How will artificial intelligence (AI) impact search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and tactics? How will digital marketing pros need to adapt their practices to optimize their brand presence in tools like Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and ChatGPT? Lots of marketers are asking. Here are some answers.
Image credit: Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels
In a recent post here on how AI search will impact SEO, popular speaker Chris Penn offers some helpful insights. But to go a level deeper, why not consult the (presumably) top expert in this area: ChatGPT itself?
Here’s a look at nine ways to optimize to optimize your website for AI-assisted searches per (human-edited) ChatGPT recommendations, along with additional (human) commentary.
Content Authenticity Statement
About 70% of this blog post was human generated. The nine individual steps below are (human-edited) responses from ChatGPT.
Nine Ways to Increase Your Website Presence in ChatGPT Answers
To make your website “the answer” to ChatGPT queries, you can follow these steps:
- Understand user intent
- Optimize your content
- Provide comprehensive information
- Implement schema markup
- Optimize for featured snippets
- Use clear and concise headings
- Implement a site search feature
- Monitor user behavior
- Promote your website
Understand user intent: Analyze the types of queries users might have and determine the information they are seeking. This will help you identify the key areas of your website that need to provide relevant answers.
SEO professionals have traditionally done this through keyword research. But it’s best to start that effort internally at your organization or client, asking a variety of customer-facing people (sales, customer service, etc.) about the questions customers ask 1) when looking for products or services like yours, that is, what problems they are trying to solve; 2) during the sales process; and 3) at the beginning of their engagement with your company.
These answers can then be combined with keyword research to build out helpful web page, blog post, and thought leadership content.
Optimize your content: Ensure that your website content is well-structured, informative, and optimized for search engines. Use relevant keywords and phrases that align with user queries and add those keywords in all key areas for on-page SEO.
Affiliate sales support independent publishing
This should be a big and ongoing focus of SEO efforts. Obviously, you’ll want to optimize your product/service pages as well as competitive comparison pages (if applicable). But also optimize case studies and, if your company has offices in multiple cities, your individual city pages. In order to add more content pages without making them seem overwhelming, consider using accordion style design.
Provide comprehensive information: Create detailed and accurate content that covers a wide range of topics related to your website’s niche or your company’s market. The more comprehensive and useful your content is, the higher the chances of it being a valuable answer to user queries.
Write professionally and comprehensively. Consider using SEO writing tools to optimize your content for search; for example, Semrush include an SEO Content Template and On Page SEO Checker. Make sure you have no indexable pages containing less than 300 words (Google’s baseline for “thin content”) except pages that don’t matter for non-brand search, like your Contact or Privacy Policy pages.
Implement schema markup: Utilize schema markup, such as JSON-LD, to provide structured data that search engines can understand. This markup helps search engines interpret your content more effectively and increases the chances of your website being featured as a rich snippet or answer box.
Schema markup can be kind of a rabbit hole. It’s most helpful for product-oriented websites, recipe sites, and local businesses. For B2B website, if you’re using the Yoast SEO plugin, it takes care of the basics.
If you’d like to go a level deeper, consider implementing a schema plugin like Schema Pro or Rank Math.
You can learn more about schema markup and schema plugins here, if you are curious: https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/wordpress/best-wordpress-schema-plugins .
Optimize for featured snippets: Aim to optimize your content to appear as a featured snippet, which is a prominent position on search engine result pages. Featured snippets often provide direct answers to user queries, increasing your website’s visibility and authority.
This is accomplished by creating great content (particularly in terms of lists), and using schema markup (see the point above). Here’s an example where team building company Best Corporate Events gets some extra attention at the top of Google search:
And here’s an example of where global brand strategy agency Siegel+Gale appears in another type of Google’s featured snippets, the “People also ask” box:
Other types of featured snippets include Knowledge panel, Local pack, Sitelinks, Reviews, Image, People also ask, Indented, and Related searches.
This post explains how to optimize for inclusion in featured snippets, though you’re probably already doing most of these things, like on-page SEO and keyword research: https://popupsmart.com/blog/how-to-optimize-featured-snippets#majortypesoffeaturedsnippets .
Use clear and concise headings: Organize your content using clear headings and subheadings that accurately reflect the information covered in each section. This helps both users and search engines navigate your website more effectively.
This is just excellent general SEO advice. Keep both your human readers and SEO in mind when crafting sub-headings on your pages and posts.
Enable a site search feature: Implement a search feature on your website to allow users to directly search for information within your site. This can help users find the specific answers they are looking for, increasing user satisfaction and engagement.
Though it’s not clear this impacts AI-enhanced search directly, it’s advisable in any case. Site search can improve the website visitor experience, keep visitors on your site longer, and provide valuable intelligence about what users are looking for on your site. Their search terms and questions are helpful for informing your future content strategy.
Monitor user behavior: Analyze user behavior on your website, such as bounce rates and time spent on page, to understand how users interact with your content. This data can help you identify areas for improvement and refine your content to better serve user needs.
Analyze visitor behavior on your site to see what grabs their attention, where they spend time, and what elements they are most likely to click. Implement a behavior tracking heat map tool such as Microsoft Clarity, Lucky Orange, Smartlook, or TWIPLA.
Promote your website: Utilize various marketing channels, such as social media, content promotion, and SEO strategies, to increase your website’s visibility and attract more visitors. The more traffic you generate, the more opportunities you have to provide answers to user queries.
ChatGPT is not immune from giving “Captain Obvious” type answers at times.
Remember that becoming “the answer” to ChatGPT queries requires a combination of relevant and high-quality content, technical optimizations, and effective promotion. Regularly update and improve your website to maintain its relevance and authority in your niche.
One final idea – a Google search doesn’t provide much help on this question, as again most of the results are focused on how to write effective queries for ChatGPT. This caught my eye though. This may or may not be something you’d want to do, but the interesting point is “Train ChatGPT on your website content (and) articles.”
https://help.socialintents.com/article/186-how-to-add-chatgpt-to-your-website