Is SEO changing? What Google's changes mean for your small business

Google has made a couple of big announcements recently, and they could impact your small business SEO strategy. Let's chat about what's happening, what they're changing, and what they're saying you need to do to remain visible online. 

First up, Google released its first official guidance on AI optimization. They've also said you don't need to say AEO or GEO; in their eyes, it's all just SEO. You can read their official guidance here - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide

Second, they're changing the search experience, and most queries will be answered by AI, not via a list of links on the search results page like we're used to. 

Finally, what does this mean for your small business? It means you need to make sure you're doing SEO, you've adjusted your content strategy to focus on what they call non-commodity content, and you're following SEO best practices to keep your business visible in this new online search experience. 

If you're already in Simple SEO Content or working with me 1:1, you're fine, everything we're doing is correct and is in alignment with the new guidance. If you're still trying to do this on your own, now is the time to start working together. Join me in Simple SEO Content or work with me one-on-one, and I'll guide you through what you need to do to remain visible so you can generate leads and make money. 

Transcript

0:26

Hi there, and welcome back to the podcast. There are some big changes going on with Google right now that if you've been looking around on social media or reading what's going on, you may be starting to wonder, "Is SEO dead? How does this impact my small business?" Or you may be wondering, "Rachel, will you please just break this all down for me and tell me what I need to do?" So, my friend, if you've heard that things are changing, or maybe you've gone to search on Google and you've noticed that things have changed, then that's exactly what we're gonna talk about in this week's episode. So, you know I generally batch my content, I record ahead of time, all of that. I had an episode scheduled and ready to go for you for today, and then Google made some really big changes, the biggest change they've made to the search experience in 25 years, over the last week. So while I was home enjoying a break with my family, Google was kind of going a little nuts. So because of that, I am now recording this in my home office on a Sunday morning while my son and my husband are hanging out in the other room. So there's a potential there may be a little bit of background noise that we normally don't have, because I generally do this when nobody else is home with me. But the Instacart delivery guy just dropped off my groceries, and so hopefully, fingers crossed, we don't have anything, um, pop up in the background or any noise for us today. So, first off, let's talk about what's going on. So the very first thing is that Google finally released the very first AI search guidelines. This is the first that they've given us anything official. If you're really interested, you like a very dry, technical, boring read, because Google documents are pretty much boring, technical reads, I will link it in the description. It also was linked in the email that I sent today that went out to anybody who's on the email list. So what I want you to understand from Google's standpoint, you've probably heard people talk about AI SEO, AEO, answer engine optimization, GEO, generative engine optimization. These are words that people are using for AI-based search or AI optimization. What Google is saying is these don't actually exist because in their eyes it's all just SEO. So if you hear somebody saying AEO, GEO, AIO, AI SEO, it's all the same thing, and that's- Really truly what I've been saying since the beginning, because that's what we were told within the professional SEO community. But I know there are a lot of people who are not within the professional community who really kind of latched onto AEO and GEO. You don't have to use those terms. This is just additional SEO. So what we're doing here, according to Google, you want to really continue to use your foundational SEO best practices to be visible in generative search or in AI-based search. That's what they've been saying all along. That's what I've been teaching you since AI op- AI search first came on the scene about two years ago. We've really been talking about making sure that your traditional Google SEO is in place. Your site's easy to read, it's easy to understand, you have helpful content on it, you link from page to page. It's, it's just easy to understand. Now, one of the things that is not necessarily new, but is kind of new in some ways, is that Google calls out now commodity versus non-commodity content in this new guideline. So what's interesting to me, non-commodity content is Content that specifically says it's helpful, it's reliable, and it's people first. So I want you to understand this is not new. This is what Google's been working on even since I was in the agency, which was a decade ago. So helpful content, we all know, we've heard of the helpful content algorithm. That hit a lot of sites that honestly didn't have great content, were not a great user experience, all of that. Um, that's been a couple years now. Google has really had everybody focused on creating helpful content, answer questions, provide value, give them something that stands out different from what everybody else can give them. Reliable content is going to really use our EEAT. We've talked about this here before. EEAT stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trust. This is how you bring you and your experience and your expertise and everything into the content that you're creating. It's how you make it stand out differently from the other content that other people are creating. And people first content, this goes way back to when I was still at the agency. So people first content has been around for more than a decade. That just simply means write for your reader, not the search engine, which is what I've told you all along. So if you're one of my students or one of my one-on-one clients, I want you to know you're fine. We've already been doing everything that Google's new guidelines say that you need to do. But if you've been trying to figure this out on your own, it might be time to get a little bit of advice, a little bit of guidance. Join me in the program, work with me one-on-one. Let me help you make sure you make this shift and you are doing the things that you need to in order for your site to remain visible Now, what Google goes on to explain is that you need to make sure you're writing non-commodity content that your readers can find helpful and reliable. They define commodity content right in their guidelines. They give us an example, something like seven tips for first-time homebuyers. Now, this is generally based on common knowledge. It could originate from anyone. It typically adds little unique insight for readers. So that's something that they're not going to want to show because that honestly can now be answered by AI. What you need to do is create non-commodity content. So they give the example here, why we waived the inspection and saved money: a look inside the sewer line. Now, this provides unique expert or experiences that takes... And it goes beyond the common knowledge and the ordinary. So you wanna think about how do you bring yourself, your experience, and your expertise into the content that you're creating. Because if all you're creating is content that people can find on any other site, that is gonna be answered by AI, and you are not gonna be visible, and we're gonna talk about that and what's going on there in just a minute. The other thing that they talk about, they say organize your content in a way that makes sense for your readers. Make sure it's well-written, it's easy to follow. Have paragraphs, have sections, headers that provide a clear structure. This is all the stuff I teach you inside the program, or we do when we work together one-on-one. Add high-quality images and video. People find images and video are helpful when they're searching. And focus mostly on what your users want, and avoid overdoing it. So this is something Where we want to think about how are we providing the best value and not ending up spammy. So what Google says here is, while it might be tempting to create content for every possible variation of how someone might search by focusing on other queries or things that people have asked, doing so really is just trying to manipulate the rankings or the generative AI responses, and it violates Google's scaled content abuse spam policy. It's an ineffective long-term strategy, as high quality quantity of pages doesn't necessarily make you rank higher or more relevant. What Google's really looking for is for you to have great content that's in-depth, that provides value. So don't just create six different versions of the same piece and think that that's gonna work. It's not. What you really wanna do is have one great piece that answers the questions and provides value. And then if there's a necessity to have more than one piece, you link back to that new piece. But you really wanna be careful with your content strategy. The other thing that you wanna make sure is that if you're using generative AI tools to help you create your content, you wanna make sure that you are following Google's rules and their spam policies. They are not going to show you if you are having Claude or Perplexity or ChatGPT or somebody create content for you, or if you are outsourcing it and somebody is using that AI to create that content for you. It's not new, it's not unique, it doesn't provide your perspective, and you're not going to be visible if that's what you're doing. So you wanna make sure that you're creating content that is of value to your ideal customer, to your reader. So that's the first thing, is really understanding Google's guidelines. You don't have to do anything different for AEO, GEO. They're just SEO. So that's really the most important thing to understand. You don't need to keep using the terms AEO or GEO. Now, you will see that in a couple weeks, maybe, maybe it's a month, I don't remember, um, I have a post coming out all about AEO and answer engine optimization. I'm doing that because people are still using that term, so I'm using it from a keyword standpoint, from a visibility standpoint to bring people into my world because they are using that term, but then I'm also taking the opportunity there to let them know, "Hey, you don't actually need to use this term. It's just SEO. This is the same stuff we're gonna keep doing." So just know as you're talking about it, just use the term SEO because that is truly what it is. So that was the first thing. Big news from Google. Second, more big news from Google. They are really trying to make sure that I don't have a break in May So they changed the search box, and you may have seen this. This happened last Tuesday, immediately following Memorial Day. They rolled out the first major change to the search box and the search experience in about 25 years. What they did was they expanded the search box so that now you can prompt more like you do on ChatGPT or Perplexity or Claude, where you can ask a prompt. You can ask a full question. You have more room to work with. You also, in many instances, not all, but many, you will get an AI first response. So they have gone ahead and they have merged the AI overviews with AI mode. So by default, most content, most queries are now going to be at least initially answered by AI. So if you want to remain visible, my friend, you need to figure out how to get your business into that AI answer, and that is what we're working on very proactively inside of Simple SEO content, in the group program, and working one-on-one with clients. I had one of my clients, um, messaged me the other day, and she's like, "I just got off a sales call, and the mom found me on ChatGPT. It's amazing." So that is happening. It's happening to my clients. It's happening to my students. It's happening to me. If you want to remain visible, you want to have people finding you, you're going to need to adjust your content strategy very likely, and I would like to help you with that. So if you're curious, you wanna know, send me an email, DM me on Instagram. Email is better. I'm, I'm more responsive there. If you are one of my students, you are currently enrolled in Simple SEO Content, you're in the student group, there is a post that I shared, um, the middle of last week that has some information about it. I linked to a bunch of guides and resources that are really helping how we shape this, and we're gonna talk more about it on tomorrow's call because I wanna make sure everybody knows what we're doing. So just know that Google Search is changing. If you wanna remain visible, you do need to continue doing SEO. We need to continue choosing keywords. We also need to optimize for the AI-based search engine. So what does all of this mean to you? This means right now, my friend, honestly, if you are not doing this yet, you don't h- you're not working with me, you don't have help or guidance, you need to prioritize it because what you've been doing is no longer going to work. You have to do more to be visible moving forward if you want your website still to get traffic, lead to conversions, make money, all the things that we work on inside of our group program. Our group program is all about building visibility Generating leads and making more money in your business. And those are the three things we focus on: visibility, leads, and how do we convert those into sales so that you build a profitable business. So if that's what you're working on in your business, you need a little bit of guidance right now because what we've done for 25 years is not gonna work exactly the same moving forward. Now, like I said, if you're already in Simple SEO Content with me or you're already working with me one-on-one, you are fine. Take a breath. And also, congratulations. Good job. You heard my warnings when I started talking about this saying you need help, let me help you and let me show you how to do it. If you're listening, you're a podcast lurker, you love the podcast, but you've been trying to figure it out on your own, prioritize joining me. I'm going to run the free five-day program, um, five-day training program again the week of July 13th, and I will be kicking off a cohort the week after that. So the week of July 20th, we should have tw- uh, yes, July 20th, we'll have a new group kicking off. If you're listening to this and you're like, "Rachel, I want to do this immediately," go ahead and sign up and join us. We're just in the third week of this cohort. You can catch up. You can watch the replays. W- you're fine. Come join us and pop in. You'll be good. But what I want you to understand, you've got to make sure you're creating great content. That content has to have a unique perspective. It's got to have additional insights or information, something that people can't find everywhere. Because if all you're creating is content that people can find somewhere else, AI is gonna answer those questions. They're not gonna cite you, and you are going to become invisible. Not only will it be hard for people to find you, you're just... your business is going to struggle. And I don't... I try really hard not to use scare tactics and anything like that. You know that I focus very much on what's actually happening, what we need to do. And my friend, what you need to do right now is learn how to do this to adapt because I don't want you to see... I don't want to see something happen to this business that you've worked so hard to build. So let me guide you through this process. I will help you, and let's make sure that you're building a business that makes it through this next change. 'Cause this is It's a fairly significant change, but at its core, it all goes back to making sure you're doing the right things from an SEO and content perspective. You may need to adjust your content strategy a bit, and I can help you with that. All right. Hopefully that makes sense. You understand what the changes are, how they impact you, what you need to do. More than anything, I would love to help guide you through this, so join me now, um, or plan on joining the July cohort. Let's get started on this. If you have a website that needs to be visible, needs to show up or... in Google or be cited by AI, you need to generate more leads, and you need to make more money, then join me because that's exactly what we work on in Simple SEO Content. It's a group program where we work together to help you build a profitable business. Um, the other thing, I had just had one... Oh, one other thought. One thing I'm seeing, at least anecdotally, on social in particular, on Threads, is there are a number of people who are leaving Google because they don't want the AI experience, and they're going to alternative search browsers like DuckDuckGo. Um, there's a handful of them that they're going to. So your traditional SEO that we do for Google also works for those alternative browsers. They generally follow all the same rules. So whether your audience likes AI and stays with Google or decides they don't like this new AI first change and want a more traditional search experience, what we do for SEO will work for both sides of the search spectrum. And, you know, honestly, if Google finds that people leave in droves and they hate this new experience- They will change it. Anybody who's been around for years, who's been in the online world probably remembers Google+ from, like, circa 2012, 2013, where Google tried to have their own, um, social channel and it did not work. And so it took 'em a little while to realize that people were not interested in it, and they did eventually get rid of it. So if they, if people don't love this change, they will potentially get rid of it. But I- in my gut, I don't think that we're gonna see that happen. I think that we're going to continue to evolve, just because what we're seeing in the research studies is that consumers do generally prefer the AI answers, the AI responses. They can get more detail, more information. So what we wanna do as business owners is make sure we show up in them. All right, that's it for today. I know this is a little bit longer one, little bit off-the-cuff, but, uh, let me know if you have questions about it. If you have questions about it, you're not sure how to do this, if you're a current student, ask your questions in the group or ask your questions on tomorrow's call. You know I'm gonna teach you and help you and answer this. And if you're not a student or a one-on-one client yet, then let's start working together. Let's just get that taken care of for you as soon as possible. Go to etchedmarketing.com/yes and get signed up for simple SEO content, or go to the website etchedmarketing.com and click on Consulting to find out about working together one-on-one. All right, that's it for today. I will see you back here next week, hopefully with the episode I've already recorded for you so that I can have a little bit of breathing room this week. My kiddo is in a musical this week, and I am earning extra mom taxi credits because holy cow, it is a lot getting him to and from practices, and he's got shows three nights this week, and Mom will be in the audience two nights and working backstage with 87 kids, grades four through eight. Pray for me. It should be really fun. I'm looking forward to it. These kids have been working so hard on this show since August, so they are so excited to bring it to the world. All right, that's it for me today. I'll see you back here next week. Bye for now.