AI has officially entered the chat. In the past few months we’ve seen a dramatic acceleration in generative search across search engines, online products and services, and as SEOs, we wanted to understand how AI is impacting our roles in an industry heavily impacted by new technology.

We asked the experts how they are currently using AI and how they think SGE will transform the local search landscape.

(One small caveat: New features and functionality have been added to SGE over the last few weeks. By the time this article goes live, we’re sure there will already be some big changes!)

What are you currently doing with AI? What tactics are you currently using?

AI is a great assistant for our SEO team. They use it for research, some technical tasks, and to brainstorm ideas for our writers. We don’t use AI for future-oriented content like blog post content, and our customers prefer that approach. We play with prompts every day and make a collection of useful prompts. AI assistants can save us a lot of time, especially with the right prompt. Our SEO team can focus more on strategy and critical thinking/analysis as AI can perform many tasks to save time.

Overall, AI assistants can be a valuable asset to any SEO team. They can help SEO professionals save time, improve the quality of their work, focus on more strategic and creative tasks, and stay one step ahead.

Despite the impressive capabilities of AI, the human touch remains an essential part of our processes, ensuring our strategies are not only data-driven, but also empathetic and user-centric.

What do you think of SGE? How do you think SGE will change the landscape of local search?

There is a glimmer of hope for the local SEO industry as the 3-pack results appear to be identical to a regular search. However, I think that with Google’s realization, there will be new winners and losers. Unfortunately, I think SMBs will suffer as the space they are used to will be replaced with new features.

What are you currently doing with AI? What tactics are you currently using?

Mainly, many different platforms were tested to understand the capabilities and differences of each platform. Right now I’m using AI to streamline processes like summarizing data, mapping cities to zip codes for local tracking, or creating regex filters for GSC. It was also helpful in brainstorming ideas for content, such as sourcing questions for FAQs or developing metadata tests. I think things move very quickly in general – something new seems to be happening every day! Brands should definitely think about how platforms like BingChat, Bard, ChatGPT and SGE provide information about their business, products or services and what types of content gaps need to be filled or what opportunities they can explore.

What do you think of SGE? How do you think SGE will change the landscape of local search?

I think what we’ve seen so far has been interesting. The local examples that Google shared with the comparison layout between restaurants definitely show how this can be used on a local level. However, I think it more or less continues to emphasize the things we already emphasize in local SEO: providing the information users are looking for in GBP profiles and within on-page content, and continuing to pay attention to reviews, because that’s a slightly different way Google highlights these. As with everything at Google, I expect there will be multiple tests and changes over time, so it’s hard to say what the impact will be. As more people have access to SGE, I think it will be important to test different types of queries and questions about local businesses to see how the answers and layouts have changed based on the questions asked.

Amanda Jordan

Director of Digital Strategy at RicketyRoo

What are you currently doing with AI? What tactics are you currently using?

I am currently using AI to generate ideas and think about new ways of thinking about data. Right now I think the best use case for many AI tools is for SEOs to understand how generative AI actually works. Knowing the possibilities and limitations of this technology will help us better understand what to expect from the search in the future.

What do you think of SGE? How do you think SGE will change the landscape of local search?

I hope SGE puts an end to stuffing websites with generic content. I hope SGE will encourage websites to focus on unique, personalized and usable content for users. I believe that in the future it will be extremely important to really understand your customers and to be obsessed with the customer experience.

What are you currently doing with AI? What tactics are you currently using?

We currently use machine learning for a variety of tasks: analysis, data clustering, forecasting, text analysis, and to some extent content generation. We use various ML techniques including LDA, keyword extraction, text summarization and technologies such as using Google’s and TensorFlow’s APIs. Like many people, we use LLMs like GPT, but don’t rely on them exclusively. For example, we tend to segment our outputs and then use other ML techniques to verify input matches output and to check for plagiarism: we use knowledge graphs and entity extraction to streamline parts of these processes.

What do you think of SGE? How do you think SGE will change the landscape of local search?

Although I’m a machine learning engineer in practice, I’m deeply ambivalent about SGEs. I actually don’t think these kinds of experiences typically improve sites, and it still feels like Google is struggling to catch up while ChatGPT eats its lunch.

While I believe SGEs are a logical next step for Google and other search engines, I also see them as a way for Google to wash away from the consequences of making certain data publicly available. LLMs are trained on all of us, so surely it’s all our fault if they go astray? I think an ideal scenario would see Google move away from OpenAI-style chatbots and use a combination of LLMs and extractive data to continue down the conversation path they’ve taken. But how can this be achieved without depriving websites of their advertising?

Fundamentally, if your website is based on visitor metrics, you need to focus on unique aspects that cannot be replaced by a machine. I think UGC could end up being extremely useful: sites like Wirecutter that specialize in human, in-depth reviews: small hobby sites with a human touch. The race is as always: do better than Google and invite people to your site.

What are you currently doing with AI? What tactics are you currently using?

Our team is currently learning how to use things like ChatGPT as a tool for SEO. We definitely don’t use it to create website content, we have our own brilliant content team for that. They’ve used ChatGPT for some content outlines and ideas, but we strongly believe in creating good, unique content as opposed to the content ChatGPT churns out. Bing Chat and Google’s Bard fall far short when it comes to content creation. Recently we used ChatGPT to expand our and suggest additions local business schemeIt’s great for writing the code for FAQ and HowTo schemas. We’re reviewing what’s been produced, but so far it’s been very good. Will Reynolds recently posted how to use ChatGPT to help with internal link building suggestions. It’s a great video to watch and think about on how to use ChatGPT as an SEO tool.

What do you think of SGE? How do you think SGE will change the landscape of local search?

That’s not easy to answer in a few lines. I recently answered “Meh” to Lily Ray’s question about Google’s SGE, BUT I like it! It’s “meh” because it’s good but not great, and that’s not surprising since it’s version 1.0 of whatever SGE will be before it’s released to the masses. There’s no doubt that it will be released, but in which iteration we don’t know yet. SGE is only open to those who want to take a look, it’s not open to the general public yet so I’m not overly concerned about what we’re currently seeing ie I won’t panic if my client does sees/doesn’t see in the results displayed by SGE – it’s nice when it does, and interesting to see what it shows when it doesn’t. As someone who has been involved in SEO for more than two decades, it’s great to have a new toy to play with. SGE (and Google’s Bard) are subject to constant updates and changes, so what we see this week may be different the week after. It’s an exciting time in local search. How will this change the landscape of local search and/or search in general? At this point, it dominates at the top of desktop/mobile searches depending on the search query. Users will either ignore it and think, “What the heck is this?” until they get comfortable with it OR they will win it. If you don’t scroll down to the 10 blue links below, the organic SERPs will be lost forever for many users… let’s see where this journey takes us!

Diploma:

Overall, it looks like AI is a great tool to help SEOs manage processes, generate top-notch ideas, and structure content. However, we are all aware that generative AI should not be a substitute for content creation.

Additionally, SGE is proving to be an exciting time specifically for local search, which is characterized by general optimism. Let’s see what happens in the coming months!

Jenny takes care of the BrightLocal community by managing our social media channels, connecting with our community and producing our online webinars.