I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by the team at All About AI. They were keen to get my thoughts on the evolving landscape of SEO in the age of artificial intelligence. Let me share a recap of the key points we discussed during our conversation.
One of the main themes we explored was the transition from traditional keyword-based SEO to a more holistic, topic-based approach. As I explained in the interview:
"We have a few hundred million keywords and search results, and we created our own unique proprietary topic graph, which is basically a huge graph of topics, of things that people are searching for. And we know what they're searching for, but we also know what you need to write in your pages so that you fulfill their intent."
This shift is crucial because it aligns more closely with how search engines, especially AI-enhanced ones, understand and categorize content.
We dove deep into how AI is reshaping the search landscape. I shared my thoughts on the convergence of traditional search engines and large language models (LLMs):
"We'll see traditional search engines start to do more legwork for users. So what that looks like is we'll start seeing a combination of search and LLMs. This would be similar in the AI world, this is called RAG. It's retrieval augmented generation... It's sort of a compression or a very compressed version of something you have in your mind."
This integration is already visible in features like Google's AI overviews and Bing's chat function. It's a trend that's likely to continue and evolve, presenting both challenges and opportunities for SEO professionals.
One of the most fascinating aspects we discussed was how AI is influencing user behavior in search. I pointed out:
"With the LLMs, the behavior change is that people are becoming, they know the LLM can do more. And so what we're doing or the behavior that I'm seeing is people are giving it more work to do... Basically, you'll see an explosion of long tail queries."
This shift towards more complex, conversational queries is leading to an explosion of long-tail searches. It's no longer about optimizing for a handful of high-volume keywords, but about understanding and addressing the diverse ways users might phrase their queries.
In light of these changes, I emphasized the growing importance of topical authority:
"We want to help the companies understand both what are the questions that people are asking... We want to help them understand how many people are roughly asking for these things, like what is the equivalent of search volume in this world. We want to help them understand if they're ranking for these or not."
Building topical authority isn't just about creating more content, but about developing a comprehensive, authoritative presence around specific topics relevant to your business.
We also discussed how SEO tools need to evolve to meet these new challenges. I shared insights into how we're adapting at Graphite:
"We're going to be launching a suite of features for AI optimization. And what we mean by this is as we see both these RAG models... We want to help the companies understand both what are the questions that people are asking? We want to help them understand how many people are roughly asking for these things, like what is the equivalent of search volume in this world. We want to help them understand if they're ranking for these or not."
The goal is to provide tools that not only help understand what people are searching for, but also how they're searching and how content is being presented in AI-enhanced search results.
When asked about the future, I shared my perspective on the ongoing importance of human expertise:
"I'm still on the camp where... I'm not able to visualize a world in which AI can fully replace human intelligence. And so maybe it's just lack of creativity on my part, but I see it as a great assistant, but that will become better and better, but I don't see as a full replacement."
This underscores my belief that while AI will continue to play an increasingly important role in SEO, human creativity, strategy, and understanding will remain crucial.
It was a pleasure to dive into these topics with the All About AI team. As the SEO landscape continues to evolve, it's crucial that we as professionals stay ahead of the curve, understanding not just the what of SEO, but the why and how.
For those of you working in SEO or digital marketing, I encourage you to start thinking about your strategy in terms of topics rather than just keywords. Consider how you can build true authority in your niche, and how you can create content that addresses the increasingly complex and diverse ways users are searching.
If you're interested in learning more about topical SEO or how we're approaching these challenges at Graphite, feel free to reach out or check out our platform. The future of search is exciting, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we all adapt and innovate in this AI-driven landscape.