As business owners or potential entrepreneurs, we know the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) as it relates to the success of our business or ideas coming into fruition. As technology has grown, there’s been a shift in
how SEO works
with other technological advances.
One of the more interesting advances, on its own and as it relates to optimizing keywords, is machine learning. Research shows that by 2020, the artificial intelligence (AI) market will be worth over $5 billion, due in large part to machine learning. In other words, it’s here to stay. The idea that computers can handle some of the more remedial tasks and learn how to improve just by gathering data is impressive. But how does this type of technology impact marketers and their websites’ SEO?
We are going to look at some of the ways that people are using machine learning in combination with their search engine optimization techniques. Its potential is quickly emerging and will have a serious impact on marketing as we know it.
1. AI’s Impact On Content SEO
Machine learning has a huge impact on the way business owners are creating their website content and implementing keywords. Google quickly realized that there was no way humans can track and identify every website, then rank those websites based on the information on-site.
As a result, Google technicians implemented artificial intelligence to try and keep websites (and the content within) in check. Their task is to make sure that their users are getting exactly what they need when they search for something.
Most business leaders understand the importance of AI when working with SEO. A study from Emerj discovered that a majority of business owners feel that search is the single most profitable application for modern AI, only behind customer segmentation. This change has lessened the burden on real SEO specialists and eliminated a whole group of “fraudster” SEO specialists who were using deceptive behavior like keyword stuffing. The end result? Those who work with SEO benefit from machine learning because it allows them to rank on the quality of their content and the proper use of keywords.
2. Link Building And Website Quality
Link building is another area of optimization that has recently benefited from the use of AI software. Google’s AI software is able to look at links and recognize how valuable and how relevant they are as they relate to the content within and the keywords. Google’s algorithm, which is run mostly on AI, ranks websites based on a number of features, including the links included within the article and how well they relate to the core content.
Due to machine learning, people are becoming more thoughtful about their choice of SEO keywords, anchor text when linking and, of course, the sites they are linking to on their page.
The need for Google employees to crawl over each page and check relevancy is over. Now what used to take weeks or months can be done in seconds. Much like the core content, this results in a more positive experience for people who come to your website, and it gives you the chance to focus on the quality you’re delivering instead of trying to keep current on all the latest algorithmic changes.
3. Voice Search And Optimization
A case study titled Google Search by Voice explains how Google’s artificial intelligence works when it’s exposed to people who are searching via voice. There are plenty of metrics that go into understanding and producing results by voice, but the first and most important thing is the word error rate, which is used to improve the machine learning technology by helping recognize every user by their voice and mannerisms.
Why is this important? Well, voice search is growing in popularity, which means that Google is invested heavily in this option and most people already have a feature to voice search on their smartphone. If not, they can always search using their home device like Amazon’s Alexa.
The point is that SEO matters in a different way in the voice search realm. When people speak into their devices, they are still looking for the same thing they may be looking for if they were typing it, but the way they explain it when speaking is probably going to be different.
SEO specialists need to identify the trends in voice search now so that they are able to rank their websites based on spoken keywords as well as written keywords.
Conclusion
SEO seems to be here to stay. The way we implement SEO, well, that’s a different story. As technology advances, time begins to change and new trends emerge.
Machine learning has taught us that there is still room for personalization and individual involvement in businesses, but it might not be where we expected that involvement to be a decade ago.
The best thing we can do as SEO specialists is to continue to watch the trends and look for new opportunities as artificial intelligence snakes its way into every facet of our online and offline experiences.