Here it is, I'm just going to get straight to the point and explain what I mean.
Because that is what Google wants me to do.
And what Google want, is exactly what this article is about.
The new Google AI does one thing, and one thing only - It tries to imagine what you need.
So let's take a few search term examples and go through how to tackle getting your website to the Top on Google SERPs.
Firstly, let's take the example of Duplicate Payments as a search term, as we have recently been working on that for a client.
Now the site that we have been using to promote our client is a blog at https://www.DuplicatePayments.co.uk and that site has been blogged on for a year regarding duplicate payments and contract compliance and other financial matters. Last week that site was at position no.2 for a search on 'Duplicate Payments' and now it is at position no.8 even though we continued to blog once we saw the position no.2 ranking.
So why did this happen?
Well let me explain...
The new Google AI does not want lots of relevant information, it wants your answer, and it is surprisingly perceptive at understanding what that answer might be.
You see when someone makes a duplicate payment, they make it by mistake, and so they do not want to make another duplicate payment, they want to know how to not make another duplicate payment. Last week we penned a blog on the duplicatepayments,.co.uk blog called 'Preventing Duplicate Payments: A Step-by-Step Guide' and when that was the first item in the blog it seemed to Google that the page began with this solution to not making any more duplicate payments. This is why Google ranked it so well for such a shirt period, because as we have added more blog items, this title has moved further and further down the page. We have lessened the importance of that question being answered on the home page of that site. This was a mistake. We have continued to treat Google as it used to be, an engine concerned with relevance. Now it is an engine concerned with one thing. You!
So now let's have a think about another site - Top on Google. What does ToG need to tell people in order to get ranked well? Well it needs to tell them how to rank number one on the Google SERPs, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we're here.
ToG needs to be a site of how to get to the Top on Google, not a service offering such, or it will never rank top for 'Top on Google' and that is how we must all start thinking.
So now we have to ask ourselves, what do people want when they type the search words that interest us into the Google Search Engine?
So if you are a eCommerce site, your perspective isn't going to change that much. If someone types 'New Leather Wallet' into Google you need to be selling a lot of leather wallets, and it is even simpler if they are looking for a specific brand or type of wallet, the competition hasn't really changed. It's going to be primarily about price and customer service.
But what if you type in 'untidy garden' will it send you through to a landscape gardener. Well, no it won't. It will send you through to a page where you need to make it clear to Google what you mean. It might show you some images of unkempt gardens. It might link through to a few councils explaining your responsibilities concerning your garden. But most of all, it will show the People also ask: window where you can explain what you mean.
you see since the world of AI has been unleashed upon us, the way we need to communicate with some computers has changed. Google don't want you to type 'untidy garden' anymore. They want you to type 'my neighbour has an untidy garden and I want them to do something about it' because nowadays, Google can understand this statement.
As soon as you make yourself clear to Google it takes you straight through to a site entitled 'Neglected neighbouring gardens and the law' which is quite simply a site offering (or at least promising to offer) the best answer to your question on the Internet.
That is how we need to start using Google and how we need to start thinking about how to rank well with Google. What do they want and how can we make a page that most obviously and directly offers to give it to them?
Now how all of this is going to work out in the future is going to be interesting. Will Google be very direct and try and show people solutions on how to fix their own car, or will it send them straight through to the local garage. Well it will do whichever you ask it to. From now on Google want's us to be specific.
No longer are we going to be typing in 'Computer Recycling' but 'I want to recycle my old computer with a local recycling company' and Google will help you out like your spouse or your friend. That is the way things are going and we should be happy to embrace it. Finding products and services online is going to be much easier in the future as long as we adapt to the new capabilities of AI along with it.
So what does all this mean?
Well it means that if you start web pages that are answering some of the more obscure questions connected with your profession now, you can be ready for the new generation of search engine enquiries that are likely to start showing up.
For instance, here at ToG we will be writing a page titled 'How can I start qet started writing pages for more complex web queries' so that as the internet public start asking, we will be ready.
The days of a website that 'catches all' enquiries for a certain subject are long gone, it is time to start addressing every question your customers will ever have. It could well be a time when forums will start becoming more popular as solutions if the answers are not to be found with any of the high authority company sites, so now is the time to get cracking.
Think of every problem your customers have and answer that question on a page especially created to cover every possible answer that the question could ever require.
If you look at some of the pages concerning things like 'why doesn't my phone sync?' and questions like that, where someone has gone through everything that can prevent a phone from syncing and given a really easy solution, that page will rank top, no matter what.
Google want to answer questions and solve problems, so you need a site ready to beat them to it. Get cracking!