Webmasters and entrepreneurs are being disrupted more than ever. While some gravitate towards proven SEO techniques, others bet on innovations. Both ways are risky. What to expect from ChatGPT and its analogs? Will Bing become your next Google? Adsterra has resorted to the brightest minds in the industry. They’re here today to give you a lift in developing a successful online strategy and put critical SEO trends in the limelight.
Topics to discuss
- The latest Google algorithm updates
- Bing and its AI-powered browser
- ChatGPT to disrupt search engines: true or false?
- E-A-T factors as a foundation of SEO strategies.
- AI and non-AI tools webmasters can apply.
Special expert guests
KJ Rocker, 05 Media LTD and KJ Rocker Blog founder
Jitendra Vaswani, world-famous digital nomad, CEO at DigiExe
Ammad Ali, business growth expert, founder & CEO of RankingGrow
Ron Stefanski, digital marketing professor, founder of OneHourProfessor.com
What webmasters should know about the latest SEO trends and Google algorithm updates?
KJ Rocker: Google released multiple updates to its algorithm in the first quarter of 2023, including a Core Update in March and a Product Reviews Update in February. Previously, in December 2022, Google announced important changes to its Quality Rater Guidelines and implemented a targeted Link called SpamUpdate, which overlapped with the Helpful Content Update and leveraged the SpamBrain AI system.
These updates are planned to enhance the user search experience. I advise all web admins to prioritize their audience’s needs and strive to deliver the best quality content and user experience.
Jitendra Vaswani: One of the most recent updates is the Page Experience update, which focuses on the user experience of a website. This update considers factors such as loading speed, mobile responsiveness, safe browsing, and interactivity, among others. Webmasters should ensure that their websites meet these criteria to maintain or improve their search engine rankings.
Another significant update is the Core Web Vitals update, which measures website performance based on three metrics: loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Webmasters should optimize their websites to meet these metrics to ensure a positive user experience.
Other updates to keep in mind include the BERT update, which focuses on natural language processing, and the E-A-T update, which considers the expertise, authority, and trustworthiness of a website’s content.
Ammad Ali: When dealing with updates to the Google algorithm, the following are some general guidelines that I would like webmasters to keep in mind:
Keep an eye on your website’s ranking and traffic: To spot sudden drops or spikes, it’s critical to monitor
your website’s traffic and search engine ranking. This can assist you with deciding if your site has been
impacted by a Google calculation update.
Concentrate on producing content of high quality: Updates to Google’s algorithm frequently give higher
priority to content that is of high quality, useful, and relevant to users’ search intent.
Optimize for user experience: Concentrate on creating content that provides value to your users and answers their questions. Websites that offer a positive user experience, such as quick loading times, mobile-friendly designs, and simple navigation, are also given higher priority in the updates to Google’s algorithm.
Avoid using shady SEO methods: Black hat SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, link schemes, and cloaking are penalized by Google. It’s fundamental to keep away from these strategies to keep up with your site’s web search tool positioning and perceivability.
Stay up-to-date on Google algorithm updates: Google frequently releases updates to its algorithm and provides webmasters with guidelines to follow. Keep yourself refreshed with the most recent calculation updates and rules to guarantee your site is observing accepted procedures.
Ron Stefanski: From what I’ve seen compared to the past, recent ranking updates have been much more random and volatile than in the past. I think this will continue for the short term as Google and other search engines adjust and evolve their search engines to include AI in the user experience.
The two most recent updates were focused on product reviews and a “core” update.
In terms of the product review update, search engines are trying to get rid of scenarios when a highly authoritative site can post a generalized review with a bunch of spun content from other sources and rank quickly and easily. In the update, they stated they were looking for the blog owner to demonstrate products and showcase how they use them. For webmasters, this meant including images and sometimes videos in the review to help users better understand details about the product.
The core update is always very difficult to decipher because many factors go into any of these updates, and Google is very vague about the impact/variables adjusted. It’s too early to tell what sites were impacted and why, but this is why SEOs have general guidelines about content quality and user experience they strive for. While sticking to these doesn’t guarantee high rankings, it definitely helps.
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To Contents ↑Bing and its AI-powered browser. How can webmasters profit from this SEO trend?
KJ Rocker: Throughout my 13-year career, I always welcome new changes because our industry is at the forefront of the technical revolution. Therefore, I advise all web admins to embrace new changes instead of getting scared of them. The same is the case with AI and Bing.
AI-powered browsers bring many new money-making opportunities for web admins. For example, optimizing your websites for the chatbots will give you an early adopter advantage, and you can quickly leave your competition behind.
Similarly, using AI to improve user experience can be super helpful to increase your conversion rates. For example, using AI-based chatbots to qualify your leads, improve user experience and reduce bounce rate by providing answers customers need on your website. You can also create AI-based extensions to grow your user base. Also, now you can create frameworks for creating content and formats within minutes, reducing the difference between a small web admin and billion dollar website platform. In short, possibilities are endless, and the sky is the limit.
Jitendra Vaswani: Bing is getting very aggressive with ChatGPT, and they want to capture the Google’s market share in search engines. In my opinion, Webmasters can benefit from Bing’s AI-powered browser by optimizing their website to improve its visibility in search results. The browser’s machine learning algorithms analyze user behavior to identify patterns and preferences, which can help webmasters understand their target audience better. By optimizing their website to meet user needs and preferences, webmasters can improve their website’s relevance and ranking in search results.
Additionally, Bing’s AI-powered browser can provide insights into user intent, which can help webmasters create content that addresses specific user needs. By understanding what users are searching for, webmasters can create content that meets those needs and increases the likelihood of their website ranking higher in search results.
Ammad Ali: There are numerous ways that Bing’s AI-powered technologies can benefit you as a webmaster. A webmaster can increase traffic, website’s ROI, and establish their brand as a leader in the digital landscape.
Allow me to provide some concrete examples here.
You can advance your site for Bing’s artificial intelligence fueled Edge program. This means putting user experience, mobile-friendliness, and website performance first. By doing this, you can increase organic traffic to your website and increase your website’s visibility on Bing.
In addition, you can enhance the performance and user experience of your website by utilizing AI-powered technologies offered by Bing. For instance, Bing’s AI-powered image search can help you improve the user experience and speed up the loading time of your website’s images.
Microsoft Advertising makes use of AI to tailor advertisements to specific audiences and offer ads that are more relevant to the user. You can increase your advertising campaigns’ return on investment and reach a larger audience with Microsoft Advertising.
Ron Stefanski: The Bing AI-powered browser is quite interesting because at its foundation it’s ChatGPT, but they’ve added another layer to allow Bing AI to search results in real-time and understand current events.
While I’m not sure there is a way for webmasters to directly profit from these results, I think a tool like this enables webmasters to do better research, find statistics more easily, and create content in a cheaper and cheaper more efficient way.
So, while there isn’t a direct correlation to profit, I think that indirectly webmasters can profit significantly by utilizing this tool for research and to help craft and create up-to-date and relevant content more quickly, which they can publish that’ll drive more traffic to the site.
Can ChatGPT disrupt search engines?
KJ Rocker: It will definitely disrupt search engines and the way we search the products. However, it will be a slow change, take time, and be less sensational and hyped than it is today. It’s a very early stage at the moment. All the search companies have been working on integrating AI for a long time.
There is a massive amount of work to be done by search engine companies. But we are getting there, and tomorrow’s search engine will be much more intelligent. AI will be very capable of fighting spam and improving the overall search result quality, resulting in a better user experience.
Jitendra Vaswani: I can say that ChatGPT and other similar AI language models have the potential to disrupt search engines. ChatGPT is capable of generating human-like responses to queries, which could potentially provide more natural and conversational results for users compared to traditional search engines.
However, traditional search engines have been around for a long time and have developed complex algorithms to provide relevant and accurate search results. Additionally, search engines have access to vast amounts of data and information, which allows them to continuously improve their algorithms and provide better search results.
While AI language models like ChatGPT have the potential to disrupt search engines, it remains to be seen how they will be integrated into search engine technology and how they will impact the search engine landscape.
Ammad Ali: The search engine industry may be affected by AI-powered language models like GPT-3 and GPT-4, but this is unlikely to be the case. Search engines have always changed to keep up with new technologies and trends. In order to enhance user experience and search results, they have already begun incorporating AI-powered technologies like natural language processing, machine learning, and voice search.
To build a user base and compete with established players—even if an AI-powered language model like GPT-3 and GPT-4 were to challenge the status quo—it would require significant infrastructure investments. Additionally, search engines like Google and Bing have a sizable user base and a well-known brand, making it difficult for newcomers to instantly disrupt the sector.
Without having to look through a lot of different websites on search engines, ChatGPT can help you find a definitive answer to any question. The chatbot saves you time, eliminates additional effort, and provides more precise responses to your questions. It is important to note that ChatGPT is trained on a limited set of data in this case. Based on the information that was available until the end of 2021, it would provide responses and information. The chatbot apologizes for not having that information when asked about anything that occurred after 2022.
Ron Stefanski: ChatGPT will likely steal some market share away from search engines. I don’t think it will take all of the market share from any company, but I do feel that ChatGPT has already provided a lot of value and allowed certain professions to get the help they didn’t have previously.
The best example of this is coding. Previously, if someone didn’t know how to code something, they would go to Google, search for an answer, read the answer, and then implement the code.
Now, many coders simply go to ChatGPT to find an answer directly and completely omit any Google searches from the process. This is very disruptive to search engines as they can never profit from an individual if they don’t ever come to search.
Do E-A-T factors underpin a powerful SEO strategy?
KJ Rocker: Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) are today’s most important ranking factors in SEO. Historically, SEO was mainly about keyword stuffing and manipulating search rankings through various techniques like blogging networks. However, with time the focus has shifted towards creating high-quality content and providing a positive user experience.
According to the latest SEO trends, must provide valuable, unique, accurate and trustworthy content to your users. Google now emphasizes the trustworthiness of websites more than ever and prefers authority websites. Web admins can achieve this by providing detailed and informative content addressing pain points and the common questions their target audience asks.
Web admins also need to establish their credibility and authority in the field by being part of the industry’s social circle and backed up by other authorities within the industry. For example, they could be part of events, conferences, case studies, research, interviews, building relationships, gaining backlinks, and building social signals about your brand.
Lastly, it is essential to prioritize the user experience and ensure sites are easily accessible across devices and have fast loading speeds, and information is encrypted and secure. UGC can play a massive part, and by gathering testimonials from your customers it can boost your website’s authority.
Jitendra Vaswani: In December 2022, Google added an “E” for “Experience” to its quality standards rater. Google now wants materials that clearly show familiarity with the product, information, or service being offered. Hence, search engine page results (SEPRs) should encourage content about “hiking in India” from a source with expertise in India.
Google also wants to provide users with articles written by someone who has firsthand knowledge about a specific topic, like, for instance, bikes and cycling.
To harness the E-A-T factors, webmasters should focus on creating high-quality, authoritative, and trustworthy content. This content should be written by subject-matter experts who have the necessary credentials and qualifications to provide accurate and reliable information.
Webmasters can also establish their authority and expertise by obtaining external recognition, such as backlinks from reputable sources or citations in industry publications. These external signals of authority can help improve a website’s visibility and search engine rankings.
In addition to creating high-quality content, webmasters should also ensure that their website is technically sound, secure, and user-friendly. A well-designed website with clear navigation, fast loading pages, and a mobile-responsive design can help improve user experience and increase trust in the website’s content.
Ammad Ali: The E-A-T factors can underpin SEO strategies. Webmasters can boost their websites’ organic traffic and improve their search engine rankings by producing high-quality content that demonstrates expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
Webmasters should concentrate on creating accurate, well-researched, and informative content in order to capitalize on these factors. They should show that they are knowledgeable by providing in-depth analysis and insights on the subjects they have chosen, and they should back up their arguments with data and reliable sources.
Webmasters should also try to become experts in their fields by creating content that is original, unique, and useful to their target audience, according to my advice. By being open about their sources, credentials, and affiliations, and by responding to any questions or concerns that readers may have, they should aim to establish trust with their audience.
Ron Stefanski: I’ve personally never put a focus on E-E-A-T because I just haven’t seen a need to. I feel that expertise comes through in writing, experience comes with time, authority comes through in writing, and trustworthiness is more of a matter of your copywriting skills than anything else. That said, because I think this way and build all of my sites similarly, I don’t think I’ve ever had to stress about it.
When I launch a site, I always include an About page with all the authors’ and main editor’s credentials and convey trust in my sites through the rigors of our research process for content creation. I think these are complimentary to SEO as it helps build trust, but I don’t think you can ever omit SEO strategies from the equation as those are a requirement for success.
Which AI and non-AI tools you can recommend to webmasters?
KJ Rocker: Semrush, Ahrefs, MarketMuse, and CanIRank are excellents tool for those who are new to SEO.
Jitendra Vaswani: I have used a lot of AI tools recently and my favorite is Jasper AI for writing content and I have tested this tool in depth. You can check out my review above.
There are several AI and non-AI tools that webmasters can use to boost content creation and SEO rankings. Here are some recommendations:
- Google Analytics: This is a non-AI tool that provides insights into website traffic, user behavior, and other key metrics. By analyzing this data, webmasters can identify areas for improvement and optimize their website and content accordingly.
- SEMrush: This is an AI-powered tool that provides keyword research, competitor analysis, and other SEO-related insights. It can help webmasters identify high-traffic keywords, analyze competitor strategies, and optimize their website and content accordingly.
- Grammarly: This is an AI-powered tool that helps with grammar, spelling, and punctuation. By using this tool, webmasters can ensure that their content is error-free and easy to read.
- Yoast SEO: This is a non-AI tool that provides on-page optimization for WordPress websites. By using this tool, webmasters can optimize their website’s content, meta tags, and other on-page elements for better SEO rankings.
- Google Search Console: This is a non-AI tool that provides insights into website performance, search queries, and other SEO-related metrics. By using this tool, webmasters can identify areas for improvement and optimize their website and content accordingly.
Ammad Ali: To improve their content game, here are some effective AI- and non-AI-powered content creation tools I recommend to webmasters. ChatGPT-4 and other AI-powered content creation tools can speed up the creation of high-quality, useful, and informative content for webmasters. Analyzing existing content and creating new content that matches the tone, style, and intent of the original content is made possible by these tools, which make use of machine learning and natural language processing algorithms.
Webmasters can use non-AI tools like Google Trends to see how users’ interest in particular search terms shifts over time and to identify related topics and queries. Webmasters can use SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to evaluate their website’s SEO performance and identify areas for improvement. Lastly, webmasters can promote their content on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with the assistance of social media management tools like Hootsuite and Buffer.
I’ve been spending some time digging into these tools, and so far, I like the following:
- ChatGPT: Great to help create content with the proper prompts. The key here isn’t to ask a simple question and copy/paste the response. Anything you use from the platform should have a number of prompts to get to your desired result and should also be edited by a human to make sure it all makes sense.
- MidJourney: For AI image creation, this seems to be the go-to tool on the market at the moment. While many complain about the interface and user experience, it’s quite impressive as a tool.
- Descript: Great for podcasters and video creators to edit things more quickly and efficiently. I think this tool’s coolest functionality is training the tool to understand your voice and create podcasts straight from the text.
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SEO trends change, your zeal remains
We’re thankful to all our star experts for taking part in this Q&A session and highlighting the most vital challenges webmasters are facing today. All our special guests have concured with the point that one thing remains above all of those volatile SEO trends – your ability to evolve and incorporate new technologies in your monetization strategy. With this superpower, nothing can disrupt your online business. And with Adsterra, nothings stops you from making the most out of orgainic and paid traffic.
