To put it bluntly, and with no hyperbole needed, the game of organic search and discovery has changed dramatically since November 30, 2022, when ChatGPT launched to the public.
The rate of change in both the search landscape and in user behavior has accelerated so quickly since that date that AI search-related questions have come to dominate the discourse. Even though Google still controls a huge majority of search activity, the growth of AI search adoption and the way users are adapting their purchase journeys cannot be ignored.
To help marketers get their heads around how to harness these changes in their campaigns, we recently published JDM’s Guide to Growth in the AI Search Era, featuring insights we’ve gleaned from the strategic adjustments we’ve made in our clients’ organic campaigns.
If you don’t have time to read the full guide and you’d like to get (and bookmark) the highlights for easy reference, I’ll list them below. Let’s get into it.
AI has changed the way users seek and consume information, but it’s important to note that it’s not the only relatively new entry; channels like TikTok and Reddit have emerged as search and discovery powerhouses, in part because of their very human juxtaposition to machine learning-driven results. Overindexing on Google and LLMs will lead to big misses in social search.
AI search results – including AI Overviews on Google – aim to keep users on the screen, which has sparked a big rise in zero-click behavior. In one session, B2B users can go from awareness to education to consideration, and B2C users looking for specific kinds of products can even close the deal. The key takeaway here: the stakes for AI search visibility, which can pay off in bottom-funnel impact in a single session no matter the user’s beginning intent stage, are huge.
I’m going to yell about this one: SEARCH IS NOT ABOUT KEYWORDS ANY MORE. It’s about understanding the full context around your given topic and producing content that addresses that context wherever your users are engaging.
Brands that do that – and position themselves as the topic authority in the process – are reaping the benefits in AI search visibility. A TikTok post with tons of engagement may carry similar weight as a descriptive blog post in the (still unknown) AI search algorithms, so make sure you’re covering your bases and meeting your users where they search.
It is absolutely not straightforward to measure the business impact of growing your visibility in AI search, but you can get some directional data to fill out the picture a bit.
If you’re seeing your AI search visibility build in specific categories and seeing your site engagement increase for {brand} + {that term}, it’s safe to assume AI search is contributing to a lift in brand awareness (and make sure to check traffic trends for your homepage and pricing pages, which historically draw brand traffic from more traditional search behavior).
Other ways to track AI search impact: referral traffic from GA (make sure you’re familiar with all the main AI search players, since new options are popping up by the fistful) and asking users how they heard about your brand (ChatGPT gets a disproportionate amount of mentions). Note: this data is HIGHLY directional, especially since so few people click to sites from AI search results, but it’s useful to see trends as they develop.
Every client wants to know how to show up more often in AI search, and the first thing to remember is that the tenets of E-E-A-T are just as important to ChatGPT and its competitors as they are to Google. Build your brand (and your brand spokespeoples’) reputations as authentic experts in your category, and both users and LLMs will reward you for it.
These highlights are key, but they’re just scratching the surface of a tectonic shift in organic search and discovery. Download the full guide today or, better yet, hit me up to book a chat so I can deliver recommendations for your go-forward plan.