Google Bard & The Search Marketing Evolution: Here’s How You Should Act

Fresh off the recent Google I/O conference, the marketing world seems to be buzzing right now with the feature announcements of Bard. This is Google’s latest AI innovation. Today in the podcast, we’re going to unravel some of the implications of AI’s capabilities in search marketing. And also, I’m going to try and explain in simple terms how business owners and marketing teams can strategically navigate this AI-driven SEO revolution from the information that we know right now.

Hi, my name is Jordan McFadyen. Welcome to the Marketing Mindset podcast. Now, this podcast is designed to help you navigate this cluttered world of marketing and challenge you to move away from random acts of marketing towards planning an intentional marketing strategy.

And today on the podcast, we are focusing on the recent Google I/O conference, which there has been a lot of chat about, a lot of information flying about, as Google announced their focus on how the search landscape is likely going to change, as they announced some latest feature updates to Bard. So Bard is their AI innovation, similar to ChatGPT, and obviously Bing’s got their versions as well. And what this is all doing is it’s making us all go back and have a think about how this is actually going to change search-based marketing, and then those implications, how they’re then going to change our marketing strategies into the future as well.

Obviously, it’s all based on the way that these tech companies are currently moving and the way that they’re delivering information, which is what we’re going to have a look at in today’s podcast. So there is still a lot of learning to do, but I think there’s some really good things that we can take away from these early days around what we can start to plan for in future.

I think the one thing, though, that I do want to make clear with this podcast is that people are still seeking and people are still searching. And I think that brands and organisations, we still want to be found as well. So I think that fundamental principle of search engine marketing and marketing in general, that stays the same through all these tech advancements and all these different avenues that are coming out, and whatever means that might be as well. So that fundamental principle remains the same. People will still seek and search, and brands still want to be found, essentially.

So let’s have a look firstly at Bard in general, based on some of the information we’ve learned from the Google conference last week, and how it differs from ChatGPT and Bing, and what features did they announce at the recent Google I/O conference.

So firstly, Bard. The big change here is that Bard is now capable of actively searching the internet to provide you with real-time information. And this is actually a significant advancement over ChatGPT. At the time of recording this podcast, ChatGPT is currently in the beta phase of accessing real-time internet information. So by offering this feature, Bard is actually now being able to provide more current and contextual responses to a user’s query. So that’s the first kind of big piece that kind of came out.

The second thing to know about Bard is that they’re inputting voice input integrations. So it’s going to access voice input. And this is a feature that’s not currently available with ChatGPT, for example. Obviously, this aligns with the functionality offered by tools like Google Home and Siri and Alexa and those type of thing. So voice interaction isn’t new, but it does represent a bit of a shift in how we actually interact with AI. And it’s going to allow for a bit more natural and hands-free use of that technology as well.

The other big thing with Google Bard is its integration into our normal, everyday workflow. So this was a critical feature actually of Bard, its ability to be able to integrate AI responses right into your workflow really seamlessly. So as an example of this, users can directly export some of the responses that you get from Bard straight into Gmail or straight into Google Docs. And that’s going to make it much easier to kind of use that generated content.

The other big key feature of Bard is being able to summarise web pages. Now, this is a feature not presently in ChatGPT at the time of recording. But in Bard right now, you can actually paste a link, and Bard’s going to provide you a quick summary of what that page is all about. And this feature is going to aid users in being able to understand long-form content and condense it into core components, which can be a really valuable asset, obviously, especially if it’s an information-dense web page that you’ve got as well.

And also there were some other features that they spoke about, for example, planning trips. Essentially, it’s going to shake how we book and plan travel online, and also going to shake that traditional travel agency model a little bit more as well.

So the question now is, how are these new features in an AI world actually affect your business, and how your business appears on a Google search, and how you and your business market yourself generally? So my take on this is, Google Bard and AI in general has the potential to really revolutionise search engine marketing. And it’s also going to revolutionise human-to-computer experiences. And honestly, it’s potentially going to shape a lot of different marketing strategies as well. So honestly, I think we need to plan and adapt as the technology evolves over time.

So literally, for this research for this podcast today, I decided to go to Bard and ask Bard, based on the latest conference announcements, how is Google Bard going to affect marketing as we know it today? And this is what Bard came back with: “By making search results more interactive and engaging and changing how search engines rank websites, Google Bard could make it easier for users to find the information that they need.” It then went on to say that this would be a significant win for both users and marketers and businesses. And then went on to explain some of the specific changes that marketers can expect to see as a result of Google Bard.

The first one was a focus on quality content. So it said that Google Bard is going to be able to assess quality of content more, just better, really, which is going to lead to a focus on high-quality content that’s both informative and also engaging on your website. The second one was a focus on user experience. So Google Bard is going to be able to assess the user experience of your website, which will then lead to a focus on creating websites that are easily navigated and easily used by users. And the third thing that Google Bard told me was a focus on creativity, because Google Bard will be able to generate creative content, which is going to lead to a focus on creating websites and content that’s visually appealing and interesting as well.

It then concluded saying that businesses should adapt to these changes by focusing on a more human-like, chat-orientated user interface and moving away from topics to transactions. Now, we’re going to get into what that means shortly.

So let’s break that down with a few actionable topics that we can actually focus on as business owners and marketing teams. What can we actually take away from, A, the release of these new features with Bard, and also what Bard’s literally telling us right now about how it’s going to change the landscape?

Firstly, I want to go back to what it said there around that phrase, topics versus transactions. So this is one of the big ones. Topics are like informational searches. So traditionally, lots of businesses have relied on search engine optimisation strategies that focused on ranking high for informational search queries. So this is where users are looking for information on a particular topic, say. And the aim here was you wanted to attract potential customers to your website by providing valuable, relevant content.

So for example, let’s say you’re a company selling gardening tools or anything like that. So if that was your company, you might want to create a blog post around how to care for different plants or how to design a garden or something like that. So when users search for that information, they would find your company’s blog post, they got a bit of value from it, they might then browse your site for products that you sell or remember your brand for future needs, and then also potentially become a customer or transact with your business as well.

The landscape is changing with the advent of advanced AI like Bard. So what’s happening now is Bard can actually provide information directly to the user in this chat interface that it provides. And that means it’s reducing the need for users to actually click through to your website in the first place. So it’s a real shift from topics, the informational topics, to trying to think about more transactions. So where users are seeking quick answers or specific products, and not extensive informational content.

So this means that potentially traffic from informational keywords, which was, like I said at the start, the cornerstone of so many different marketing strategies right now, what’s happening to that is that it’s actually predicted to dwindle, possibly that traffic even dropping to zero. So if you’re relying currently on just informational search traffic to your website, you could face a big significant threat from the evolving search engine landscape, which is a bit scary.

So what we need to do is we’ve got to consider adapting your SEO and your overall marketing strategy in general to this new reality. So here are some actionable ideas of how you need to be looking at this moving forward, and a few things that you can actually take away from this and start to implement with your business. And I’d suggest thinking about implementing this and thinking around the capability of AI now so that you don’t get caught left behind.

So firstly, what I’d do is I’d sit down and think about focusing on getting real super crisp with your brand marketing and your service. So your brand marketing is going to be really, really important right now. So getting really hyper-focused on who your brand is, what your service is, so that you’re still going to appear in searches in the first place. As informational searches start to drop off, brand and transactional, people who are looking to perform a certain action and transact with a company, that’s going to be where search marketing starts from. So that brand marketing is going to get really, really important.

The second one is potential clients’ research phase is essentially moving off your website now, because the robots are helping people with that research now, essentially. So if a client of yours or a prospective customer of yours is in the research phase, robots are more likely to help with the research phase right now. So what this means is that our websites, they need to turn to transactions, a focus on transactions, and really trying to essentially translate and turn into a conversion machine.

Your website needs to adapt and become great at things like customer validation, so making sure that you’re clearly identifying what you do, who you serve and how you serve those people. Sharing things like customer proof is going to be really important. Going back to brand marketing again, marketing your brand overall and what you do, who you serve and what your product is going to become really important. So when people go on to your website, you’re clearly defining the problem you solve and providing customer-centric case studies and storytelling and that transaction-based content, trying to get people to take action on your websites.

Your brand marketing and everything that you’re doing on your social media and your other forms of advertising, it needs to be focused on the brand, of getting people to your website so then they can transact at the end of the day. So it’s not focusing on people who are in that research phase, because if they’re in the research phase, robots are probably going to help them answer that question as opposed to your website right now.

And then the other thing I’d really get you to think about is community building. Community building, I think, was going to become more and more critical as we develop our strategies. So this is your community, your customers, the people who you deal with and the people that you service and the people that follow your business online. That’s going to become really important. Things like your word-of-mouth marketing and the customer experience, essentially. Because people gravitate towards community, obviously, and that’s only going to get bigger as the internet gets taken, well, really taken over by robots.

At the end of the day, we still love chatting with robots right now because it is quite exciting. But there is always going to be an element of actually talking and conversing and problem-solving with actual professionals and actual people and humans and businesses.

So I would be asking myself right now, how can I build a community? How can I build a community of people who like to consume my content? Is it email? Are you going to go all in on LinkedIn marketing and build your community there? Is it going to be a Slack group, a Facebook group? There’s all these different things that I’d be considering, thinking about how you are going to build that community so that you can actually show that level of support to your people and to the people that are potentially going to transact with your business.

Because, as I said, it’s constantly evolving. However, what we need to be doing now is we need to be starting to think about how we’re going to adapt to what we’re seeing these major tech companies doing. And the big thing I want you to take away is that informational searches, especially when it comes to going to Google or going to Bard or ChatGPT, if people are in the research phase, robots are most likely going to answer their questions. So what you need to be doing is thinking about how can you get yourself and your message and your content in front of people in other ways, building up that brand marketing, driving people to your website, where your website is then a conversion machine, where essentially you’re helping to actually transact those people at that stage.

Because the advent of Google’s Bard and other AI tools are undoubtedly signals and a bit of a turning point in how we actually approach search engine marketing in general, and also how we approach user experience and just general marketing as strategies as well. So as we move forward, you’re going to have to remind yourself of the importance of brand and brand influence and customer-centric content and just building real AI-proof communities that are around your brand. Because this is literally a bit of a new beginning in the world of AI-driven search marketing. And honestly, I think we’re in a hell of a ride as well.

So look, hopefully that’s given you a bit of context on what’s happened recently with Google’s I/O conference. A bit of context about what Google Bard can do and how that’s potentially going to affect you and your business. And hopefully some ideas of how you should be strategically thinking and going back to your marketing strategy and thinking about, are you hitting some of those things that we’ve discussed today? Are we building communities? How are we sharing content? Is our website ready to transact? Is it a conversion machine? Is it clearly defining who we are, what we do, and that community that you solve as well? Those are the questions that you should be asking.

And look, if you’ve got any questions around anything we’ve discussed, you can obviously get in touch with us at any time. You can email me, jordan@donebynine.com, or go along to our website, donebynine.com. You go to the Contact Us page and you’re more than welcome to flick us through any questions that you may have on anything that we’ve discussed here today. And if you need any advice or want to have a look at any of our other podcasts or any of our other content, you can find that all on our website, donebynine.com. Just click the podcast button at the top of the page and you’ll get directed to all that content that we’ve shared in the past.

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