Many marketers recognize that the era of generative AI is here, particularly in the context of search. Dale Bertrand, founder of Fire&Spark, has even predicted this new era to be a transition from digital marketing to AI marketing.
While the emergence of generative AI in search might feel sudden, Google has been moving toward a generative AI-driven search platform for years. Since 2015, Google has leveraged generative AI in its search algorithms to deliver better and more relevant results to users.
However, a more dramatic shift occurred over the past year when Google moved from using generative AI to enhance search results to using it to create its own results. In May 2024, Google rolled out AI Overviews, which provide summarized answers to user queries at the top of search results. This update caused uncertainty in the SEO community, with many content marketers worrying their informational content might become obsolete now that Google is answering questions directly in search results.
AI Overviews, combined with the rising use of generative AI tools for search, like ChatGPT, have created an urgent need for marketers to adapt—and quickly.
Dale Bertrand joined Andre Radu to discuss this pressing challenge and provide actionable strategies for marketers to navigate these changes in search marketing.
Adapting Your Content Marketing Strategy to Generative AI Search
Generative AI has many capabilities that will influence marketing moving forward. Most importantly, it can create content and understand language, allowing Google and other tools to serve useful information directly to users – capabilities that were previously unseen in search engines.
This shift has fundamentally changed how search operates, moving away from keyword-based searches (i.e. “running shoes”) to AI-driven, conversational queries (i.e. “what are the best running shoes for new england weather”). As a result, brands will face reduced visibility for top-of-funnel informational content. To remain competitive, marketers need to rethink their approach to content marketing.
Dale Bertrand emphasizes the importance of adapting to these changes with the following targeted strategies:
1. Prioritize Unique, Pull-Through Content
One major challenge of generative AI-driven search is that it often summarizes informational content, leaving users with no reason to click through to a website. This has fueled the rise of zero-click searches, where users find the answers they need directly in search results or AI tools without visiting a brand’s site.
To combat this, Dale advises marketers to focus on creating pull-through content – content that compels users to click by offering unique value that goes beyond a simple summary.
Transform traditional informational content into pull-through content by:
- Featuring unique assets, like a downloadable guide or infographic, that provide additional value.
- Leveraging your unique market expertise to offer deeper insights.
- Incorporating first-hand stories or exclusive data that only your brand can share.
The key word here is unique. Pull-through content is all about delivering an experience users can’t find anywhere else, ensuring your content remains valuable in ways that generative AI cannot easily summarize.
2. Prioritize Mid & Bottom-Funnel Content
As top-of-funnel, informational content faces a decline due to generative AI search, focusing on mid and bottom-funnel content is crucial. Mid-funnel content serves a critical role in the buyer’s journey, bridging the gap between awareness and conversion—something that generative AI tools can’t easily replicate or summarize.
Examples of mid and bottom-funnel content include:
- Comparison pages: A highly effective type of mid-funnel content that helps users make informed purchasing decisions by comparing products, brands, prices, attributes, and performance data.
- Niche buying guides: Niche buying guides are crucial for helping users make informed purchase decisions about specific products. By focusing on customers’ unique needs, buying guides provide personalized recommendations beyond generic product info.
- Listing directories: A listing directory is a web page that features a list of links to websites that are often organized by categories and subcategories. The taxonomy can be by location (country → state → city → neighborhood), furniture (type of furniture → size → color), and more.
This content helps brands reach customers further along in their purchase journey, not just compensating for lost informational traffic but also increasing conversions.
3. Leverage Brand Marketing for AI Mentions
One of the biggest concerns for marketers right now is securing brand mentions within AI-generated responses. When users rely on generative AI-driven search to answer their informational queries, ensuring your brand appears prominently at the top of the response is essential.
Although our understanding of how generative AI decides which brands to feature is still evolving, Dale Bertrand emphasizes that one thing is clear: strong brand marketing is a necessity.
To improve the chances of being included in AI-generated responses, Dale recommends that brands focus on:
- Building a community around their brand. This helps generate user-created content such as stories, reviews, and videos, which can provide valuable social proof and signal trustworthiness to AI.
- Developing a strong presence across multiple channels. This doesn’t require creating entirely new campaigns for each platform—adapting existing content for email, social media, and other mediums is often enough.
- Staying ahead of industry trends. Sharing timely insights and expertise can help position your brand as a leader in your field.
By implementing these tactics, brands can enhance their visibility in AI search tools and improve their chances of securing valuable brand mentions.
4. Update Tracked Metrics
Traditional metrics, like achieving the #1 ranking on search results, are becoming less relevant when AI summaries dominate the top positions. Instead, marketers should focus on other metrics that provide better indications into performance that translates to business growth, such as metrics that measure:
- Weighted visibility: This metric demonstrates how prominently your brand appears in AI-generated responses, giving a more comprehensive view of visibility than traditional ranking data.
- Engagement: Track user interactions with your content, such as click-through rates, time on page, and conversion rates. These metrics indicate how effectively your content resonates with users and drives meaningful actions.
- User experience: Metrics like bounce rate, page load speed, and mobile usability highlight how accessible and user-friendly your site is.
Overall, Dale emphasizes the importance of embracing the opportunities that come with change. Instead of viewing generative AI as a threat to informational traffic, brands can use the shifts in SEO to refocus their strategy on reaching users with stronger conversion intent, making it an opportunity to attract more valuable customers.
Let Fire&Spark help you adapt to generative AI search…
- Schedule an SEO strategy session: Talk to a strategist at Fire&Spark about your organic customer acquisition campaigns and how to reposition your existing strategy for generative AI search. Schedule a strategy session.
- Dive deeper into SEO for Revenue: Fire&Spark’s SEO for Revenue Guide explains how to update your SEO strategies to optimize for sales and conversions, not just rankings and traffic. This mindset shift is crucial for adapting to generative AI search. Get the guide.
- Request a generative AI search audit: Our team would be happy to take a look at your site and help you forecast the effect of generative AI search and Google’s AI overviews on your organic traffic. Request an audit.
