Topics: Inbound Marketing
AI is surfing in. We’re fast handing over human skills and cognition to machines that do all the thinking and doing for us. It already impacts every aspect of online/inbound marketing but, unsurprisingly, it has massive ramifications when it comes to your SEO.
It's a buzzword bandied about alongside machine learning (ML), but they do differ. AI is about machines taking over tasks previously executed by people, whereas machine learning is more about handing over data to machines and letting them go figure for themselves.
AI has been around for æons, with the Greek myths of Hephaestus and Pygmalion floating the notion of intelligent robots (such as Talos) and artificial beings (such as Galatea and Pandora).
But, in more recent times...
1914: Lawrence Sperry (American aviation pioneer) invented the first autopilot;
1950: Alan Turing (English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist) wrote the first computer chess program – and the best are now impossible to beat;
1954: George Devol (American inventor) invented Unimate – the first commercial, digital and programmable robot.
And self-driving cars are set to trundle onto our streets in 2019!
Enhanced search engine rankings: AI is a proven data-pattern recogniser, with the emphasis falling on concept-based content over keyword-based content.
Mobile search: rapidly gaining in importance, with Google attracting over 70% of its searches from smartphone-users.
Voice-based search: also on the rise, with a 20%-30% sales conversion rate. Siri and Alexa are the go-to virtual assistants in millions of households around the world. Google Assistant can now also make phone calls on your behalf.
Visual content: hey! with grammar and spelling going down the chute 😉, it’s no surprise that people are turning to infographics, video and audio. Google's ability to extract a transcript from video content is becoming increasingly accurate. Make sure your visual content is relevant.
Content relevance, context and informative value: thanks to Google’s Rankbrain, your content must be 100% relevant to what your visitors are looking for.
Backlinks: it’s imperative that these relate specifically to the services and/or products on offer. It's no longer a numbers game. If you can spot manipulative or purchased links, then you can bet Google's AI will.
White Hat Rules: White Hat SEO guarantees your visitors the bang on-point content they seek. Google is making it harder and riskier to play the Black Hat game, with AI noticing these unethical techniques faster and easier.
"Many webmasters receive emails from "black-hat" marketers who can offer great rankings on Google for a minimal fee. The techniques used by these companies are unethical and exploit temporary flaws in the search algorithms.
These loopholes are quickly closed and Google can penalise your site for using these tactics. You may see your website on-top of Google results for a few months, but you may never get those rankings back if you are penalised for using these exploits.
As an ethical SEO company, we ensure that all of our work is in-line with Google's Webmaster Quality Guidelines. This prevents manual penalties and allows search engines to crawl and understand our clients' websites."
You'll be glad to hear that AI and its implications are already well up in Brcekenridge’s consciousness. In fact, our Chairman, Colin Breckenridge, delivered a timely presentation on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the creative industry at the Creative Expo, an initiative which aims to inspire, connect and improve existing and next-generation creatives. Read all about it here.
If you find AI’s impact on digital marketing mind-boggling, then you know who to call. As a HubSpot Gold partner agency and Google Premier Partner, Breckenridge has the cyber-skills to help future-proof your website and online campaigns.
Ride the wave of AI technology – click below for a FREE consultation on how to cyber-smart your business…
