Will Google’s New AI SGE Kill SEO?

Today, more than just optimizing your site for conventional search engines, you need to optimize it for AI-powered search engines such as Microsoft Copilot and Google SGE.

On February 7, 2023, Microsoft launched its AI-powered chatbot Copilot to provide users with a smarter and more efficient search experience. Later in the same year, Google also deployed artificial intelligence to make searching more relevant and intuitive.

Google’s new AI SGE features a significant change in its algorithm.

Google displays search generative answers for 86.83% of all search questions. It offers users a more interactive search experience than traditional search. You just need to have a Google account and enroll yourself in Google Labs to experience these AI-generated search results.

Now, you may wonder whether all your SEO efforts are wasted.

Well, you should note two important factors:

• SGE results do not appear for all searches, even if users are enrolled in Google Labs.
• You can gain organic traffic from Google SGE with custom SEO tricks and strategies.

In the following sections, we’ll explore more about this SGE feature and its effect on organic traffic along with some tips to optimize your site for Google’s SGE feature.

Let’s start!

What is Google’s SGE Feature?

Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a new, experimental approach to search with generative AI.

SGE allows users to:

• Ask more complex and descriptive questions.
• Get the overview of a topic or webpage faster along with links to relevant results for further exploration.
• Get a quick start on something, like writing drafts or generating images from where they’re searching.
• Make progress easily by trying suggested next steps or asking for conversational follow-ups.

SGE presents AI-powered snapshots that feature a topic’s gist and links to the resources that support the content. It helps users explore the topic deeper and discover advanced information associated with their search topic.

For example, if you search for “supermoon,” Google SGE will generate a brief description of the supermoon, and present it along with the links to the top three data sources.

In addition, it will enable you to tap “Ask a follow up” where you can refine what you’re looking for. Besides, you might find some related topics, like “What happens when you see a supermoon?”, “Why is the moon so big tonight in 2024?” and more, to click on them and discover further.

Effect of SGE on Your Organic Traffic and SEO Efforts

Organic traffic is the visitors who land on your site through search engine results without any paid sources. Effective SEO strategies help businesses rank higher on search engines, thus resulting in higher organic traffic.

You might be amazed to know that-

• More than 53% of overall website traffic comes from organic search.
• Organic rankings always yield high-quality traffic that easily converts into leads or sales.

Google has developed SGE to help users get more from a single search.

At Stanford University’s Business, Government, & Society Forum 2024, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet Inc., said, “We’ve done all this in Google Search for a long time and people like it, people engage with it, people trust it. I view it as a natural continuation. With LLMs and AI, I think you have a more powerful tool to do that, which is what we are putting in Search with Search Generative Experience and so we’ll continue evolving it in that direction, too.”

The average height of SGE snapshots is 1,764 pixels, which acquires the most space of a typical mobile or desktop screen. These AI-generated results appear before organic search results and sometimes, before or after paid ads.

Since SGE allows users to get AI-generated answers directly in search results, it is expected to reduce the number of organic traffic to websites. In addition, it features straight answers with priority placement and space occupation, which seems more convenient to the users.

A study including 23 websites from the technology industry states that SGE results in an 18-64% drop in aggregate organic traffic.

Based on research, here’s a list of industries and the percentage of SGE impact on them:

• Healthcare- 76%
• E-commerce- 49%
• Technology- 48%
• Education- 44%
• Restaurant- 36%
• Entertainment- 36%
• Travel- 30%

However, if you optimize your site for SGE, you might observe an increase in your CTR rate and organic traffic.

Tips to Prepare for Google’s SGE Optimization

With less organic traffic, websites will face fewer followers, customers, or leads. However, with a better understanding of SGE and effective digital marketing tactics, you can prepare to optimize Google’s SGE.

Here are a few tips:

Improve SEO Rankings

SGE generates answers using sources from the top pages on Google. Therefore, you should keep focusing on SEO ranking. Refine your SEO approaches to appear on AI-generated snapshots.

Pay attention to your website user experience, including its loading speed. This significantly influences search engine rankings. Websites that load faster and offer a smooth and intuitive user journey, rank higher in relevant search results.

Implementing local SEO is another significant way to make your business appear on top whenever there’s a search relating to your business from your approachable location.

Craft Quality Content

It’s interesting how Google SGE presents specific answers, which include texts, images, links, and e-commerce results, sourcing from top pages.

If you present something that’s already on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), it may not help you appear on SGE snapshots.

Consider the following points to be cited by Google’s SGE:

• Focus on the latest data and original and helpful content that aligns with your target audience’s queries.
• Conduct research or studies or develop unique, shareable tools that attract meaningful backlinks.
• Make straightforward content and check your content readability.
• Strengthen E-E-A-T guidelines on your content, with statistics, citations, and quotes.
• Support content with more custom videos and infographics.

Focus on Long-tail and Low Competition Keywords

When your content answers the exact query that users are typing, there’s a high chance for your site to appear on SGE snapshots. Consider implementing long-tail conversational keywords into your content since longer and unique keywords make it easy to rank higher for relevant searches.

Additionally, go for keywords with a lower competition. Ranking with competitive keywords will be challenging unless you’re a popular brand with a high domain authority.

Experienced SEO experts and digital marketing professionals use tools that help them identify what specific keywords or questions the users are asking on the search bar. Also, they can evaluate their keyword difficulty score using a keyword-researching tool.

Include Interesting Images for Higher CTR

Implementation of a quality image is not enough for a SGE cited source, the image must be relevant and interesting.

Just like attractive images on YouTube thumbnails get more clicks, SGE-cited sources with appealing images also receive a higher Click-through Rate (CTR).

Optimize for Featured Snippets

Most information on SGE responses is drawn from featured snippets. Consider customizing your content into different sections well-suited for featured snippets. It will help drive more visibility.

Keep experimenting with new approaches to featured snippets as Google SGE is an experimental approach and it continues to evolve.

What’s the Future of SEO?

We’ve already seen how AI tools, like ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing have changed how users search and interact with the internet. Microsoft Copilot and Google SGE are expected to bring a revolution in SEO practices.

These AI-powered search results understand users’ queries and generate more accurate answers than traditional searches. With these AI-generated searches, users can continue with deeper explanations of their search topics, which is not possible in conventional keyword searches.

However, SEO will always remain a major factor in digital marketing. Artificial intelligence is here to enhance search result accuracy and make SEO more impactful in the future.

As SGE is Google’s experimental approach to helping users with the best answers to their questions, its impact on industries, including their SEO efforts and organic traffic, evolves rapidly. Therefore, the safe solution is to embrace AI tools while strengthening human expertise to produce original and informative content and keep track of your SEO results.

Optimizing for Google SGE with B3NET Inc.

At B3NET Inc., you’ll meet our experienced digital marketers who always have an eye on the latest algorithms of Google and other search engines. With expertise in SEO activities, our marketing team will scrutinize your website and existing SEO practices, and make necessary changes to optimize it for Google’s new search-generative experience.

Book your free consultation today!