Are you ready for SGE? How to prepare your website for Google’s next update. 

Business Development | SEO

Do most of your clients find your website by searching online?

If so, then you really need to know about Google’s next update. It’s predicted to be so significant that new words have been invented to describe the impact – terms such as “searchquake”.

Google’s SGE is due to be released in the UK at some point this year. It’s really being implemented in the US, along with a few other countries around the world. 

So, what is it, how will it affect your business and what can you do to prepare yourself?

What is SGE?

SGE stands for Search Generative Experience. It is Google’s way of integrating AI into its Search result page. 

At the moment in the UK, when you type in an informational search (such as “How does domestic cleaning differ from commercial cleaning?”) you will get a result that includes:

• A featured snippet that pulls through a brief answer to the question from a website.
• A “people also ask” section that outlines other related queries, along with some answers.
• A list of websites that contain the answer to that query (we call these the organic results). 

It will look something like this:

With SGE, you will get a different result. 

You will see a variety of “modules” that the AI has pulled together to provide an answer to the question. This could include a combination of the following, based on what you’re searching for:

• An answer box containing an AI-generated answer to the question, with tiles that link to the websites that corroborate the response. 
• Relevant images, such as infographics or diagrams.
• Unordered lists (lists of various items either with or without various descriptions. Module is organised in straightforward bullet points)
  • Standard bullet point list
  • Enhanced list that includes images and reviews. These do not take you to a website (like shopping carousels used to). Instead, a further shopping experience opens up, which gives links to retailers who sell that product. 
• Ordered lists (ranked lists, with or without descriptions)
• Recipe cards with image tiles and descriptions. 
• Local Pack results, including a map, relevant websites and reviews if relevant.
• Product views.

Only then will you see Featured Snippets, People Also Ask lists and organic results. 

It will look something like this (but will change based on the query you type in):

Look how much further you have to scroll before you get the organic results!

Why is this change important?

Simply put, SGE could really damage your online marketing. Although SGE will be great for users (who doesn’t love getting their information easily and quickly?) if your business’s website generates leads from users who find you via Google Search it could be bad news. 

SGE’s AI response limits the need to click through to a website to read a full answer to your query. You get your answer directly from Google, not from any of the business websites that might have written nice answers to users’ queries. 

The result for the business website is a loss in traffic. Whilst this might not mean much to the average person, it is incredibly important if you want your website to rank well on results pages. 

Traffic is one of the “signals” that Google uses to determine where to rank you in the results pages. If a user is looking for a certain service (e.g. cleaning company) and your website doesn’t generally get much traffic going to it, Google won’t place you in the top results. This means potential leads won’t find you. 

No traffic = poor ranking in the search results = fewer leads landing on your website = fewer enquiries. 

This could cripple businesses. 

Where can your website appear in SGE?

Even though it is likely that fewer users will click on the organic search results once SGE is launched. There are places that your website can feature that may lead to some click-throughs. 

These are:

• In the carousel of websites that corroborate the AI-generated response in the answer box. 
• As part of the drop-down field that appears when you click on the chevrons scattered throughout the AI-generated answer. 
• As a source for one of the follow-up questions’ AI-generated responses. 
• As a recommendation within SGE.

Until SGE actually rolls out in the UK (and we don’t know when that will be), it will be hard to know how many click-throughs you can expect based on where your website appears. 

But, regardless of what might happen, preparing now may help reduce the impact you’ll experience. 

So, what can you do to help your blog generate traffic once Google rolls out SGE?

Here’s a list of questions you need to answer:

Do you have a blog?

Believe it or not, a lot of SMEs don’t bother to maintain a blog. Based on my experience this is because they don’t realise how much value a blog can bring to their business. 

Blogs are a way of creating new content on your site – content that contains answers to the queries potential leads might have. By reading your content, these leads are “warmed up”, they might just be becoming aware of their need for your services and need reassurance or more information before they are willing to move forward with their enquiry. That’s what good blog content does. 

What is blog content?

If you haven’t done so already, you need to start a blog for your business. 

Is your blog content ranking already?

It’s clear that it’s much easier to rank in SGE if you’ve got content that is already ranking well in Google. 

To check if your blog content is ranking, there are a few different tools you can use. If you already have a Google Search Console account, you can check which pages are ranking by clicking on “Search Results” in the menu on the left and then selecting the “pages” tab under the graph. Any blogs that are ranking will get click-throughs.

Set up a Google Search Console account here. 

Alternatively, you can type each blog post’s URL (that’s the address that appears in the search bar of your browser) into Small SEO Tool’s Page Rank Checker. You’ll get information on where the blog is ranking in the search results. 

If your answer to this question is “no” then you really have a lot of work to do. 

The chances of any one piece of content ranking well in SGE is very unlikely if your blog posts are performing poorly online. 

If you’re not sure where the problem lies then you will need to conduct a review of your website. Lucky for you, we can do just that. Click on the link below!

Is your blog content based on actual search queries?

Although leads who already know about your business might read your blog content out of loyalty or interest, those who have never heard of you won’t see them unless you base them around the search queries (known as “keywords”) that they’re typing into Google. 

To do this you need to conduct keyword research. This technique helps you to identify what search terms leads are using. 

How to do keyword research.

If you already have a blog, it’s important that you audit your existing content to check that it’s been written based on keywords. 

Not sure how to do this? We can check for you as part of our free website review. 

Do you answer the question at the top of the article?

You’d think that if one of your website’s pages is being used as the Featured Snippet by Google already, it would use it when creating its AI answer in SGE. 

No so. 

The most recent research (credit where credit is due to the team at Exposure Ninja for their work here) suggests that SGE favours content that answers the extract query, exactly! A lot of the websites shown in Google’s Featured Snippet component aren’t exact matches for the search query – they’re close and that’s why Google has selected them. 

Similarly, it’s not a sure deal that if your web page is ranked in the top three organic results you will be used in the AI response. 

To increase the chances of your blog post ranking in SGE, make sure you answer the search query exactly in a concise paragraph as close to the top of the blog article as possible. Then, expand on the answer in the rest of the article if needed. 

Is your answer easy to read?

Write accurately, but make sure it’s readable. This is just good user experience! But it also helps with ranking in SGE, as the AI seems to favour short, simple sentences.

Is your blog content well-optimised?

Next, you would need to apply SEO best practices to your blog content. These practices are what Search Engine Optimisation Specialists use to ensure blog content appears in search results. 

There are lots of things you can do to “optimise” your blog posts. This includes repeating your keyword a set number of times and adding metadata (information that describes the content of each page when it appears in the results). 

If you’re not sure how to optimise a blog post, we can help. 

Do your readers know where to go next?

There’s a lot to unpack in this one, and this topic is big enough for a blog all on its own. But, simply put, once you have a user on your blog, are you signposting where you want them to go next? 

After all, you’ve managed to gain this user after optimising your blog for SGE – which is hard to do considering how many fewer users will click through from Google in the future. Now, you will want to make the most of them and try and turn them into a lead. 

Do you want them to look at one of your case studies so that you can demonstrate your expertise? Or consider one of your services? Do you want to capture their email address by offering them a free download? Or think about signing up to your newsletter? 

Whatever it is, it needs to be presented within the blog content.

Make sure the reader’s next step is:

• Relevant to the blog content
• A logical next step in their customer journey
• Clearly signposted

How well-optimised is the rest of your website?

Optimising your blog content is only part of the solution. Poorly optimised sales pages will also perform poorly online and may damage any progress that your well-optimised blog content could potentially make. Google might not rank your blog content well because the rest of the website isn’t sending the right signals.

It’s like deciding to decorate a room and stopping after you’ve done two walls and the ceiling – the overall effect is ruined because you’ve not done a thorough job.

The best thing to do is get a proper website audit to find out where the gaps are. Optimising your website might help you rank better in the organic results too.

Learn more about our website audits.

So, how do we sum all this up? 

How to prepare for Google’s SGE update.

1. Start a blog (if you don’t already have one). 
2. If you have a blog, find out if any of the blog posts are ranking online using Google Search Console or Small SEO Tool’s Page Rank Checker.
3. Find out what questions users are asking Google about your niche by conducting keyword research. 
4. If you already have a blog, audit your blog content to check that it is based on keywords users are typing into search engines.
5. Make sure you give a concise answer to the question at the top of the article. 
6. Make sure the blog article is written in simple, easy-to-understand language. 
7. Make sure you are following SEO best practices and optimise your blog post for search engines. 
8. Move users through your sales funnel by signposting their next step. 

Google’s SGE: act now

Although there are still many unknowns about SGE, taking steps to ensure that your content has the best chance of ranking online once the update rolls out could save you much future misery. SGE is one of the biggest changes to search that we’ve seen in years, and it will impact businesses everywhere.