Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 02/02/2025

Table of contents:

• What exactly is AI search?
• How does AI search differ from traditional SEO?
• How has AI changed the SERP’s perhaps forever
• How can I create better content marketing for my business so it increases the viability in AI search?

Okay, there are a lot of buzzwords being used at the moment: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google SGE.

Marketing managers around the globe have got themselves into a bit of a fluster as to how they can better optimise their content marketing, so that it appears more often in the LLM’s.

 

What Is AI Search?

Let’s start at the beginning: What is AI search?

So, AI search is changing, well, search engine optimisation.

The reason is that shoppers are having longer conversations with the LLMs, asking much more complex questions (longer search strings using the query fan-out technique).

Therefore, the main shift for agencies is simple: it’s less about optimising for short keywords and more about comprehensive content. Plus, also working on making your business more of an authority- now more on that later.

 

Personalisation

Here’s something else to throw into the mix: for those of us who work in marketing, we know that Google SERPs are sometimes personalised. This has been around for donkeys’ years.

So, let’s say Jane wants a new pair of running trainers; her last pair are a bit tired-looking.

Now, she’s shopping for a new pair of shoes at work on a  Friday afternoon, well, the boss is away for an hour. However, when she continues that search on Monday, the organic results are skewed, changed, however you want to word it. That’s because she was browsing for the same keyword, “running trainers,” on Friday.

Well, AI takes that personalisation to another level because, well, ChatGPT learns over time about you.

 

How does this impact traditional SEO?

Well, as we all know, organic click-through rates are dropping. They are decreasing, which has marketing managers in despair across the land.

Now, thanks to RAG, quotes and generated responses are presented directly in the SERP’s.

These are called AI-generated responses. However, do not fear, Batman is in here.

What you have to do is improve the quality of your content marketing; this is where we can help.

“76% of people who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a physical place within 24 hours.”

 

Need to be more in-depth.

You basically need to cover whatever you’re talking about in the article or on the page more comprehensively.

Think about, for example, using good on-page SEO techniques, using titles, and also not writing 700 words of quickly written gibberish; you need to cover the subject in a much more in-depth way.

Cover the entire topic.

Therefore, when you work with an expert within your company to write the article, cover the entire topic. This way, it will help improve your chances of being cited by the LLMs, and it will also improve your organic search engine optimisation if done right.

Don’t focus on a single keyword.

If we were to return to the 1990’s, the reason for that would be to listen to dance music from that era- “Rhythm is dancer” is a personal favourite.

However, don’t return to the early 2000’s or 1990’s in terms of SEO, by over-focusing on optimising pages for one single keyword.

The LLMs, along with Google’s algorithm, are so much more advanced; it’s now about answering as many of shoppers’ questions as possible.

Answering the question in a way that the LLMs plus the algorithms know you’re an absolute expert in terms of what you are talking about. If you’re faking it, well, the algorithms will know it’s 1000 words of absolute waffle.

Semantic SEO

Semantic SEO sounds super complicated; however, it just means understanding the meaning of the search string or question. It means not just answering the one question, but answering all related questions. For example, if you know someone searches for “low-cost monthly car leasing,” the following question concerns how much servicing for that car costs over the lease. We can also answer that on the page.

Build trust and authority, and improve your E-E-A-T score.

 

Be a leader, not a follower.

EEAT is all about showing that you’re an expert in your field. Whether that’s gutter cleaning or how to repair an aircraft engine. It doesn’t really matter what Google wants to see is that you’re an expert in your field. You do that by writing a comprehensive article that offers advice your customers want to read.

 

Don’t write a huge slab of text.

Okay, for those that are new to search engine optimisation, this is an important point, so do listen up.

People who are new to SEO often write huge blocks of text, where they don’t split the text up with titles, H1-H6 titles or use good on-page SEO techniques.

The results show that Google’s algorithm can sometimes struggle to understand a page’s content. It might be clear, for example, that you’re writing about fireworks. Yet without writing in a conversational style, well, the LLMs and Google can’t pick out relevant questions and answers to cite.

 

Participate in brand building.

We have been talking about the semantic web, brand building, why your business needs to be an entity, and how to stand out in the semantic web. Now we’ve been discussing that aspect of SEO for over 10 years, so businesses that have been listening to us will stand a much better chance of appearing more often to LLMs. This is simply because if done right, those businesses will have strong authority.

Now, even since the very early days of Google’s PageRank, it was all about improving a business’s authority. That was mostly due to backlinks; however, now it’s a bit more complicated to improve your brand building.

 

Here’s how you do it:

• Consistent publishing of high-quality content marketing
• A ton of positive business reviews
• All the pages have the Google EEAT aspect improved.

 

How our company can help:

Detailed content marketing

One of the most important things you can do to get more eyeballs and more shoppers on your website is to write helpful content marketing.

Google even rolled out a massive update, called the “Google Helpful Content” update.

Therefore, there’s a massive clue in the title: if you write helpful content marketing, it will rank higher in organic search.

If it ranks higher in organic search on Google, then this makes it much more likely that Google will also cite your work in Google AI Overviews.

So there you have it: if you put your back into writing the content marketing, and it’s a really good piece, you increase your chances of being mentioned in the AI Overviews, not to mention the LLMs, such as Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Microsoft’s Copilot.

 

We don’t use AI

Don’t use AI to try to rank higher in AI.

We get it, you’re so busy running your business that sometimes it might seem logical to try using AI-generated text to rank higher organically or just be cited in the LLMs. From our experience, this doesn’t work. You need to write and publish content with a high Google EEAT score.

 

ChatGPT also uses Google’s index.

Therefore, it’s possible that with a superb piece of content marketing, your business could soar to the top of Google’s organic results like an eagle. However, it could also gain customers via Google AI Overviews. Also, because ChatGPT uses the Google index, you’re being cited in more and more ChatGPT answers.

Therefore, the solution is simple: publish great quality content marketing.

 

Get to know your business.

We will get to know your business; this is key to the success of LLM optimisation and to appearing in the GEO and organic results.

We don’t just treat your business like a 2-hour time block of tasks posted to Slack.
Nope

We get to know your business, get to know its DNA, what makes you different. With strong commercial awareness, there’s a reason why so many companies in Wales flock to us when they need GEO and SEO optimisation.

 

Build links

Don’t believe the rubbish that link building is dead.
It’s not dead at all.

In fact, quality links, naturally built in a white-hat way, are more important than ever.
If we return to Google EEAT, well, there’s really and truly only one way of measuring authority- that is by having a solid, well-built backlink profile.

This is one of the main ways to rank higher in Google’s organic results; therefore, it stands to reason that Google also uses a high-ranking blog post or page to appear in the Google AI Overviews.

Improve your semantic SEO

Improve your semantic SEO by gaining more brand mentions. Get your business’s NAP mentioned on key websites and get more quality backlinks.

 

Be comprehensive

The key takeaway from this whole thing is simple: in content marketing, be as comprehensive as you can. For example, the digital marketing agencies that now employ actual experts will be the ones to excel. The agencies that hire staff on lower salaries don’t know they have GEO and their SEO; well, that work is not going to rank in an era of AI.

Say less, but say more at the same time, say the most
Our best advice would be: when thinking about content marketing, stick to your “content calendar” for the year and focus on quality.

Don’t just roll content marketing out weekly for the sake of it. In a world of LLMs and SEO, where these systems can cite one of perhaps hundreds of thousands of pages, you need to stand out more than ever. The only true way to stand out from the crowd is not to focus on quantity and typing until your fingers hurt. It’s not all about quality.

How our winning SEO agency can get you on the path to GEO, LLM and SEO success

 

We can help you drum up more business online.

Whether you have ambitions in GEO, SEO, or just in gaining more customers, we are the agency to call.

Call Walsh & Partners today.

We are one of the best and longest-established agencies in Cardiff, South Wales.