How will Google update 2023 affect your business?

Business Development | Content Marketing | Digital Marketing | Lead Generation | SEO

Google has made some significant announcements recently. Although it’s not made the 6 o’clock news, it probably should have. Because Google update 2023 could radically affect businesses all over the world. It has certainly shaken up our industry and made us reassess some of the ways we work.

If you’re a marketing manager or business owner listen up, because you might be seeing a big drop in website enquiries as a result of these changes. And we all know how devastating that can be

So, what are the big announcements? 

Google has announced the integration of two new features into Google Search. These are:

1. Search Generative Experience (SGE)
2. Google Perspectives

Read on to learn about the changes, what they will mean for your business and how your digital marketing may have to change. 

1. Search Generative Experience (SGE)

When you type a query into Google, you are normally given a list of 3 or 4 paid results and then a list of 10 organic results. The order those organic results come in is based on several criteria. Some of these include: 

• Website traffic, 
• Physical proximity to search users  
• Number of domains linking to your site
• Relevance of backlinks

We all know that to get your website to appear in the top 10 you need to make sure you’re driving traffic and building backlinks. The higher up the list you rank, the more likely a lead will click through to your website. 

So, far, so good. 

However, Google’s first announcement is that they are going to roll out AI-generated results, integrating them into Google Search.

What does this mean?

Basically, once the rollout is complete, if you are typing in an informational search (such as “What is a tower crane?”) you will get a completely different layout on the results page. Google Search will begin to offer you its own AI-generated response to your question. Instead of seeing a list of results (paid and organic), you will see the AI written response, along with three websites that corroborate the information included in the generated answer. Organic results will be listed below. 

This will be known as Search Generative Experience (SGE), which is quite a mouthful. 

The websites that are featured next to the SGE response won’t necessarily be the websites that provided the information that Google used to generate the answer either. 

You will then be able to follow up by asking additional questions to refine the answer you’ve been given. 

It’s unlikely that this AI result will be given when you type in commercial search queries – such as “cleaning company near me”. For these kinds of searches, you should still see the standard results page.

2. Google Perspectives

The second addition is a feature called “Google Perspectives”. This will be for queries that are more about discovering opinions or reviews. It will draw on information from forums, social media accounts and blogs.

So, if you type in “How to make friends in a new city”, Google Perspectives will serve you with a selection of video shorts, forum opinions and other such content in the form of tiles that you can scroll through.

Why has Google done this?

Basically, panic and money. 

Since Microsoft launched ChatGPT (and if you don’t know what ChatGPT is, where have you been the last 6 months?), the internet has been humming with talk about generative AI. Google has been racing to catch up. It released its own version, Bard very quickly after Chat GPT came out… which spectacularly failed when tested during a live demonstration by offering up an incorrect piece of information. Awkward! Since then, they’ve been struggling to keep up.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT has grown from strength to strength, and Microsoft has integrated it with Bing, its own search engine. 

Hence, the launch of Google’s new changes. Google wants to maintain its enormous market share of search traffic, and after seeing how positively the average person has responded to ChatGPT thinks that AI-generated search will be the answer. 

They also want to give more reasons for users to stay on Google, rather than click through to other websites. This is because when a user is on Google they can be monetised. 

What are the pros for users and businesses?

1. Google Perspectives

If you’re looking for opinions or reviews as part of your search, Google Perspectives will give you a more interactive experience. It will be refreshing to see such a variety of perspectives from all over the web, as well as a variety of content formats. 

It might be that business owners feel the benefit too. For example, if you searched “Why is office carpet still dirty after it’s been steam cleaned?” a discussion board served up by Google Perspectives may reveal that an Office Manager in London had the same problem and discovered a cleaning company that removed the stain. In her opinion, you need to find a commercial cleaning company that uses the hot water extraction method instead. This would lead you to search “commercial cleaning company hot water extraction”, and direct you to a completely different commercial cleaning company. 

Investing in video shorts, discussion boards and forums might be a way to create commercial opportunities from Google Perspectives (as might paying Social Media Influencers to do so).

2. SGE

For the user, there are actually a lot of pros to AI-generated responses sitting within Google Search. For mundane information, it’s quite helpful not having to trawl through several websites before finding the information your need. You can get information faster (so long as you’re confident that the information you’re being given is correct, obviously).

Google knows that AI can only generate an answer based on what is already out there, so will be monitoring which websites it draws information from very carefully. They’ve already said that they won’t use SGE for topics that might endanger people’s lives or livelihoods (known as Your Money or Your Life topics). For example, this might include topics like the Coronovairus Vaccine – as there is a danger that misinformation may be spread. 

As a business owner, if you are one of the three featured websites next to the SGE response, you may see a real uptake in website traffic as you are only competing with two other websites for any click-through traffic, not the entire organic results page. 

What are the cons for businesses?

But, in terms of your digital marketing, for businesses, there will be many impacts that are not so positive. Let’s have a look at some of the implications.

1. It will be harder to generate traffic through organic search

The biggest impact by far will be felt by those who are relying on organic search to drive traffic to their website in order to rank well in the Search Engine Results Pages. 

If users decide that they love the SGE results feature and start using that rather than looking at the organic results, then there could be big changes for your business. Unless you’re one of the top three websites presented as corroborating Google’s AI result, you will most likely see a huge drop in organic traffic. 

If AI-generated search takes off, then a lot of this work will be nullified. Users won’t click through to blogs that answer their queries, and so you won’t generate much traffic from organic search. 

2. The “small guy” will suffer

Those will bigger budgets will be able to meet this challenge head-on, as tackling it will require your digital marketing efforts to evolve and grow (see below for details). Those with smaller budgets will struggle. 

Is there any point in trying to write blogs at all?

In short – it depends. 

In some ways, this accelerates something that we in the digital marketing community had been seeing for a long time. The more competitive your online space is, the harder it will be to generate organic traffic from informational content based on keyword research, as more companies will be competing to create content based on the long-tail keywords that users are putting to Google.

So, those who are in a space that struggles to build an audience organically will struggle, as will those who are in highly competitive spaces where there is lots of content already out there. 

Those who have been at the forefront of creating content in spaces that are not competitive digitally may not be as badly affected, and won’t have to work as hard to generate traffic organically. 

So, how do we combat this?

1. You can’t rely just on organic search anymore

If you’ve been improving your rankings by building basic backlinks and creating informational content based on long-tail queries to win organic traffic, then you’re in for a rough time. Effectively, you won’t be able to rely on generating traffic just from search engines anymore.

In order to generate traffic to your site, you’ll have to find an audience from elsewhere. Most companies have multiple social media accounts, and posted content there will definitely be a way of generating traffic. 

In addition, we believe that building email lists and promoting your content that way will be increasingly important to driving traffic to your website. 

We think that there will always be some scope for creating content based on keyword research.

For starters, if users are searching for these queries, then there’s a good chance your personal audience wants to know the answer. You can direct them to these articles during an email campaign, driving traffic to your site that way. 

Also, Google will need to find its information from somewhere in order to generate its answers in its Search Generated Experience, and hopefully, you will end up as one of the websites featured next to the AI-generated answer.  

But, the more competitive your industry, the more difficult it’s going to be to generate any kind of click-through from organic search. 

2. You will need to create more original content

Content that ranks highly will have to be really high value. So, rather than writing blogs that just draw on information that is already out there, you will have to write content that includes truly original thoughts, insights or information. 

In short, you will need to be a Thought Leader, not a Thought Follower. This does seem to be in keeping with Google’s general direction towards preferring content that is highly valuable to the end user. This is aligned with the thinking behind its previous Helpful Content update (from 2022).  

Content of this sort – surveys, industry reports, downloadable assets and the like – tends to be more time-consuming and costly to create. This will make it harder for the “little guys” with little budgets to keep up. 

This type of content also tends to be content that is generated for Digital PR campaigns. These campaigns are designed to build backlinks. Often third parties link to these kinds of content as they provide statistics, insights or information that they want their blog to reference or build upon. 

This leads us to our next point…

3. Digital PR will become more important

4. You will really need to know your target audience

In order to come up with new ideas for what types of content users may be looking for, companies will have to really get to know their target audience(s). 

I often get clients who want to skip this part of the process (we don’t let them), as they feel that unless they’re putting their budget into a deliverable like a website or a piece of content they’re not getting a good return on their investment. 

However, to create content that speaks to your target audience directly will mean you have to really know their likes, dislikes, pain points and objections. You will then need to create content that speaks into that and that solves their problems. 

5. Your marketing strategy will have to be more nuanced

Rather than relying just on generating traffic with optimised blogs and basic backlink building, companies will have to work at creating more nuanced and layered marketing strategies. What this will look like will be dependent on your industry and marketing goals. 

Is Google redefining the search engine?

Personally, I find relying on Google’s SGE response highly annoying. I don’t like Google controlling the answer I see to a query to that extent.

Google would say that it’s always had that power. I guess they’re right to a degree, as its algorithm has determined the order results have been served up since its inception. 

But I feel that this crosses a line for me – it feels like it’s encroaching on my choice, somehow. Yes, I was offered a list of results based on its results algorithm, but I had the choice to skim down through those results and click through to the website I determined was the best fit for me. Google was being helpful, as it was scouring the internet and reducing millions of options down to the top 10, but then it was giving me control over which one I thought was best out of those ten. It was giving me the best of both worlds. 

Integrating an AI response feels like a level of personalisation and free choice has been removed. 

Again, Google would counter that it still serves up organic results – just further down the page. 

But I feel it’s moving away from the essence of what a search engine should be.

An acceleration towards the inevitable

Google’s new Search Generative Experience (SGE) will change content marketing. At the moment we don’t know to what extent that will be. This is because you cannot predict user response. Users may not like the new SGE and just not use it or vote with their feet and use a competitor. In some ways, Google is taking a little bit of a gamble with this new feature. 

But, rather than it heralding a sudden change, the SGE will just accelerate trends that we have already seen emerging. The losers will be those with smaller budgets, those in more competitive industries, or those with a less nuanced digital marketing strategy will suffer. 

Digital marketing agencies (and their clients) will have to pivot to address the impact of these changes. Content marketing strategies will have to be more nuanced, layered and intricate. There will need to be a greater emphasis on creating and owning audiences on multiple channels. These will need to be nurtured more closely. 

Companies will need to get a closer handle on their target audience if they’re to create content that generates traffic and improves their rank online. 

But commercial searches will still operate in the “old way”, and if your space is not that crowded online, you may not be affected for better or worse. 

Ultimately, it’s too soon to tell what the real impact will be. But for sure, everyone will have to monitor their website’s performance very closely over the next few months, but from the moment generative AI was invented, these changes to the digital marketing landscape were inevitable. Google Perspectives and the SGE have just accelerated the process.