Why is Search so Bad?
Because it can be.
It’s no secret that Google has been making search worse for visitors for years. And it keeps getting worse. When you have a majority of the market, you can work to squeeze every last nickel from your customers.
Google no longer wants to send visitors to your website. It wants to keep you on Google properties as long as possible to show more ads.
It’s been a couple of years since SparkToro’s Amanda Natividad introduced us to the concept of zero-click content to help address the fact that Google isn’t in the business of driving traffic to your site.
Google understood it could make the user experience worse because it knew that people didn’t have another option. What are you going to do, switch to Bing?
But now, there are other options. And worse (for Google) people are using them.
Apple’s Big Revelation
People using AI for search has been mostly anecdotal up to now. I know I use it. And I see the traffic to my site that comes from AI (thanks to Google Analytics). But this past week had a big revelation from one of Google’s biggest frienemies (I’m too old to use that word, but since Google and Apple work together while competing against each other, I don’t know a better word).
At an antitrust trial involving Google and its parent company, Alphabet, Apple’s SVP of Services, Eddie Cue, said that search in its mobile browser, Safari, fell for the first time ever (we’re nearly 20 years into the era of iPhones, btw). Apple’s Cue also said that it was exploring AI partners for the future of search.
Now, this could be a negotiation tactic by Apple. Google pays Apple $20B a year to be the default search engine on iPhones. But since this was at a trial, I would assume that it’s truthful.
Alphabet’s stock dropped 7% the day this news broke.
What’s the Future?
So, if more people are using AI to get answers to their information, how can you as marketers get your content in front of this audience?
Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, is the person to listen to when it comes to optimizing your site and content so it can be more easily consumed by AI.
Some of his tips that I want to try out on my upcoming website:
- Add an AI Terms of Use to help AI bots get permission and a full understanding of your services
- Create AI personas and have those evaluate your site
- Make suggestions on new content
Andy also talks about the goal of getting more mentions within AI.
If more people are using AI for their searches, then you want to have your content feed the AI and become the trusted source.
The most significant difference between a Google search and an AI search is that Google gives you millions of possible answers, and AI gives you the answer.
(assuming it’s not hallucinating)
As I mentioned, I’ll be using a lot of Andy’s suggestions as I’m building out my new website(s).