I have to admit that when Google released for the first time ever its guidance on optimising for AI search it did make me smile. I am guilty of leaning toward the “it‘s just SEO“ camp but with the clear nuance that SEO is such a huge discipline that it depends on what you understand SEO to be.
For me personally, SEO is a huge part of the digital marketing world that touches upon every other discipline. SEO makes you a better copywriter. Copywriting makes you a better SEO. Those SEO and copywriting skills boost your PPC. Knowing social media helps you add more signals to your SEO work. Web design establishes your owned assets and everything else feeds onto that, right?
SEO should be holistic. Genuinely holistic. It’s something to be mastered yet the generalist/polymath approach makes it greater than the sum of its parts.
So to “keep doing great SEO“ sounds like a cop-out but there’s a greater truth there when you see the macro rather than just the micro.
Dissenting Voices
Since the release of Google‘s official guidance I‘ve shared it. I appreciate it. But then I saw a couple of headlines along the lines of „Google‘s gaslighting us. Again.“
And without reading those articles it triggered the thought that there was a time when we had that massive leak of functions Google publicly said weren’t relevant big privately were. Things like user engagement signals, Chrome data, and the micro updates to the algorithm using „Twiddlers“.
That reminded me of Mike King over at iPullRank who had some really excellent insights on the data lean at the time. And then I thought…
What Would Mike Do?
Now that I don’t know as I don’t have the same level of expertise that he does. But as luck has it, he did post on LinkedIn so k had a good read.
He framed the „it’s just SEO“ camp as „naive“. That very much depends on how fr they’ve gone down that rabbit hole. It also depends on how much you know about SEO, as I mentioned earlier.
But then hesitance to fully validate Google‘s AI search guidance is wise, considering their 2024 internal documentation leak. Also, the people over at Bing like to call the discipline GEO.
So who do we trust?
Google‘s documentation is sound but take it with a pinch of salt. Equally, going all in on GEO and all the hacks needs tempering.
In between there’s a place where it works for you. Do what needs to be done, consider SEO as more holistic, digital marketing and think of it all as the web of wyrd where everything connects to everything else, via single, multiple, thick, thin, short and long threads…
If adding LLMs.txt is no bother, give it a go. It’s good to understand and test. Chunking to some extent is a useful habit. Schema is best practice for the semantic web.
If you want a deeper analysis go read Mike King‘s piece Google’s Guidance on AI Search is Naive and Self-Serving
My Personal Take
Google was late out of the traps when the race began, and ChatGPT stole the lead in publicly available generative AI. But Big G with its incredible resources launched a counter offence and, as a digital marketer, I’ve been deeply embedded in all things Google. That’s not to see I don’t have a healthy dose of critical thinking, and I don’t 100% believe everything I read. I believe there’s more to the official line than is said. Behind the scenes, we don’t really know what goes on.
So this AI search optimisation advice is welcome, and it is timely, albeit quite late in the game. However, it’s also appreciated from the point of view that it is a big player’s “flesh in the game” and has really stirred the pot. SEOs of all levels of experience are talking about it.
Ultimately, do what gets you results. Take these tactics for a spin, monitor, record, analyse, and make data-informed decisions. And if you need any assistance, leave me a note via my contact page and we can talk.