes you may be interested in.
- One of my earlier episodes, number 15… Do you really need an SEO tool to show up in Google?
- #1068 of More Than a Few Words. I went through a framework to get found in Google.
- Emily Aborn did an episode on her podcast, Content With Character called, Just Say “NO” to Bro Marketing. I really enjoyed perspective on doing kind marketing.
- And one more on the personal side, episode #444 of the Michele Chalfant show, with Catherine Plano. It was around how to explore our own growth by looking at our patterns in life. Catherine Plano has a book that I ended up purchasing right away because I was so moved my it.
