Why Customer Reviews Have Never Been More Important

“The search landscape changes significantly and pushes us to face new problems and learn new skills,” warns Kevin Indig, who’s built SEO and growth teams for Atlassian, G2 and Shopify. Indig spent “countless hours” testing out Google’s new AI-powered search generative experience (SGE) since its beta release in mid-May 2023 — and, long story short, your SEO keyword strategy simply won’t cut it any longer. Indig’s findings are being shared by seemingly every AI and SEO thought leader; in his research, he identified 11 “realizations” about the changing search experience on Google, where more than 90% of web searches are conducted today. 

While my argument remains the same — that your SEO is useless without optimal UX, because your throngs of site visitors will leave if your SERP descriptions are misleading — your marketers ignoring the influence of artificial intelligence in modern online search would be like professional athletes refusing to use their team trainers’ latest health tech advancements. 

Search engines are still the starting point for nearly 70% of all online experiences, and nine-billion searches are conducted per day on Google alone. Historically, three quarters of Google search users haven’t clicked past the first page of results, while all results on the second page have received only 0.78% of all clicks. Now, with new AI-powered results, the top spot may be even more lucrative — and much harder to capture, especially if you’re not updating your SEO strategy from years prior.

In his “11 realizations from testing Search Generative Experience” post, Indig demonstrates how “we can reverse-engineer AI results,” leveraging customer brand and product reviews to increase our search visibility. But, first, some of Indig’s earlier, somewhat startling observations. 

6 Significant Changes to SEO Revealed by Google I/O 2023

According to Indig:

1. The “SEO playing field” can now be isolated into three distinct features: AI Snapshots, non-AI results, and Perspectives, “structured by EEAT” (or Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust). The AI Snapshot link carousel, Indig says, will be “limited to high authority, high expertise” results and “likely get the most search traffic.” Below the AI Snapshot, you’ll find “authentic, first-hand experience” results from content “that emphasizes the experience of individuals, most probably experts.” Finally, in the Perspectives tab, you’ll see “creator results,” which Indig believes may be easier to capture, “based on a new set of signals.” Here, Google pulls results from Twitter and the web, but should soon bring in content from YouTube, Reddit and TikTok as well.
2. Image thumbnail optimization will become a much more important component of SEO strategy — because, across all of Google’s new features, “images stand out as a way to get attention and clicks.” As Indig points out, “Youtubers have played this game for years, and SEOs will need to catch up.” 
3. “Video continues to play a key role” — and should certainly not be cast aside, with more than 90% of consumers looking for more online video content from brands; Indig was surprised not to find a “Key Moments in Video feature in AI answers,” but says he remains “bullish” on Google “bring[ing] more YouTube results into AI Snapshots.”
4. Content is (still) king in eCommerce, as Google shopping results “seem to be” accompanied by buyer guide content” and sometimes even link from the Snapshot carousel out to the guide itself. For content marketers, the question remains how to “get into that spot.”
5. Google Ads don’t yet have a place in AI Snapshots — because, unlike Microsoft, for instance, Google relies on search ad revenue. Currently, Google shows shopping ads above AI answers, which helps the Big Tech behemoth monetize the “verticals that matter.” However, no long-term design plan has been announced, which leaves your SEO and digital advertising managers with the task of closely monitoring to ensure SEO and ad strategies remain optimized for the new AI SGE. 
6. SEO professionals “will lose critical data if Google doesn’t build new ways to understand site performance.” According to Indig, “SEOs already don’t get enough data from Google to understand the impact and performance of SERP Features” — and search volume and rankings “might [even] be useless for AI Snapshots!” As a result, Indig calls for new data from Google (Analytics) “to help us understand the cause and effect of optimizations,” and I would recommend a CDP and/or DXP for optimal digital data management and use.

Plus, Indig points out, larger questions remain, like:

• How will Google keep the web ecosystem alive to get the content it needs for AI Snapshots? 
• How much will we need to lean on data from ads in AI answers? 
• What will algorithm updates look like in the future of Search?
• Will Google bring out a sidebar chatbot like Edge/Bing?
• Can Google provide enough incentive for site owners to let Google index their site, or will we see more sites opting out of Google Search if they see traffic eroding?
• Is the push from Microsoft a welcome change that masks something Google wanted to do all along?

Indeed, Google’s new AI SGE isn’t really innovative at all, for a 2023 update. As Indig puts it:

• “Google is doing to Bing what Meta did to Snapchat with Stories: copy a new product feature to fence in the growth of a competitor” by flat-out “copying” other brands’ approaches to AI search
• With its Bard Tools marketplace for Bard integrations, Google is copying OpenAI’s gallery of ChatGPT plugins

Where Google does have a significant advantage is in all the data it’s collected, which could help you train AI models and optimize everything from your emails to your website.

Of course, in the era of AI, mastering SEO will take ongoing training as well as what Indig calls “reverse engineering.” Hint: You also shouldn’t stop running ads.

How to Reverse-Engineer AI Results to Optimize Your Website for Search, Improve Your SERP Rankings, and Get More Sales

From Indig’s 11 recent realizations about the new Google AI search generative experience, three stand out as having the greatest potential impact on your business. 

Realization 1: We can reverse-engineer AI search results

With Google’s new AI-powered Snapshot link carousel almost certain to snatch up the vast majority of link clicks, it’s essential your SEO team understands what it will take to rank. And it’s not what it used to be. 

From his tests in beta, Indig learned that the sites shown in the AI Snapshot are not the same as the results Google would have served via classic organic search. And if AI Snapshot carousels produce the most organic clicks, “but Google doesn't pick the best-ranking sites, we need to re-evaluate what signals Google uses to put the carousel together.”

As Indig explains:

Google generates AI answers by grounding LLMs (large language models) in search results with a process called Retrieval augmented generation (RAG). Google’s corroboration feature lets us break AI answers down and see which web results contributed to what part. 

As a result, to rank in AI query results, we need to understand “the different angles SGE covers” and address them “explicitly” in our site content — something that will surely take time and split-testing to achieve.

“Ironically,” Indig adds, this may lead to the end of Featured Snippets, the SERP result that, since 2014, has appeared (as “position 0”) above the first result and provided an answer to a specific query using a snippet of web content with a link to the source page.

Realization 2: We can improve our eCommerce results by soliciting more and better brand and product reviews 

As Indig puts it, “AI answers in e-commerce are the most aggressive,” with two rows of seven products displayed on desktop in response to a product — or transactional intent — query. And, like other AI search results, those for eCommerce offerings also “don’t overlap” with organic.

Although Indig claims it “isn’t clear… at this point” how Google determines which products to feature in its AI search results, it seems pretty evident from his own research that Google is now pulling item attributes from online product, local and brand reviews, converting unstructured into structured data.

When you click on a product in the AI Snapshot carousel, a right sidebar appears, displaying a variety of retailers selling the same product — along with their pricing, indicating brands with lower prices might accrue higher click-through rates and make more sales than brands with better reviews or snippets. (Indig expects Google to soon “offer sponsored slots in this list,” further monetizing product searches and maintaining the importance of paid ads and SEM.)

As a result, we now know that for transactional intent queries we must optimize:

• Google reviews
• Third-party reviews
• Price
• Thumbnail
• Title
• Description
• “Attributes”

Also, I recommend:

• Asking questions and listening
• Conducting customer experience surveys
• Measuring customer satisfaction scores
• Providing incentives for customer reviews, user-generated content and influencer promotion 
• Developing and utilizing a voice-of-the-customer program
• Providing easy access to self-service portals
• Leveraging the information obtained to improve products, product listings and product promotion 
• Identifying and addressing gaps and opportunities in processes and cross-departmental coordination

Realization 3: We can leverage digital ads to (continue to) “massively” influence organic search results and increase sales

There’s no debating that “organic results [have long been] massively influenced by ads.” According to Indig, this won’t change anytime soon.

In fact, he says, Google “might offset higher costs of generative AI queries” with more ads in search results.

So what does this mean for your organization?

In addition to rethinking your SEO, AI, content, customer experience, data and analytics strategies to account for the new Google AI SGE, you must also prioritize the variety of digital advertising options offered by Google.

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Image Credits (in order of appearance) 

1. Photo by Warren on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/fNUNt9w3m-Q
2. Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/LremmH2SrOc
3. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/B7j5sAKeTxQ
4. Photo by Unsplash+ in collaboration with Getty Images on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/KIwHrO6di_o
5. Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/zbPDL84kvRg
6. Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/HK8IoD-5zpg