AI, or artificial intelligence, and other types of machine learning sound like something from a 1960’s science fiction movie. However, not only has artificial intelligence arrived, it has been used by many search engines for quite some time. Most Internet marketers are familiar with Google’s RankBrain.

RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system, and it was developed and introduced seemingly overnight. Google representatives have stated that RankBrain is one of the top factors that the company uses for search ranking.

Artificial intelligence has and will continue to change the way marketers optimise websites. As the technology becomes more advanced, marketers must consider different ways to optimise information on websites and the type of experience they are giving to users. Before you can begin to optimise your site, you must first understand the way artificial intelligence will impact search engines.

How Can SEO Be Impacted by Artificial Intelligence?

Search engines, like Bing and Google, can learn much more about the search enquiries they receive through artificial intelligence. These findings will go beyond keywords. The search engines will be able to determine which websites offer the best results based on consumer engagement metrics. This means that rankings will not be solely dependent on different on and off page tactics.

Search engines will better understand the types of additional search enquiries that take place immediately after the initial search. Thus, the process will be a lot smoother for consumers. Search engines will be able to analyse the data based on search engine enquiries so only the best results are shown for each user. RankBrain and artificial intelligence systems like it will provide results that are not based on the more common ranking factors.

What Can Marketers Do?

Marketers should be excited about the positive possibilities that artificial intelligence can bring to their websites. It will provide marketers the chance to focus on other aspects of marketing they may have never considered before. For consumers to have a better user experience on their sites, marketers will have to go beyond traditional tactics like optimising metadata on pages.

Metrics will remain an important part of search engine ranking, but marketers need to stay focused on the things that matter to consumers.

Google, and other search engines, will begin to take a closer look at engagement metrics on webpages as well as:

• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate
• Dwell time
• Average pages per visit

Marketers will need to place more focus on optimising the paths that users take as they click through the website. You may even want to theorise that Google may decide to rank your website in different ways. For example, your website may rank higher during the peak hours of your business or during other times when customer engagement is higher.

The optimisation for keywords will always fluctuate. The keywords for trends are always changing. Not only that, but search engines have gotten very good at detecting related keywords. This means that marketers will need to place less emphasis on one or two keywords and focus more on what their customers are really searching for.

SEO is making the transition from traditional optimisation and moving towards consumer engagement data. The purpose of having a website is for your customers. Create your website and provide quality content so they will keep coming back.