Everyone is now aware that the best way to stand out online is through digital marketing. Businesses are looking for the newest search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques as we enter 2023.
The most important SEO components are still in place. Your starting point should still be keywords, SEO backlinks, meta tags, and organic content marketing.
We’ll talk about five SEO trends you should include in your continuing marketing plan. To find out more about them and how they may help your business, keep reading:
Do you know about Google’s EAT? It reflects how Google evaluates the information on your page. The days of creating a website and using unethical SEO methods to rank in search results are long gone.
Google now expects your website content to demonstrate your subject-matter expertise. In blogs and other written and visual content, it searches for authoritative voices. Finally, it wants to make sure you can be trusted to deliver the good or service you promise.
Although EAT is not brand-new, it is evolving into a potent tool for promoting trustworthy websites.
In SEO trends, long-form content is reemerging. People seek out informative and interesting content of high calibre. Provide useful information on your website if you want visitors to stay there longer.
Strong writers that can write about your products, services, and industry news should be part of your business SEO strategy. Make sure the content is simple to share on social media and via email.
The popularity of video is growing. Many entrepreneurs are using the camera to promote their brands today. That is a fantastic business SEO strategy that will develop further.
In several marketing sectors, video advertising is taking the place of television advertising. Also, there are social networking and streaming services with business plans where you can monetise your video output.
Around 3.7 billion people will use smartphones to access the internet by 2025. Websites must be responsive to mobile devices and mobile-friendly. Following SEO trends involves replicating the user experience that users have on desktops and laptops.
To assist businesses in evaluating the effectiveness of their business SEO, Google provides a mobile usability report.
The way we communicate online is changing as a result of artificial intelligence. If you want to enhance interaction with your digital marketing, you’ll need it for business SEO.
Examining the following AI SEO trends will help you achieve better results:
All three contribute to strengthening connections with present and potential clients. Business SEO should employ AI to enhance their outcomes, much like search engines do.
You’ll be well on your way to a successful new year if you implement these SEO trends. Keep in mind that consistency is crucial. Keep your website and social media current by providing new information often.
Do you want to learn more about SEO? Check out the services BrisTechTonic Bristol SEO Company has to offer.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of raising a website’s visibility and position in search engine results pages (SERPs). Several factors influence how well a website performs in search engine results, but three main factors—on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO—are viewed as being the most important.
Enhancing a website’s content, title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags for search engines is known as on-page SEO. On-page SEO is to make a website’s content relevant, beneficial, and understandable for both users and search engines. This entails making the website’s content keyword-optimised, user-friendly, and simple to navigate, as well as making sure that it runs swiftly on mobile devices.
Off-page SEO refers to factors such as the quantity and quality of links pointing to a website, its social media presence, and its reputation online that are out of the website’s control. By building links, off-page SEO seeks to increase the website’s visibility and authority in the eyes of search engines. To do this, you need to build reputable backlinks from other websites, market on social media, and build a strong online reputation through user reviews and referrals.
Technical aspects of a website that may affect its visibility and positioning in search engine results pages are referred to as “technical SEO.” This includes topics like website architecture, security, and performance. Technical SEO seeks to make sure that a website is free of any errors or issues that could negatively affect its visibility and ranking as well as that it is easy for search engines to crawl and index. Making the website’s code and structure more effective, making sure it is swift and responsive, and making sure it is secure from viruses or hacking attempts are all examples of this.
In conclusion, the three fundamental types of SEO are technical, on-page, and off-page. Using on-page SEO, the website’s content is enhanced, making it more user- and search engine-friendly. Off-page SEO raises visibility and authority by constructing backlinks and engaging in social media marketing. A website’s technical optimisation helps make it error-free and straightforward for search engines to crawl and index. This is done with the help of technical SEO.
It’s crucial to remember that SEO requires ongoing work and cannot be finished once and then neglected. To maintain and improve a website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages, it’s critical to continuously monitor, evaluate, and improve that website’s SEO performance. It’s also essential to keep up with the most recent trends and algorithms if you want to compete in the search engine results pages. Best practises for SEO are constantly evolving.
Any strategy for internet marketing must include SEO. By focusing on the three main SEO areas, website owners can improve their website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages as well as draw in more relevant visitors. With the right strategy and persistent effort, SEO could help to increase website traffic, leads, and ultimately money.
Want to learn more about SEO? Check out the services BrisTechTonic, a Bristol SEO Company, has to offer.
Bristol Creative Industries has teamed up with Bristol-based social enterprise Babbasa and 15 creative businesses to launch a city-wide internship programme.
The programme is aimed at Bristol-based young people aged 18-24 from an ethnic minority and/or from a low-income background who want to gain insight and experience in the creative industry.
The scheme will see many of the city’s most well-known creative companies offering six-month full time paid placements to applicants in roles covering advertising, marketing, design, animation and digital.
Two of the biggest challenges currently facing the creative industries are a long-term skills shortage and a lack of diversity in the sector.
A Creative Force to Be Reckoned With, our report released in September 2022, found that although increasing diversity and inclusion was a significant priority for six in 10 creative firms, almost half said they want more help with finding diverse talent from underrepresented groups.
We’ve been working hard to create a solution and are delighted to launch the Bristol Creative Industries Internship Programme.
Babbasa, which supports diverse young people to achieve their aspirations, is leading the recruitment process. We are working closely with them and the brilliant participating creative businesses to match applicants to one of the available roles.
Chris Thurling, chair of Bristol Creative Industries, said:
“We all want to make our industry more diverse and inclusive, but when you run a small business it’s not always easy to know how to make a practical difference. By coming together as the Bristol Creative Industries community to support the internship programme, members can do their bit to help young people get that all important foot in the door.
“We are delighted to formally announce this internship programme in partnership with Babbasa. The creative industry in Bristol is one of the best in the country, and we want to help open this up to as many young people in the city as we can.
“Our aim with this programme is to work closely with the fantastic team at Babbasa to connect bright young talent with some of the city’s best and well-established businesses.”
Starting on 15th May 2023, each successful applicant will work for six months. During that time participants will undergo two placements for two different agencies, both lasting three months each.
The programme provides a mix of professional skills training, creative skills training, inspirational talks, networking events, mentoring and opportunities for future employment.
The deadline for applications is 28th March 2023, with interviews taking place on 4th and 5th April at Watershed in Bristol. There will be an informal group workshop which will give applicants a chance to come and hear a bit more about the participating businesses, their internship offers and meet some of the team.
Applicants will then be given a 30-minute slot to chat to the interview panel to give us a chance to explore applications in a bit more detail. Bristol Creative Industries will cover costs for travel to the interview for every candidate.
The businesses and Bristol Creative Industries members participating in the programme are:
Big thanks to them all!
Poku Pipim Osei, CEO and founder of Babbasa, said:
“Last year, we consulted with a range of city partners and underrepresented communities to better understand how Bristol can close the inequality gap for the next generation, in a report called the OurCity20230: Socioeconomic Analysis Report.
“What was striking is that over 38% of the young people surveyed had aspirations to pursue a career in the creative industries. This is why we are excited to be part of this partnership, as a demonstration of our commitment to work collaboratively and unlock doors for those who would not have otherwise had the chance.”
To apply, applicants already registered with Babbasa can send a video/audio recording that’s around one minute long, or a written piece to recruitment lead Mikhaila at [email protected] explaining why they want to be part of the programme.
Those who aren’t yet registered with Babbasa can sign up here and the organisation will be in touch to help progress the application.
For more information on the programme, visit the Babbasa website and for more details on the businesses participating in the scheme, go here.
Paid Social is when companies and brands display sponsored advertising content on third-party platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, targeting audiences that match their brand. Marketing professionals use Paid Social strategies to increase traffic to their website or content, improve or increase marketing efficiency and market to larger audiences to capture new subsets of customers.
After the 2021 pandemic, social media saw a considerable rise in users, and people spent more time online than ever before. As a result, people’s activity on platforms such as e-commerce websites and social media stores increased, allowing companies to target audiences more precisely to match their brand. Through Paid Social, companies can post ads to audiences with a higher chance of the users interacting with the content.
The amount of companies using Paid Social in 2022 has dramatically increased due to the increased global engagement with social media. According to Search Discovery, this number is set to grow even more by 2025 to 4.4 billion users. People also spend much longer on social media platforms, averaging 147 minutes daily for the average person.
Social media strategies have become much more streamlined, and eCommerce websites are becoming one of the most accessible platforms for consumers to purchase products and services. In addition, the ease and simplicity of buying and consuming content through social media has enabled companies to generate traffic and sales much more efficiently. For example, through Paid Social, companies can streamline their advertisement to be seen by more specific audiences who are more likely to interact with the ads—leading to further sales.
Privacy and user safety have moved to the forefront of significant changes in how companies use Paid Social. According to a recent article by Clicky, after Apple updated IOS15 in September, 80% of global respondents chose not to be tracked. Companies will have to look into how they target audiences and how they can make their Paid Social campaigns more effective, reflective of the updated statistics.
Being diverse and authentic has become crucial to running successful ads. According to the same article by Clicky, 75% of Gen Z are more likely to support and use brands that are authentic in the way they advertise products. Companies must use original methods that reflect their message, story, values and overall products to attract their desired audiences. Paid Social can allow companies to do this on a larger scale, targeting audiences more likely to interact with their content. Companies that are more diverse in their advertisement will also see greater impressions and reactions. Diversity in the platforms companies use will also significantly impact the responses they receive to content. Companies that are also diverse in how many social platforms they use for their Paid Social ads could triple their audience reach and subsequently generate higher impression rates and CTR. TikTok is becoming one of the most powerful platforms for marketing, with over 1 billion users each day; utilising new media is a crucial way of reinventing Paid Social strategies and getting the most out of campaigns.
Short video content has dramatically impacted how we market and advertise products throughout 2022. Going into 2023, this remains the same. The increase in users on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram has seen many ways people use short 1, minute videos to create effective and engaging content while also allowing companies to interact with influencers within their subject audience.
According to Hootsuite, users of TikTok spend 95 minutes a day on the platform, and 78.6% of users use TikTok to find entertainment, making it one of the leading platforms for Paid Social. In addition, according to Hootsuite again, Google Trends’ interest in the platform has increased by 1,125% since 2020, meaning you will likely start to generate the most impact on TikTok going into 2023.
Influencers and the rise of Influencer culture on many social media platforms have created a unique and powerful influence on Paid Social and advertising on social domains. Despite being around for many years, the amount of organic user-generated content creators has increased rapidly throughout 2022, especially on social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, where short video and review video logs, or ‘Vlogs’, are used daily.
According to an article for fbcomms, new social media platforms such as BeReal are set to emerge even more and become more prominent in 2023, hoping to break through into the heavily populated market. However, they pointed out that many new social media platforms tend to be niche sites with limited impact. However, utilising the trends produced by these platforms is useful when considering the design and storyline of companies’ advertising.
We live in a world with a far shorter attention span than generations before. Short videos, animations and interactive aspects of content can be a great way to get and secure audiences’ attention and get them to interact faster. Platform algorithms are introducing new ways in which content creators and brands can create two-way dialogues with their audience, rewarding those who produce successful content. For example, Instagram allows viewers to like, comment, share, and add stickers to social posts and stories. Aspects like this are a great way of building and maintaining relationships with followers. It gives audiences more say and enables brands to edit and shape advertisements to get the best results.
Since 2020, after the pandemic, we have been talking about the increase of people shopping online compared to the number of people who shop in physical stores. According to fbcomms, people will likely not have to leave their social platform to shop for goods and products advertised through posts. Through media such as Instagram and Facebook, customers will be provided with an even faster route to purchase products without going to another website or a different platform. Ensuring companies keep up to date with the ever-changing world of eCommerce is essential to running successful online businesses and creating an impactful online presence.
Paid Social is a fun, creative and highly effective method of finding potential customers and is considered by some to be one of the most effective ways of marketing in the current social image climate. Paid Social allows brands to connect with a target audience specific to their brand and gain a more extensive reach through the size of the platform. Focusing on diversity, interactivity, video and animated content, and eCommerce performance will help brands get the most out of their advertising going into 2023 and how Fanatic can help you.
Our Paid Social and Digital Marketing experts will consider your audience, competitors and existing online presence and branding to create a Paid Social campaign that is sure to get impressive results. Get in touch today and find out how we can help you on your Paid Social journey.
Last month the team worked on several exciting projects making updates to the product pages for Effect Doctors, finalising a project they have been working on with DAZN, and creating a new and improved website for them. Stathis and Ian also visited the Somerset and London venues for Artfarm, taking time to walk around their lovely Piet Oudolf-designed garden and re-visit Mount St Resturant.
After a productive brand presentation for a new seafood restaurant, we enjoyed a lovely cocktail with our clients from Aqua Shard, Micah and Marie. We also welcomed Mary to our Digital Marketing team this month! You can see how she’s getting on further down!
This month one of our largest website projects has gone live. The website is for DAZN, a market-leading sports broadcaster in Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Japan and Taiwan but is known largely for its boxing proposition in the UK.
We built the new corporate site for the DAZN, which communicates how they have brought a new way of watching live sports such as boxing, formula one and football to viewers.
It was important that this website communicates the multi-threaded nature of today’s viewers, who want to simultaneously consume sports across multiple devices. They view and interact with the platform through multi-game/sports views or in-game bets. This is a fast-moving space, and the corporate site is there to communicate how DAZN are changing the face of sports streaming.
It was great to work closely with the in-house brand team, as well as the DAZN management, to bring together a website design that not only hits the right message but in the right tone and with the right energy for this fast-paced brand.
Naturally, the site uses a lot of videos and features a lot of movement as the visitor scrolls down the page. The site has also been challenging for our developers, who love something new to challenge them to bring a more conceptual design to all browsers and devices.
In January, we made some improvements to the product pages on a long-standing client’s website, Effectdoctors.com. The product pages were several years old and had been updated many times as A|B tests and UX updates mean a busy eCommerce site is consistently being evolved. There’s only so far a page that can be modified both in terms of keeping a clean UX and for the cleanliness of code behind the scenes, so a fresh build is required occasionally. After using the previous product pages for a few years, they were overwhelmed with many added features and content over time, affecting their user experience.
We reevaluated which features were essential and created a plan to simplify the content of these products while maintaining depth and detailed descriptions of each product. These changes and adaptations to the product pages resulted in a much simpler-to-use WooCommerce management experience and a much clearer User Experience for their customers.
We have been steadily expanding our work with Artfarm’s Somerset venues over the last year or so. Last month, during a visit to the venues, we took time to slow down and walk around their on-site, including the pleasure of taking in the artwork in the Hauser and Wirth gallery, a walk in their Piet Oudolf-designed garden featuring artworks such as the sculpture by Smiljan Radić, that was previously located at the Serpentine in Hyde Park.
We then had our regular meeting with our Artfarm clients over lunch in their Roth Bar and Grill, looking at design work for various projects before visiting their farm shop, for which we run eCommerce marketing campaigns.
We were also able to indulge in a fondue hat! YUM!
It was an excellent way for us here at Fanatic to become more immersed in how all the venues fit together within the Artfarm location, an essential element when creating content and expressing the brand through our multiple marketing campaigns.
We also re-visited the Mount St. restaurant in Mayfair, which we visited in the summer of 2022 as a building site. The finished Audley Pub, Mount St. Restaurant and connected private dining rooms are one of the finest examples of exquisite dining venues we have seen in over 20 years worth promoting F&B venues, with the Art engrained in the very fabric of everything we see and touch!
We currently run and manage multiple digital channels to drive bookings for the venue and love working on projects for Mount St. restaurant.
Bristol-based web design and brand agency, Squarebird, have evolved a new look for the biggest player in space sector recruitment, EVONA, to better echo their established impact and vision.
EVONA is disrupting the recruitment scene, a consultancy team of space sector specialists with strong beliefs in the progression of knowledge and unlocking the potential of humankind. As they say, it’s in the name: EVO – to evolve, ONA – people.
Telling the true story of space sector recruitment was vital. As all of us use space every day – to navigate, use our phones, and even watch TV – an optical style was needed to rewrite the narrative and open the industry to all.
Working with their existing branding, Squarebird explored the visual limits they wanted to push through style tiles, helping them move towards a clean, dark, space-inspired look. A tone of voice workshop allowed the team to discover the personality of the brand, bringing the notion to existence. The developed visual style was rolled out across the website using a cinematic, aspirational style – perfectly reflective of their vision and ambitions.
“Developing a strong online presence is central to our Marketing strategy as a space company on the forefront of innovation, so there was a lot riding on getting this right. Predictably, Squarebird have delivered an exceptional website that not only stands out amongst the competition, but functions far better than previous versions. The team got our vision very quickly and worked with us to develop a website to be proud of that was close to the brand direction we wanted to move in.
Working with Squarebird has been a great experience; the team are knowledgeable and their skills diverse enough to handle any of the issues developing websites could throw up.” – Adele Fox, Marketing Director at EVONA
From extensive image manipulation, to editing and icon creation, every aspect of the website worked holistically for a cohesive brand experience. The website was brought to life in a collaborative way, ensuring the visuals, and ever-evolving message, aligned with the technical functionalities of the site. Integrating with multiple recruitment and marketing platforms, the website plays a functional role in streamlining their operations and ensuring a platform that better aligns with EVONA’s growth and maturity.
“Having known and followed the EVONA crew since inception, it’s been amazing to grow alongside them, and be a part of their next stage of expansion. From the USA, UK and beyond, EVONA is – and will continue to be – a driving force within the space sector.
It was a pleasure to take their objectives and messaging and create a visual masterpiece to do it justice.” – Nick Bird, Managing Partner at Squarebird
View the full case study here.
Boxworks is a unique workspace in the heart of Bristol’s Temple Quarter. Twenty shipping containers have been re-imagined into stylish, affordable private studios perfect for small teams. The studios, or ‘Boxes’, are super-insulated, come with superfast fibre and 24/7 access. Tenants get access to facilities at Engine Shed too, including lounge access, a communal kitchen, showers and meeting rooms
To celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit of Bristol’s creative community, Forward Space has teamed up with Bristol Creative Industries (BCI) and Circus Journal to launch Startup at Boxworks, a competition to win three months tenancy at Boxworks.
Aimed squarely at new businesses, sole traders and freelancers, the competition will provide much-needed support for the early stages of a business by giving the fledgling enterprise the space to grow and explore ideas, without the pressure of workspace costs.
The competition is open to all businesses with a turnover of £150,000 or less. To apply, entrants simply need to outline why office space would help take their business to the next level by submitting either a written statement, a presentation or a short video.
Full entry criteria is here. Deadline for submissions is midnight on Friday 24th February 2023.
Gavin Eddy, CEO of Forward Space, said
“I’ve loved seeing the countless businesses we’ve worked with over the years grow and find success after using one of our spaces. Helping to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurial talent in the South West is something I’m very passionate about too, so I can’t wait to see what interesting proposals we see over the coming weeks.”
Alli Nicholas, membership manager, Bristol Creative Industries, said:
“Bristol Creative Industries is thrilled to be partnering with Forward Space on this initiative. A three month Boxworks residency is such a brilliant opportunity for one of our members, particularly fledgling startups who may currently be working entirely remotely. Finding the right office space is key to the success of any business. Right next door to Engine Shed, Boxworks is the perfect place to get immersed in Bristol’s thriving ‘createch’ community; making new connections and exploring opportunities for growth.”
Simon Tapscott, co-founder and publisher, Circus Journal said:
“Circus is all about celebrating creativity and community in the south-west, and with a third of our readers running their own businesses discovering workspaces that inspire people to come together and collaborate is an important and recurring theme
“We are delighted to be supporting this fantastic initiative to enable the next generation of creatives in Bristol.”
Enter the competition by 24 February here.
Independent brand agency Mr B & Friends has appointed agency growth expert Gellan Watt to help accelerate the agency’s capability as it gears up for international expansion.
Over the next four years, the agency will be creating 35 new roles as it creates a presence in London, US and Singapore, while also bolstering the team at its Bristol HQ.
Gellan Watt is one of the industry’s leading growth experts. Having founded Thinking Juice in 2003, Watt went on to merge the business with the Emerge Group – a £60m agency group at exit in 2016.
A strategist and creative director at heart, Watt now works with a portfolio of independent agencies as a strategic advisor and NED.
Founder and CEO Simon Barbato says “Gellan and I have known each other for several years, and I’ve always been blown away by his energy, ideas and boldness. Being with him energises me and I’m now looking forward to him sprinkling his magic dust on our Senior Leadership Team and the wider team”.
“Gellan’s primary objective will be to grow the capability in our practice areas: strategy, creative and client service. We have such strength in each of these areas already – so this is about making it world-class. That’s his level, and that’s where we want to be”.
Gellan Watt added: “I’ve long been an admirer of what Simon and the team do at Mr B & Friends. Their work is powerful, provocative and intelligent. They’re first class. I look forward to the adventures ahead.”
The appointment commences in February and Watt will work closely with the Board and SLT to prioritise development programmes.
We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Joe Johnston as our first ever Conversion Director.
With over 10 years helping brands get better results from their marketing, Joe will help Launch’s clients improve their website performance, understand how their audience engages with their website, and get better results from their paid media investment. Primarily, he’ll be involved in user research, analytics analysis, and experimentation, working closely with both Paid Media and Data departments.
Joe says: “I’m thrilled to join the Launch team at such an exciting time in their journey. For many brands, the cost-of-living crisis and rising inflation has meant marketing budgets are being squeezed. Every pound or dollar of ad spend is having to work a lot harder. So I’m looking forward to helping our brilliant roster of clients realise their websites’ potential.”
Jaye Cowle, Managing Director of Launch, says: “The key role of paid media is to drive traffic to key pages – but if those pages aren’t optimised, brands can waste valuable ad spend and still not see results. That’s why Joe is a brilliant addition to the team. His expertise is going to help us deliver in-depth insights and affect greater change for our clients.”
As digital marketing becomes more driven by machine learning and advertising becomes more competitive, our team’s ability to define strategies, create efficiencies and identify opportunities is what enables us to deliver brilliant results for our clients. Joe joining the team will bridge the gap between paid media and website performance, providing a more comprehensive service.
Joe joins Launch as the team grows to 25, following the recent appointments of Ian Lewis as Analytics Director and Simon Lockyer as Paid Social Manager.
ChatGPT has gained a lot of coverage in the news over the past month and for good reason. This new language model chatbot developed by OpenAI has the chance to revolutionise SEO and digital marketing.
ChatGPT’s growth has been phenomenal, hitting 1 million users in just 5 days, (according to Greg Brockman, President and Co-Founder of OpenAI). It’s fascinating to compare this adoption rate to other revolutionary technologies (which you can see below), for example Instagram, took 2.5 months to get to the same user level.
We thought it would be useful to share some of the team’s thoughts on the new software and what our approach will be to using it in 2023. We will cover its full impact on search marketing covering Varn’s 4 key service lines for delivering ‘full service SEO’.
Before we get into its impact on search marketing, let’s provide a bit of background on the software and why it is causing such a stir.
ChatGPT has taken the digital marketing world by storm over the last month and many have started to incorporate it into their content development strategy, using it to contribute to articles and other forms of content be it writing video scripts and coming up with blog ideas.
So what is ChatGPT? Well let’s see what the software has to say for itself….
“ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI that uses deep learning to generate human-like text. It is trained on a large dataset of text and can be fine-tuned for specific tasks such as language translation, question answering, and text summarization. ChatGPT can generate text that is similar to that written by a human and is often used in chatbots and other natural language processing applications.”
As far as Technical SEO goes, ChatGPT could potentially help streamline the process of optimising websites.
One important element of Technical SEO is a website’s navigation. It is important that the navigation makes sense to users and has a clear hierarchy. Historically this has always been something that takes a reasonable amount of time to manually review. However, an advanced machine learning algorithm like GPT should be able to think similarly to a human and predict what a user of a website would expect from the site’s navigation. For example, it is possible that GPT would be able to review your site navigation, and suggest which content should be moved to make more sense from a user and hierarchical point of view. The resulting recommendations are still something that should be manually reviewed by an SEO professional, but it could potentially save a reasonable amount of time.
Another much more dubious technique, (one that we would not recommend), is that people could use ChatGPT for Tech SEO in order to create content related to your target keywords. In order to get a page to rank on Google, it helps to have a decent amount of body copy on the page, copy which is focused on the keywords you want to rank for. Using ChatGPT to generate this content could potentially help to get a site ranking more quickly, whilst making content creation easier for your website admin. However, there are a number of problems with this approach. Firstly, AI generated content goes against Google’s guidelines. This means that if Google were to identify your content as AI generated then they could potentially penalise your rankings.
It’s interesting to note that ChatGPT has been working to add a watermark to its generated content so that AI generated copy can be identified more easily. This watermark would be difficult to remove as it is a statistical pattern that is embedded into individual words or even punctuation marks within the generated content. This watermark is another potential way for Google to recognise that the copy hasn’t been manually produced, which again could lead to penalisation. There is also no guarantee that another user will never be presented with the same AI generated content, thus also leading to potential issues with duplicate content.
When it comes to digital PR and content, the software seems to have a lot of potential applications, but for now at least, human insights, input and creativity will be needed to create content that gets cut through online.
Some of the potential applications when it comes to content assistance include:
The above is not an exhaustive list, but it is an exciting time for those in content marketing and digital as we see more sophisticated AI tools come to market which should get better over time.
It’s vital not to forget that from an SEO perspective, Google states on it’s website that when a user enters a query, their machines search the index for matching pages and return the results they believe are the highest quality and most relevant to the user’s query.
The big question is whether Google thinks bot created content is the highest quality, and we would suggest that it probably isn’t yet. Therefore we have a note of caution – be careful of any agency who says they are going to use ChatGPT to get you to the top of Google. They are most likely seeing ChatGPT as a shortcut/cheat to generating content, rather than a legitimate way to create ‘the highest quality content’. This may obviously change in time though.
Under it’s ‘Google Search Essentials’ page, Google states under its ‘Key best practice’:
“While there are many things you can do to improve your site’s SEO, there are a few core practices that can have the most impact on your web content’s ranking and appearance on Google Search.”
The first is ‘Create helpful, reliable, people-first content.’ When expanding on this Google states:
‘Google’s automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results.’
Our recommendation if you are involved in Search Marketing, keep up to date with the latest developments and trends emerging with ChatGPT, but importantly spend time making sure you comply with the advice from Google about content which you can find here.
We’ve been here before, haven’t we? Automated Bidding, Smart Shopping, Performance Max. It’s been proven that we can combine a strategic human touch with the power of automation to enhance performance marketing.
Two areas of research needed before running a paid campaign are the keywords you choose to bid on and the messaging you put in your ads. This will determine who sees your ads and the likelihood of them clicking and converting. ChatGPT can be very useful as a starting point for both of these areas. It can offer up fresh ideas in an unbiased way.
Keyword Research
Ad Copy Research
Whilst ChatGPT does provide really high quality content to use for campaigns, it may not be as high quality and personal as a person writing that copy, with a touch of human insight and copywriting flair. As a human, and not an AI, we are able to factor in elements such as USPs, brand knowledge, target demographics and audience that you would want to appeal to in the ad copy. However, ChatGPT is certainly a good starting point for generating ad copy and keyword research.
Data Analytics and Reporting is one of the most important areas of search marketing. If you don’t have adequate reporting setup, you are not able to evaluate how your strategies are performing and which strategies you should push for going forward.
One way a machine learning service like ChatGPT could be useful for Data Analytics is as a provider of information. Not only can you ask GPT questions and get a concise answer, you can also add a correction or modifier to that question after the fact, and GPT is smart enough to understand. For example, here we asked about how to track a certain metric in Looker Studio, and after not being satisfied with the answer, were able to quickly modify our request without retyping the original question.
Varn: How do I track average page views in Looker Studio
GPT: To track average page views in Looker Studio, you will need to use a score card. First, create a blank report from the Looker Studio home screen. Then, use the formula box to type in ‘Views/Sessions’ and save the calculated field. Finally, add the score card to your report. You will then be able to track your average page views.
Varn: No, I meant as a graph
GPT: To create a graph of average page views in Looker Studio, you will need to use a line chart. First, create a blank report from the Looker Studio home screen. Then, use the formula box to type in ‘Views/Sessions’ and save the calculated field. Next, select your metrics and dimensions and add a new chart. Finally, add the line chart to your report. You will then be able to track your average page views in a visual graph format.
This ability for ChatGPT to condense complex information into simple text format allows us to treat the service like a co-pilot when working out tricky problems in analytics software.
Our view is that ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionise the way we approach search marketing, but at the moment it should be seen as a useful place to start to help you to quickly and conveniently curate information. We think it’s critical to remember that whilst ChatGPT is a great tool, (and will only get better), you need to use it as a starting point or springboard for creating content.
The value of excellence in search marketing deliverables, will always come by adding in the human touch.
Having an understanding of your company’s tone of voice, what works with the audience and an in-depth understanding of what you are looking to achieve is essential. This is the human bit that AI and robots simply can’t replicate.
ChatGPT will be unable to grasp the intricacies and nuances of human behaviour and responses. As people we can inherently tap into the very unique asset of our 5 senses, to ensure any AI generated content is then made relevant, engaging and meaningful. Our view is that the human power of creativity, innovative ideas and strategic understanding make content, ads and SEO insights impactful and actionable, and will always trump a ‘cut and paste’ of AI generated content. In addition, we know that for successful long-term SEO strategy, it’s critical to understand your competition and to have a clear strategy. ChatGPT will only be helpful up to a point for this… we liken it to having a football-playing robot. They’ll only be helpful if they are told what team to play on!
Our recommendation is to now let’s carefully watch this space. The search marketing landscape may well evolve and change quickly and with Microsoft reportedly to add ChatGPT to it’s Bing search engine, it’s worth keeping your eyes out for what happens to Bing market share, and Google’s response to this immediate challenge
Finally, if you are interested ChatGPT’s opinion about how it will influence search marketing, this is what it ‘thinks’….
“Its advanced natural language processing capabilities can help businesses to create high-quality, unique content and improve their search engine rankings. Additionally, ChatGPT can also be used to create chatbots that can provide faster and more efficient customer service, helping businesses to improve the user experience and increase customer satisfaction. As the capabilities of ChatGPT continue to evolve, it is likely that we will see even more ways in which it can be used to improve search marketing and other areas of business.”