How does your SEO agency think AI (Artificial Intelligence) is changing organic SEO?

Introduction

Now we do realise that the title of this article, well, it’s a rather complicated one, yet, it’s one that we think is having a massive bearing on SEO, how it should be completed, plus, also having a direct influence on deciding where companies are ranked in Bristol.

So, we all know that AI it becoming more and more a part of our everyday lives, for instance, if you phone a company, rather than running through say 10 various departments, such as sales, logistics and complaints, the AI might simply ask you at the start of the call, to simply say what the call is regarding.

Then AI can redirect your call, same with web chat, if you were to type “missed delivery” or “haven’t got my parcel today, “lost parcel” then the AI knows that you want to discuss a parcel that’s missing, sometimes, the whole issue can be resolved via AI, without having to have a staff member reply, saving money and time.

So, we all know the benefits of AI, yet, what a lot of business owners don’t know, is how its being used to improve SEO, or to be more exact, to change the order in how Bristol companies are ranked.

Now it does go without saying, that no Bristol SEO companies will know exactly how Google’s Algorithm works, its actually a closely guarded secret by Google, and with very good reason.

The reason being is this, if everyone, that SEO agencies, sole traders, large PLC businesses all had the exact blue print, stating how Google’s algorithm works, well, there will be some companies less focused on offering advice, and customer service, they may just be focused on ranking higher on Google, by ticking off a list of things they need to do.

So, let us explain what this means for a second, buying a new bike, let’s say an electric mountain bike, and you haven’t a clue which is the best model for you, what the range is, and also which bikes have the best reviews, so you ask Google now for help.

Now, the customer, well, they want answers to their queries, such as, “which is the best electric bike for under 2000”- and Google will serve websites that best answers that query.

And this will be based on Google’s algorithm working out which businesses are the best at answering that question, that are likely to answer the question with the most detail, and are likely to be informative for the shopper that wants to buy an electric bike.

So, Google is all about supplying the best possible answers to questions, but lets say all businesses knew exactly how Google’s algorithm works,  well then your going to have those companies that want to “game” the algorithm.

So, the companies that want to “game” the algorithm, well they may not be interested in offering the best advice, and just want to rank higher on Google, and may not offer the best answer, or the best customer service, they just want to sell more items at any cost, and that’s why these businesses, shouldn’t be on the first page of Google.

That’s why Google, and other search engines, go to huge lengths, great cost, and hire some of the best SEO minds, to make sure that they are working hard to make sure that the companies that are likely to best answer the query rank on the first page. So, this is why Google doesn’t publish exactly how its algorithm works, to stop the algorithm from possibly being cheated by companies, that just want to rank higher, but don’t want to offer good advice.

Let’s give you another example, some really low-quality, spammy, cheap SEO companies, well, in the past, though that building spam links was a good idea (IT IS MOST DEFINTELY NOT)- well, some companies thought think was a quick way to get to the top of Google, what happened? Well, those businesses were quite often hit by large penalties, like the Google Penguin updates, which meant, that those that thought they could fool Google’s algorithm, well, were hit by penalties sometimes so large, that they were wiped off Googles results.

So, a word to the wise, just do SEO the right way, invest in quality SEO.

Now, we have to say, we’ve gone off topic here for a second, we need to talk about how our Bristol based seo company thinks AI is changing SEO for the better.

So, lets dive into what we mean by that

AI, we think is monitoring user engagement signals

What do we even mean by that?

Well, let’s say you’re on a popular streaming service, like Netflix, we think Netflix is brilliant, and when some of our seo consultants aren’t in work, and there in semi hibernation mode during winter, well, they can normally be found Infront of Netflix.

So, let’s say you’re on Netflix, you want to watch an action film, now you’ll have a huge mass of films to watch from.

But what if the films were ranked based on the most popular, and also which films the viewer watched right to the end?

So, lets say one film is the most popular, and 99.7% of people watch the whole film, and therefore don’t switch off after 10 minutes of viewing, obviously that’s a very popular film, plus, if people are giving up say 3 hours of their life to watch it until the end, or at least 99% of people are, then it must be good right?

Well, we think here at this digital marketing agency, that Google’s results work in a kind of similar way, lets say someone is looking for a used car in Bristol, and on one website, they spend on average under 60 seconds viewing the stock, business number two,  the average shopper spends 3 minutes, and website three has a Google Analytics time on site figure of over 10 minutes.

Now someone shopping for a used car, if they spend 10 minutes on that site, compared to 3 minutes on another companies site, and only 60 seconds on the first, well, obviously business 3 has managed to keep the shoppers attention for the longest, which shows, that the company on average might be better at answering that query.

So, what is Google’s RankBrain?

Well, Google has openly said that Google’s RankBrain was an important update, so much so, its widely believed that it’s the third most important Googe update out of them all.

Now, when you consider, that most seo companies believe that Google’s algorithm will rank businesses in say Bristol, according to 200 or more various ranking factors, if Google’s RankBrain is ranked number 3, as the 3rd most important ranking factor, well, its most certainly a big-deal and one which well known seo companies, like Pack Digital cant afford not to understand.

Like we said earlier on in this article, no one outside of Google knows exactly how the Google algorithm works, its mere speculation on our part how we think it works, as we are not part of Google, yet we do a lot of testing, and we think “time on site”, “bounce rate” and how many pages you visit is noted by Google, so let us explain a little bit more on what we mean by that

Time on site

We mentioned this point earlier, but its most definitely worth going over again, because, when it comes to AI as part of Google’s algorithm, we have a feeling here at this agency, that “time on site” is an important thing to monitor.

So, when you log into your Google Analytics, it will provide you with information such as “time on site”- but what does this even mean?

Let’s say you open a shop, a clothing shop, right near the harbourside of Bristol, and the shop stocks your own brand of clothes. Your eager to launch the brand, and open the shop, and start letting customers in your shop.

Its just, the first week your business opens, despite it being in an area with very high footfall, you notice that the average shopper spends seconds in your shop. So, this has you worried, as a business, as sales are not what you expected, plus, shoppers don’t want to be in the shop for very long.

So, your obviously going to want shoppers spend longer in your store, and when it comes to online marketing, well the same logic should apply.

For example, lets say there’s two businesses, their direct competitors in Bristol, lets say there both solicitor practices, and are both in the same area, that’s in Clifton, Bristol, in The South West of England.

Now, lets say one solicitors website has average shopper on the website, for say 9 minutes, and the second website, well, that’s not well-designed, its slow, the menu is hard to use, plus, it looks very dated in terms of the design.

So, website two, well, that only has a visitor for 50 seconds on average.

Now, Google’s RankBrain, that’s what seo consultants think is the name for the AI that’s part of Google’s algorithm, well, that’s going to spot that, that think, well business number one, that’s keeping a shopper’s interest for 9 minutes, well, that’s obviously better at answering that query, so the website might rank higher.

So, in a nutshell, if you were to ask us whether we think “time spent on site” is important, well, we think so, if it’s included in your monthly seo report, pay notice to it, and if its not, well, we would recommend calling whoever your Bristol seo company is, and asking for this SEO metric, to be included in your reporting.

Why should I care if my businesses bounce rate is super-high?

We think here at this digital marketing agency, that AI, that’s Google’s RankBrain, is also monitoring to see how high a business’s bounce rate is.

Now, let’s say you sell, luxury coffee online, and you run a business by where, the customer sets up a repeat order with you, and coffee is delivered to their door every week. So, you want to improve your SEO for “coffee mail order”.

Let’s say just for example purposes, that on Google there’s two businesses which are at the top, the first has a bounce rate of 60%, then on the second business, there’s a bounce rate of 90%- now, this shows that business number one, that has a lower bounce rate so can retain visitors better.

If you don’t know what “bounce rate” means, well, it’s rather simple, it’s just the number of visitors expressed as a percentage, that have left after visiting one page.

So, a business should aim to lower its bounce rate, and aim to keep shoppers on the website, for as long as possible.

How we can help

We are a Bristol seo company, if you want help to improve your organic seo, then why not call us?