Keeping on top of SEO best practices ensures your content remains relevant and discoverable, which is particularly important in an ever-changing online environment. The arrival of AI driven tools has led to users searching for information in different ways too. Businesses that fail to adapt risk falling in search rankings and missing out on opportunities to connect with their audience.
Earlier this year, our Digital Marketing Consultant Lisa and Senior Marketing Executive Steph attended search marketing event BrightonSEO and left the day feeling inspired by emerging trends and strategies. We’ve put together a summary of the highlights to help you navigate the changes and understand why AI is important for SEO.
Insights from Steph
Learning to lean into AI
AI is having a huge impact on our industry and as it evolves, we must lean into the advantages AI offers to remain efficient, competitive and relevant. When a new technology comes to market there are three kinds of people: those who hide from it, those who only use it, and those who embrace a happy mix of old and new processes.
As AI has become accessible to people around the world, platforms such as ChatGPT offer an easy solution to time consuming tasks such as copywriting, posing a risk to professionals with copywriting talents. However, as we learn more about AI and as Google now priorities people centric content, simply copying and pasting straight from the AI platform won’t be beneficial to businesses in all instances.
When you ask an AI platform to generate a piece of copy, there are often a lot of signs which let the reader know AI has been used. The overuse of hyphens, emojis and adjectives are all signs AI has been used to generate content.
From a reader experience, whether it’s on social media or a blog, it can be disheartening to read content which hasn’t been written with thought and lacks credibility.
Transparency is key
For examples where AI has been used, there are tools such as GPTZero which we can use to check if AI has been used to create content. For agencies, this could be crucial when exchanging images to be published in editorials or advertorials. In instances where AI has been used to create images, it is important to disclose this to the Journalist.
When it comes to Google and ranking, Google favours unique, people centric content. To determine this, Google’s SpamBrain is an algorithm used to analyse the quality of content on websites. Through discouraging using techniques commonly associated with spam or low-quality content such as high volume of keywords, cloaking, hidden text, and too many ads, Google identifies spammy websites and punishes them with low rankings.
If you’re using AI and find your website isn’t benefitting from high rankings, it could be because your content is appearing to Google as spam.
Content creation and strategy
At Your Marketing Team, we often talk about making content work harder for our clients, and BrightonSEO findings certainly solidified our repurposing ethos. If you take the time to create valuable, relevant, interesting content for your clients, why waste it by just using it once?
Here are some top tips for making your content work harder for your business:
1. Create core content
Whether you’re filming an in-depth video, writing a blog article with tips for clients to implement, or recording a podcast with industry insights, creating longer-form core content is the first place to start.
2. Break it up into bite size chunks
By extracting key points, quotes and tips from a blog, you can create multiple breakout posts. If you’re breaking up longer-form video, think about what’s going to hook your viewer. Cliffhangers, shocking stats, or a simple, stunning visual – whatever it might be, put yourself in the viewers shoes.
3. Plan, transform and optimise
Now you’ve got your bite size chunks of content, it’s time to think about what you’re going to post and where. A piece of content you post on LinkedIn might not perform as well on Instagram. Think about the audience on each platform, how do they like to consume content? Once you have your plan you should convert your content into platform-specific media types and optimise and resize as recommended.
4. Schedule and analyse
After scheduling your content, you should analyse what you’re working on. How is your content performing per platform and how can you refine your strategy further to boost engagement? Producing a report on how your content is performing will give you a clear picture and help you to focus on your strategy.
The art of repurposing isn’t copy and pasting, its tailoring content for each platform depending on the audience and goal of the post. Anyone can post content, but posting content with a strategy and goal in mind is an art.
Insights from Lisa
The importance of alt text
Alt text (alternative text) helps visually impaired people understand what the image shows, helps search engine bots understand image contents, and appears on a page when the image fails to load.
Adding alt text to an image is often treated as a simple checkbox exercise, but when written thoughtfully, truly describing the image, it can make a big impact. Google values well-crafted alt text because it helps search engines understand the content and context of images. More importantly, alt text is essential for accessibility, allowing screen readers to convey visual information to people who are visually impaired. The bottom line, write your alt text with empathy - it makes a difference.
How search is changing
The way we search is undergoing a fundamental change. Over the last 6 months, AI has legitimised its position in search. ChatGPT saw a 400% increase in market share, with Google seeing a 2.15% decrease (which is the first time it’s decreased in a decade).
Probably the most important thing to note is that the best way to make your business visible in ChatGPT is to ensure it’s included in Bings index. ChatGPT browsing uses Bing to do it’s heavy lifting - it integrated with Microsoft’s search index last autumn. ChatGPT also loves Wikipedia.
This means that businesses may need to rethink some of their SEO strategies, but AI search is controllable too. Technical optimisation is key. AI is still the new kid on the block and is going to continue to diverge. To stay ahead we need to create AI conducive content, track queries and optimise websites.
How to get the most out of GA4
Since it’s launch in 2023, GA4 has had mixed reviews to say the least, with users still wanting to base their information around sessions and pageviews rather than the new GA4 model of events and parameters.
Google admits that their analytics overinflates direct traffic, that there is a lack of accuracy in <72 hour window and that Google Ad traffic is often attributed to organic traffic. That said, it is still a powerful tool that allows users to create their own reports, so they can pull out the data that is of most interest to them.
Firstly, the most important thing is to have a proper cookie policy on your website. It's essential to display a cookie banner that includes clear options for users to manage their preferences.
It’s also invaluable to have the correct data, because if you have the wrong information, you’re likely to make the wrong decisions. Thirdly, you need to be clear on the set up of GA4 analytics properties and data streams to ensure you're capturing the most relevant data for your business. There are also several lesser-known settings related to data retention, attribution and channel group configurations.
GA4 now has the capability to produce custom reports. These can be valuable because they offer flexibility, deeper insights and a bespoke approach to data analysis. You can create reports based on user behaviour, traffic sources, conversions or specific events, giving you clearer visibility into what’s driving performance.
Summary
Having visited, it’s easy to see why BrightonSEO is widely regarded as one of the best digital marketing conferences in the world. There were talks covering everything from technical SEO and analytics to AI, content strategy and digital PR. Plus it was refreshing to see a lineup that had a mix of industry leaders and new talents alike, ensuring that attendees gain both cutting-edge trends and actionable takeaways.