The Future of Your Website

The old goal: To drive traffic to your website.

The new goal: To Become the source AI depends on?

The AI Overview (AIO) debate is raging furiously. Based on historical data, the debate winner will be Google.

What Google wants, Google gets. And Google wants content that is AIO-driven to replace – or at the very least, be the first component of – local search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO consultant Daniel Foley is passionate about AIO vs. SEO. “AIOs steal clicks after summarizing other people’s content. This is content theft. At the moment, it’s informational traffic, but just wait until AI starts eating into commercial traffic.”

Torro Media CEO Matt Sullivan says get over it and get ready for it. Your business webpages need to be AIO-readable; AI-reference-able. In other words, SEO is no longer all about keywords and click-through rates (CTRs). You now need to incorporate “influence” into your website pages.

Influence is the power of content to shape user behavior, opinions, and decisions. It’s about crafting messages that resonate with the audience, encouraging them to engage with the site, and ultimately, motivating them to take desired actions. This can involve building trust, fostering connections, and strategically using persuasive language and design elements. 

“It’s about getting crawled and understood by AI models,” says Sullivan. 

Previously, when users searched Google, they got links. The order in which your business appeared in the list of links was determined by SEO. Searches will soon yield to “concise, context-aware summary of information.” Your website content must educate and influence.

5 AI Optimization Acronyms

Historically, government organizations were among the few heavy users of acronyms. Today, you need to be tech acronym-savvy just to understand how to restructure your website to maintain a viable, online presence:

• AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) – Structure web pages to win Google’s AI Overviews and zero-click answers.
• AIO – (AI Optimization – You must now partner with AI’s foundational knowledge.
• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) – Your goal is to be cited by AI models, like ChatGPT and SearchGPT.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – Traditionally, SEO involved keywords, backlinks, and site speed.
• SXO (Search Experience Optimization) – Information-searchers must be turned into customers.

SEO Is Now a Stack, Not a Silo

Think of your website as something that should be expanded to become more inclusive. That’s one way to differentiate what it was (an SEO silo) vs. what it will be (an SEO stack):

• Silos improve user experience and topical relevance. Stacks improve search engine rankings and overall online presence. 
  
  
• Silos have a specific structural approach. Stacks encompass a broader range of SEO practices.
  
  
• Silos focus on website structure and content organization. Stacks focus on the tools and strategies used to improve SEO.

Your webmaster will incorporate one or more software models, such as LLMs.txt, to target AI models for SXO, as opposed to search crawlers for SEO. “If the models know you, the humans will follow,” says Sullivan.

Content Reorganization

Your website pages must now answer questions beyond “TexMex food near me.” Headlines and body content, while being more informational-inclusive, must also be “scannable;” readable effortlessly and immediately. 

• Accessible – Users should be able to navigate all content easily.
• Concise – Body texts and headings should be brief and to the point.
• Descriptive – Headings should accurately and clearly describe the body content.
• Hierarchical – Headings should convey the importance of content presentation (H1, H2, H3).
• Readable – By providing better visibility and easier information-sharing, scannable content enhances the overall readability and user experience. 
• Visual – Scannable headings should be formatted with larger, bolder font sizes or incorporate other visual cues to make them stand out. 

AI Integrated Search Is Now

You don’t want to rank. You want to resonate. -The Future of SEO

AIO content usage may be futuristic, but you don’t want to be left behind while other small businesses begin the transition. Citing AI content is now imperative. However, AI’s use of your content is another debate that will continue for some time. At this point, AI-generated content in the U.S. does not have copyright protection. Copyright law emphasizes that human authorship is a basic requirement for protection.

We believe businesses should integrate AIO into their local SEO. This comprehensive strategy can accommodate Google’s ever-changing shifts in search engine results pages (SERPs) rankings. We guarantee our clients will always have humans-in-the-loop (HITLs) to protect and future-proof their website content. Contact Modern Marketing & Media of Tomball to learn more.