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In the ever-evolving world of SEO, it’s becoming increasingly important to stay up-to-date on the latest changes in technology that may affect your website’s ranking. One such change is Google’s Bard AI, which will soon significantly impact how we search for content. In this blog post, we’ll discuss what Google Bard is and the impact it will have on SEO and the world of digital marketing in general.
Google Bard AI is an artificial intelligence system designed to automatically generate reports from data. It searches through large data sets, using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to identify patterns and relationships between different variables.
By learning the structure of these datasets, it can then generate a report that summarises the most important information. The resulting report is written in natural language and can be used to quickly assess a situation or gain insight into a given topic.
Google Bard can be a tool for businesses, helping them make decisions faster with more accurate information. Researchers can also use it to explore new ideas and discover content quickly that they have not come across before.
How Good is Google Bard AI at the Moment?
Google Bard was unveiled on Feb 6th, 2023. To show off its capabilities they put Google Bard to the test. When the presenter asked Google Bard a question, it produced inaccurate information. In order to avoid similar incidents in the future, Google decided to delay the release of Bard until March 21st, 2023. It is evident that the current performance of Google Bard AI highlights the need for updates and further development to enhance its reliability as a product.
We observed that Bard’s capabilities seemed to have improved since the launch, as its accuracy in answering questions was relatively good. It didn’t appear to produce imaginary results as frequently as Bing’s AI did during its early phases.
However, sometimes Bard would provide its users with useless responses, either confessing a lack of sufficient data or stating its inability to answer questions due to being a Large Language Model (LLM).
Generally, the AI provides accurate and satisfactory answers when responding to straightforward queries like “Which smartphone has the best camera?”. However, for other simple questions, such as “What is a content creator’s height”, Google Bard lacks sufficient information to address the question.
When faced with complex queries such as “Create a workflow” or “What are some techniques for filming in low light?”, Bing ChatGPT seems to give more detailed explanations and Google Bard provides less detailed answers. Additionally, when it comes to complex tasks like coding, Bing ChatGPT appears to have an advantage.
Currently, Bing ChatGPT outperforms Google Bard, but as technology advances, the two could potentially reach equal levels of competence.
How will Google Bard AI Affect SEO
The launch of Google Bard does not change or end SEO. In fact, SEO remains a crucial component of any digital marketing plan, as it ensures your website achieves high rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). However, how SEO is conducted may undergo a transformation as Google Bard and other AI-driven technologies advance.
One significant way that Google Bard could influence SEO is by delivering more precise results to users. This implies that websites optimised for SEO must produce top-quality content corresponding to the keywords users search for.
Some people are worried about the introduction of Google Bard because it can generate original answers to questions rather than quoting directly from the web. This has sparked potential legal concerns regarding Bard’s use of real web results to generate answers. Google will need to find a way to acknowledge and credit the sources that Bard utilises, but this solution has not yet been determined by the Google team.
One way they could get around this is by incorporating hyperlinks in the description to credit sources used, this will allow users to click onto different websites to find out more information. If Google uses this strategy, websites will need to target Bard snippets to generate organic traffic.
As technology advances, user behaviour is expected to change, especially with the integration of AI. A study conducted by SEMrush (an SEO tool) in 2022 stated 53% of desktop users and 57% of mobile users did not click on organic or paid links during their search query. With Google’s AI generating quick answers and information for users, this percentage is projected to increase in the coming year and beyond.
It is possible that we may see a significant rise in zero-click searches, potentially reaching 80-90%, due to Chat being an easier method of search. As a result, certain categories of searches may experience a significant decline in clicks during this new era of AI; specifically, searches where people are looking for information.
How to Optimise for Google Bard
Natural Language Processing – NLP involves the communication between computers and human (natural) languages. In essence, your website’s content should be crafted with search intent and relevance in mind. Creating pages of content just to rank for certain terms or keywords is not enough; the page must also thoroughly address the specific search intent in an informative manner.
We suggest by using questions as headings, where suitable – increasing the likelihood of being featured in Bard’s snippets. Although Google Bard represents a shift in its search engine, creating high-quality content still remains important.
Incorporate Keywords that are Understandable by Bard – Keywords will always be an essential component of SEO. Identifying the primary keywords for your business and incorporating them into relevant pages on your site is crucial. As a large language model, Bard has been trained on an extensive dataset of text and code, including search results from its vast database. This enables Bard to grasp a wide variety of keywords and phrases, delivering your website’s results when a related query is made.
If your website features the keywords ‘birthday cake bakery’ and ‘in Birmingham’ in the meta and on-page content, there’s a higher chance that Bard will display it as a result when someone searches for ‘What are the best birthday cake bakeries in Birmingham?’
Use Internal Linking to Simplify Bard’s Understanding of Your Website – Linking your website’s pages together using relevant keywords is called internal linking. Internal linking makes your website more navigable and assists search engines like Google in comprehending the different pages on your site and determining their ranking. Bard appears to use a similar process to serve results in its responses, so continue linking to essential pages on your site while using target keywords for each page.
Leverage Sitemaps and Robots.txt – Sitemaps and robots.txt are crucial files that help search engines grasp your site’s structure and indexability. A sitemap serves as an index of your website’s URLs. A robots.txt file instructs search engines which pages on your site can be crawled and which should be disregarded. As with standard search engine results, bots will crawl your site to determine which content to index or exclude, and the same process applies to Bard’s results. Maintaining a well-structured and crawlable site is a vital aspect of SEO that persists with Bard’s introduction.
For more information on Delving into Google Bard AI and Its Impact on SEO talk to Odyssey New Media Ltd