Traditional SEO vs. AI Search: A Simple Guide for Small Businesses
SEO is a constantly-changing field, and you can absolutely be forgiven if you find it overwhelming and complicated. Then, add onto that the sudden shift towards AI-generated answers in search engine results, and things become even more complex.
If you own a small business and have relied on SEO to grow your business traffic online, you might be tearing your hair out at now having to deal with AI as well.
But while traditional SEO and AI search are different, you can use a lot of the same fundamental principles to gain traffic from both, and if you work with an SEO agency, they can help you adapt to the trends.
Here, we’ll offer you a quick and easy guide on the differences between SEO and AI search, how you can adapt to AI, and what steps you can take to start this new optimization process!
SEO and AI Search: The Basics
For a long time, online traffic was governed by the principles of search engine optimization (SEO), a practice online businesses used to get their webpages highly-ranked for various queries on search engine results pages.
However, these days, results pages have changed dramatically as a result of the integration of AI.
Now, instead of immediately showing users the algorithm-driven results for their queries, search pages begin with AI overviews that summarize the content of the most relevant and authoritative query results. Where businesses once had to compete for top spots on results pages using SEO, they now also have to jockey for the relevance and authority that will allow them to appear in AI-generated summaries.
The process of optimizing business content for AI is now known variously as AI SEO, AI optimization (AIO), and generative engine optimization (GEO).
Key Differences Between Traditional SEO and AI SEO
Many of the core fundamentals of traditional SEO and AI SEO are similar, but there are key differences between them in terms of focus, content, and metrics.
Core Focus
The core focus of traditional SEO was to accumulate high rankings on search results pages. Various on-page and off-page strategies allowed businesses to harness their web content to attract users and gain traffic.
Good SEO, in the traditional sense, rested on how well your business could include high-volume keywords in its content, create backlinks between it and other businesses, and encourage users to stay on webpages via internal linking.
With AI search, things are different. Now, instead of targeting general keywords that might appear in search queries, content needs to be geared towards giving specific, complete answers to questions.
Because AI summaries are looking for a full answer to a user’s question, content that contains complete, authoritative information is much more likely to show up than content that is just trying to hit as many keywords as possible.
Content Style
In addition to the actual data in the content you create, AI summaries have also changed what style of content is preferred. In the past, traditional SEO favored keyword-heavy content that wasn’t necessarily brand-focused or filtered. AI engines, however, can discriminate based on brand relevance, authority, and whether content sounds genuine. As a result, AI SEO teaches businesses to shift their focus towards more informative, personalized, brand-building content like blogs, as these help communicate trust signals to AI engines.
Success Metrics
In the days of SEO dominance, most online businesses were chiefly concerned with tracking success metrics like page rankings, click-through rate, backlinks, and conversion rates. AI SEO, by contrast, has introduced new metrics that businesses can keep track of to gauge their presence in AI overviews. These new metrics include E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness,
Trustworthiness), AI citations, mentions, and share of voice (SoV).
How Should Businesses Adapt to AI Search?
With the above differences in mind, you may be wondering exactly how you can adapt to the changes AI search has brought to SEO as a field. Here are some of our biggest tips on what you can prioritize to get your content greater AI visibility:
Focus on More Than Keywords
Instead of relying mostly on keywords, which were the core of traditional SEO, AI-optimized businesses need to focus on creating content that answers specific, long-tail questions asked by customers. It’s impossible to cover every keyword with AI in the mix, so the best bet for your business is to focus on filling your content with precise, detailed information geared towards answering one single question, which will help you accumulate and manage AI citations.
The key thing to remember with AI-optimized content is that quality matters much more than quantity. Instead of pumping out as much volume as possible, focus on refining your content to be as strong and factual as it can be.
Build Brand Authority and Connections
In the age of AI search, brand authority and connections matter more than ever. To attract AI engines, your content has to be factual and display signals of authority such as your business’ experience and expertise.
Highlighting and responding to reviews, creating partnerships and backlinks with other authoritative brands, and keeping your content consistently up-to-date is vastly more important now than ever before, as these tactics will signal to AI engines that your brand is prominent in its industry.
Work With Your SEO Agency
AI SEO can be complicated, much like traditional SEO. For business owners who aren’t tech wizards, working with SEO agencies who help us understand the fundamentals has always been a tried and tested approach. Many SEO agencies that you may already be working with are equipped with all the tools necessary to create a unique AI content strategy for your business, implement it, and then monitor its success through the metrics we discussed earlier, so sticking with them for ongoing strategy and adaptation can help you preserve continuity while also capitalizing on AI trends.
It may be an extra expense, but if you need to keep your focus on other concerns, handing the technical aspect of optimization off to specialists may actually end up making you money in the long run. If necessary, you can even supplement the ongoing work of your existing SEO agency with help from a GEO specialist who can offer some supportive and collaborative insight.
What Steps Can You Take To Capitalize on AI Search?
The tips above are general ways you can start refocusing your business towards AI optimization, but there are smaller steps you can take right now to move in the right direction. Consider these options to begin the process of AI optimization in a small way:
• Add AI-focused schema to your content: You can make small changes to your content right now to start getting mentions in AI. Add structural data elements to your content such as detailed and factual FAQs that target specific questions which AI generators can latch onto.
• Polish your technical SEO: Make sure that your website is functional and high-performing, loads fast, and is optimized for mobile devices, as these factors help AI engines crawl your website more easily.
• Leverage your local SEO tactics: To aid in citation management, layer your content, advertisements, and branding with detailed, accurate, and up-to-date information about your business, such as maps, reviews, services, and hours of operation, as these are factual details that AI loves.
Start Changing the Way Your Business Gains Traffic!
The sudden prominence of AI search may seem scary, but in reality, this new way of gaining traffic offers critical opportunities for small businesses! By employing the strategies above, you can boost your AI visibility to new levels, capitalizing on the benefits AI offers in order to foster growth.
About the Author
Jason also enjoys multiple cups of tea daily, hiding away on weekends, catching up on reading, and rewatching The Simpsons for the 20th time.
