Navigating the Shift: Adapting SEO and SEM Strategies for the Age of GenAI Search

Explore how the rise of GenAI tools is transforming search behavior and what marketers need to do to adapt their SEO and SEM strategies to stay ahead.

Aug 08, 2024

My Interesting Conversations
5 Things To Share
Insights Video: Unlocking Efficiency Across Business Functions
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1. My Interesting Conversations

As everyone has been, I have been using a variety of GenAI LLM tools to both test them out, but also to just help get work done. Increasingly, I find myself using them for search tasks that I would have just turned to Google for, and likely been frustrated.

For example, I recently needed to find out about content management systems that were geared for smaller businesses. I asked Google, just got a whole bunch of links, many of which from the biggest enterprise players who were just paying for SEM presence, and it simply was not that useful.

I then asked Chat GPT4 and Perplexity: "Tell me about five content management systems that are appropriate for smaller businesses, and include what makes each distinctive from the others." Both tools gave me five company names, all of which were appropriate for smaller businesses, and some blurbs, obviously taken from their websites, on what makes them distinctive.

Still, that was pretty useful. Across the two tools, I got seven company names. Two of which I knew of already. Two of which wouldn't be good for my client. Then, three more were ones I didn't know, so I investigated them further, using a combination of questioning the LLM's and just going to the companies' websites. It was easy and productive.

BUT a big question loomed in my mind: why did the LLM's choose those companies and not others?? When I asked the same question different ways, I did get a few other company names, but most were the same.

From a marketers' perspective though, this is terrifying. If search is moving, even gradually, to the LLM's, how can I actively improve my presence??

I started investigating that question, and came across a budding company from Israel, BrandLight. They provide a good lesson on what's to come. To help marketers at least understand what their presence is in LLM search, BrandLight uses several layers of AI.

First, they use AI to gauge how your category is already being queried in standard search. Then the AI develops a wide range of questions to hit several different LLM's, uses another AI to analyze the results, and yet another to summarize its findings and what it thinks could be the logic behind it.

Since many LLM's are not using live information, a marketer cannot easily take quick action to change its position. But more are moving towards live training, although the methods are still rather opaque. At least BrandLight gives a marketer a quite comprehensive view of what their current starting point is, and a way to monitor that over time.

For brands wanting to get ahead of the wave here, this can be quite useful data. For any considered purchase, such as cars, credit cards, insurance, travel, etc., people want to ask questions that play off their personal needs and interests, best lending themselves to the chatbot-type interface of LLM's, more than the keywords in conventional search.

Yes, there is all kinds of speculation about the economic model here for LLM's, and what will happen to Google, but my sense is that Google's Gemini will be a true LLM search competitor, and more of the market will move into GenAI interfaces.

From a marketer's perspective, everything one does in SEO becomes even more important, as the training of these models will look for strings of words that respond to the prompt, and so marketers need to have content that went into the LLM that addresses the questions of the user.

So, my sense is that smarter content development, especially on one's site, but also in response to things like Reddit discussions, social chats, etc., where brands try to address customer questions -- all of that will become rich fodder, so get in the game.

SEO and SEM are about to change dramatically, and tools such as BrandLight are at the forefront of helping marketers get a sense of the new foundations they need to build.

I am very curious how others are thinking about this? Any marketers reading this who are already exploring how to position themselves in the GenAI Search future?

2. 5 Things To Share

How do we rally an organization around constantly improving each customer’s experience as we learn from them? We answer this question in my upcoming book with Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s Mark Abraham, “Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI.”

I has the ability to elevate personalization by showing brands how they can rethink human connection and spatial computing possibilities. Interesting read via Digiday: https://digiday.com/media-buying/why-ar-and-vr-are-not-going-away-as-ai-advances-personalization-measurement/

Think about your company’s different branches of data as being a part of a network that can work together to give insight on an individual customer.

Check out my recent newsletter to learn how AI is transforming personalization and decision-making by enabling more precise, scalable, and impactful insights for both businesses and consumers: https://dedelman.substack.com/p/unlocking-data-potential-how-ai-is?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2534697&post_id=147210660&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=477q2e&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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3. Insights Video: Unlocking Efficiency Across Business Functions

4. Join The Personalize Academy For Free!

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You can reach out to me directly on the detail below, and I look forward to how we can learn together!

Thanks,
Dave

Contact Me:

I work with a range of companies, from large $5+bn enterprises who are trying to grasp the opportunities that AI offers, to marketing businesses who are bringing exciting innovative solutions to market.

You can reach me here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveedelman

Website: https://www.edelmanadvisoryservices.com/

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