By people, for people. Doing SEO in the time of AI

Deck @ Wordlift Meetup in Rome 29.03.2023 "SEO and INNOVATION"

A journey between GPT and EEAT, in search of quality.

While SEO continually evolves to adapt to the changing nature of search, there are times when this happens faster. This is what is happening today with the explosion of generative AI-based technologies. Few certainties withstand changes and these are the ones that can guide us in SEO strategies and tactics nowaday and in the future.

Transcript

1. By people, for people Doing SEO in the time of AI A journey between E-E-A-T and GPT in search of quality Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it
2. Valentina Lepore - @valijolie • IT engineer in the IT industry since 2007 • 10+ years in agencies as an SEO/Digital strategist specializing in the travel/editorial industry • today freelance consultant with focus on technical SEO and content strategies semantic-SEO oriented. You can reach me on SEOjolie.it
3. SEO is communication WHY? · people communicate needs to the search engine with an intent · a site has resources that fulfill a purpose · SEO's job is to understand how people search, how the search engine works, and how to best communicate a site's resources to match questions and relevant answers Usually people say SEO is a discipline of web marketing, but it is reductive Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it
4. NEEDS > <RESOURCES Let's talk about PEOPLE before than search engines! Whatever the (technological) scenario is, this relationship is always valid Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it real quality
5. SEO is not “push a button and solve the problem” Whatever the (technological) scenario is, don't trust one-click solutions, (although sometimes… lucky can happens) Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it
6. NEEDS > <RESOURCES Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it real quality What is quality?
7. The quintessential quality content for Google has a BENEFICIAL PURPOSE Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it What is quality (for Google)?
8. Google E-E-A-T E-E-A-T is the paradigm Google uses to evaluate quality content (not a direct ranking factor!) 2014: introduced EAT in the Search Quality Raters Guidelines 2022: Added the E of Experience Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it Search Quality Raters are PEOPLE who evaluate Google results. Their guidelines help us understand how to evaluate quality content from the perspective of PEOPLE, not algorithms: it is worth spending time studying them.
9. E: Experience Those who create content must have well-established knowledge obtained from direct, personal experience. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it Restaurant reviews: do you trust someone who hasn't been there? Product rankings: do you trust someone who hasn't used them? Tutorials: do you trust if the author doesn't show that he or she has actually put it into practice?
10. E: Expertise Who create the content must be competent and have some level of knowledge of the subject matter. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it “we are not just talking about formal expertise. Informal expertise is equally important” Important for YMYL (Your Money Your Life) research that directly impacts people's lives, well-being, health and safety as well as their finances.
11. Experience / Expertise? It depends on the purpose of the page and the need to be met! Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it
12. A: Authoritativeness It is the extent to which the content creator/website is a reference source for the topic being covered. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it “ask yourself what would make the content creator a trustworthy source in that context”
13. T: Trust It is the ability of a site to come across as safe, reliable and therefore trustworthy. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it “Trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T no matter how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may seem.”
14. Google & AI? What does Google think about AI-generated content? https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it
15. Google & AI Principles valid even before the spread of generative AI ➔ Quality, original and useful content for people ➔ Do not manipulate the search engine if you use automation, including AI-generation, to produce content for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings, that's a violation of our spam policies. ➔ SEO can be a helpful activity when it is applied to people-first content, rather than search engine-first content. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it
16. TAKE AWAY SEO Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it 1. Read SQRs guidelines there are a lot of useful examples
17. TAKE AWAY SEO Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it …and learn from examples :) • Easy to use → user experience and usability • Accomplishes purpose → the page should achieve purpose in a practical and useful way • Good reputation of website → trust find hints you can apply on your own projects
18. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it TAKE AWAY SEO 2. Building authority with content strategies tool: Keyword infinity by SeoZoom CREATING ROBUST CONTENT ARCHITECTURES to cover all the topics of the theme you want to become a reference for. Can be done on any theme, even when they seem as unimaginative as “bolts”
19. TAKE AWAY SEO Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it Content strategy can be build in many ways using different tools: e.g. SEOZoom (seozoom.it)
20. TAKE AWAY SEO Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it Content strategy can be build in many ways using different tools: it’s also ok integrate AI in the process
21. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it SCHEMA.ORG MARKUP Representing content (entities) with structured data markup (also with the help of AI tools) TAKE AWAY SEO 3. Building content relevance for the search engine “Structured data adds a level of preciseness that a search engine needs, and might not grasp, because it doesn’t have the common sense of a human.” After working for the people, use SEO to communicate with the search engine
22. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it WORK ON YOUR VALUE AS AN EXPERIENCED AUTHOR or collaborate with recognized guest authors who are experts and have experience in the topic. TAKE AWAY SEO 4. Building authority with experienced and HUMAN authors fonte: https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care /supplements-for-better-skin
23. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it LINKS AND CITATIONS are still a relevance factor for Google. Make good resources → get links and citations TAKE AWAY SEO 5. Building authority with human relationships
24. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it TAKE AWAY SEO 6. Building a relationship of TRUST with people INTEGRATE GENERATIVE AI PROCESSES and let users know about it. AI + people: improve, don’t delegate as a solve-problem-button Source: https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/what-is-a-bad-credit-auto-loan/
25. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it TAKE AWAY (SEO) 7. Putting people at the center = use AI responsibly and ethically Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyulkanov/
26. Valentina Lepore - SEO Content Strategist - SEOjolie.it TAKE AWAY SEO 8. Go on and work on all the "usual" SEO stuff with quality in mind DEVELOP AN ALGORITHM-PROOF METHOD that is enduring in technological evolutions Analyze Search Personas and needs Analyze keywords/ topics and search intent Build solid and complete content architecture Build resources useful for search intent Edit micro-content (microdata/ tag) Implement entities with structured data markup Write/edit content in a natural way (forget SEO) Improve usability and user experience Study how to integrate new tools (AI) into repetitive and low-value activities to have more time to devote to quality
27. THANK YOU <3 valentinalepore@gmail.com linkedin/in/valentinalepore twitter: @valijolie .it Bibliography • Search Quality Raters Guidelines https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines. raterhub.com/it//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf • Google EEAT https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/goog le-raters-guidelines-e-e-a-t • Google and AI https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/goog le-search-and-ai-content • Google Spam policies https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/s pam-policies#spammy-automatically-generated-content • Structured Data markup https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/s tructured-data/intro-structured-data • Italian SEO forum (and more): https://connect.gt/