Google’s Search Generative Experience. What Does it Even Mean?

Search Generative Experience. What does that even mean? Now, this is one of those topics that sounds really confusing and a bit over your head right from the outset, but when you actually dive in and explore how search engines like Google are adapting, you’re soon going to start to realise that small changes to your marketing strategy could actually set you up well for the future of AI-driven search engine marketing. So today we’re going to chat about the small steps that you should be taking right now to ensure you’re setting your business up to thrive in a new search world.

Hi, my name is Jordan McFadyen. Welcome to the Marketing Mindset podcast. 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 intentional marketing strategies.

And look, there has been a bit of a massive shift, I think, in the marketing landscape in 2023 in general. There’s been so much that’s been changing and updating. Lots of talks of things like AI. Suddenly people were losing all their jobs. Social media changes. Twitter changed to X. Threads came about. It has really been a massive year of change. And a lot of talk has been around Google and Google’s Search Generative Experience, which, I think, for the rest of this podcast, we’re just going to refer to it as the new search, essentially.

And this is one area that I’ve been trying to keep a real close eye on. We’ve seen, obviously, ChatGPT and all these AI tools that have come out in the market. We’ve seen Bing coming out with different ways of how they are trying to make search better. Google’s come out with their Google Bard, which is their AI chatbot, essentially. But in the background, what they’re also doing is they’re building out this new search experience, the Search Generative Experience. And in a nutshell, it is due, really, to shake up the world of Google search, and both how we actually use that as a search engine, as users, to actually find information and products that we want, but also how we actually market using Google search in the future as well.

So, a bit of context. Google first announced its plans to use this generative AI in search at its annual developer conference back in May. So it’s been a few months, obviously. And since then, the company has started using this generative AI technology and building on that, which essentially is going to allow them to create more comprehensive and informative search results for users of Google. So when you go into a Google search, you’ll be able to see more comprehensive and informative results from your searches. And they’re saying that they’re doing this by actually summarising the information from multiple different sources, and allowing you to see and be provided more concise and easy-to-understand answers to your search.

Now, there’s no release date on any of this yet. The new Google search literally just opened up in beta mode to select US users. So it’s only now that we’re actually just starting to get an understanding of how it is going to potentially shake up the way that you use a search engine to find information.

Now, I fully, fully appreciate by this point I might have lost you already, because honestly, it sounds quite complex. It sounds like lots of complex changes, but just give me a minute, because once we actually delve in and look at the info and the suggested actions that businesses and marketers and business owners should take to prepare, it’s actually much easier than what you may be thinking. And a lot of the suggestions we’re going to chat about today are also things that are most likely actions and tactics that you’re actually doing already from within your marketing strategy, meaning that you may just need to make some tweaks here and there to make your content more AI-friendly.

So let’s start by looking at this in a nutshell. What is the new Google search? So again, Google’s creating this new search experience that is going to use that term, generative AI. So in simple terms, breaking that down, what that means is it’s going to be using a type of AI, a type of artificial intelligence, that can actually create new content, such as text and images and videos, to help satisfy your search in Google.

So they’re using it to improve search results. And this means that when you’re actually searching for something on Google, you’re then going to be more likely to actually see more comprehensive and informative results right there on Google search. And they say that they’ll be able to provide that even if you don’t exactly know what you’re looking for in the first place as well, which kind of blows my mind.

So the next question is, how does the new Google search change the game for us business owners and marketers? Breaking this down, let’s have a look at it. Firstly, we’re finding that users will most likely end up spending a lot more time on a search result page. Yep, so literally more time on Google search, potentially less time on your website. Why? Well, because essentially what we know about the new search so far is that this generative AI is going to be able to provide more comprehensive and informative results, which is then going to make it easier for users to actually find the information that they’re looking for directly on Google search.

So likely that user is going to get all the info they need right there on Google, and not by having to go to your website. We currently see this on search results now. Obviously, there’s those featured snippets you see, but what they’re talking about here, in the screenshots and the tests that we’ve seen, is essentially like featured snippets, but like 10 times that, essentially.

But Google on the other breath are also saying that it’s not going to affect all businesses. There will be less website traffic for informational type queries, is what they’re saying. So essentially what this means is that if you have a website that’s currently serving more informational type searches, then you should be rethinking your strategy. This is where the new search will be able to answer a lot of those informational queries directly. So it saves the user from having to go to a website, as I explained above. So this is things like how-to guides, recipes, things like that. It’s most likely going to be all just on the search engine instead of actually having to go off to individual websites.

So those type of companies are going to be having to really think about their strategy, and thinking about how they can save a lot of their web traffic in ways that they can still drive traffic to their website without relying on search engines. But what Google’s also saying is that action-based queries are going to drive higher quality traffic to websites. So here, that point is where new search might actually work better for you and your business. Because if your business is primarily focusing on things like transactional or action-based search queries, then you could actually come out a winner.

So just breaking that down, about what that actually is: an action-based query is a query that is most likely going to lead to a purchase or another action. Things like “buy a car”, “book a flight”, those type of things. You’re going to Google to start a transaction or to start an action. You want to be able to do something. So this goes back to really understanding the intent of a user’s search. So that’s going to become more and more important in search in the future, and something you need to be considering. What is the intent behind users who are going to Google looking for a product or service that you offer?

And Google claim that if you do sell products or services online, you could actually potentially see a bit of a rise in traffic and a rise in purchases on your website, as the new search is going to be able to identify the user’s intent much better. It’s going to be then able to direct them to sites that are then most likely able to fulfil that intent the best way possible. So that’s a bit of a nutshell about what it is and how it’s potentially going to affect you and your business.

So the next big question is: as business owners, as marketers, how do we adapt? So as mentioned right at the start of this podcast, it may sound a little confusing. It may sound a little scary. But once you actually sit down and actually delve into the ways that Google is saying that you should adapt, you’ll soon actually discover that the current suggestions that we’re even going to run through here today are probably based on things that you’re most likely doing in your marketing strategy right now, or should be doing in your marketing strategy right now.

So then the aim will be for you to actually sit down and identify some of these suggestions that we’ll go through now, and look at what are you currently doing, and maybe tweak your approach a little bit. Or you’re going to look back through it and you’re going to start thinking about all those things that you are doing, and how you can actually add these different touch points to your marketing strategy.

So the big thing we’re going to get across is the new Google search is having a real emphasis on real human experiences. And Google have said this quite blatantly, that they will be emphasising real human experiences in search results. And we’ve seen this with the guidelines in the past with E-A-T, which is E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authority and trust. And essentially what this means is this building on top of that. It means that Google is going to be more likely to rank websites that are actually going to feature things like real people, sharing real experiences, real insights, real perspectives and those type of things.

And look, again, this isn’t anything new, because as marketers and business owners, we’ve been speaking about the power of things like testimonials and influencers. We’ve been doing that for a while, but it’s time now, if you’re not taking that seriously, to really double down on that.

It does also, funnily enough, kind of go against the grain of a lot of the things that we’re seeing in the market right now. Everyone appears to be rushing to tools like ChatGPT, AI writing tools, trying to just bust out as much content as possible. But what Google’s actually searching for and actually telling us is that they are looking for real human insights. So just keep that in the back of your mind. Sure, use AI, ChatGPT, speed up your workflow. However, if you’re going down the line of adopting a full AI content workflow where it’s all been written by bots, you’re going to likely be in trouble in the future down the line.

Because Google, like I said, is actually focusing on human experiences, as it means that they’re more likely to show search results that are more directly relevant to a specific user’s needs and interests, and show results and resources that are actually more trustworthy and credible at the same time as well.

So this is a checklist of things that I think you need to be having a bit of a look at. So the first one is really start focusing on building that personal brand of yours, and also the personal brands of the people within your team. Going back to real human experiences, showing your actual credibility and your actual expertise and the knowledge. It means working with your core team or yourself, the people within your business who have valuable insights to actually share.

Start by focusing building personal brands that are going to help you to then highlight your expertise and credentials, and also make it more accessible to potential customers and clients. And this in turn is going to help your credibility with the overall business as well. And once you add that content to your website, it’s going to make your content and your website become much more personal and focused on real human experiences.

And this works so well in so many different verticals as well. Service-based providers, retail providers, customers, they want to see trust. They want to see authority in what you are selling, that you know what you’re actually talking about, and that the product is actually what it says on the tin at the end of the day.

And that goes nicely into the next bit as well, as really thinking about leveraging user-generated content. Again, this is nothing new. It just means using things like images, reviews, testimonials, feedback from real people promoting your real products or services. And this can actually help you build trust and credibility with potential customers as well. I would think about this in a way of how can you display this on your website? What content formats are going to help you build trust with your prospective audience?

And then utilise real stories and real case studies. Again, nothing new. Share stories about how your product or your services are actually helping real people. I had a client last week who went to go see Gary Vee speak in Melbourne. One thing that Gary mentioned, and I actually thought it was kind of cool, was having a focus on sharing testimonials in even short 45-second chunks. It clearly explains the customer’s life before using your product or service, and then after. Real simple.

But it’s essentially the same mentality that we’re talking about here. You’ve got to think about how you can demonstrate the value of your products or services, and how you can also make your brand more relatable to potential customers by sharing those case studies, those real stories of customers using your product.

And use things like that Gary Vee example there. Use video and social media to actually help showcase those real human experiences. Share those real-time experiences with potential customers, which can actually help make your brand more engaging, make it more authentic at the end of the day. How can you then share those videos? Are you going to put them on your website? Maybe YouTube Shorts. Increase the likelihood that content is then going to appear on search engines in the future as well.

And then that last one as well is thinking about how can you actively engage in conversations with your audience across all these different channels. Again, nothing new. Foster, build your community. That’s essentially what we’re trying to do, is become businesses with real humans that drive them, and experts that actually know what they’re talking about. And I think in an AI-cluttered world, it’s going to become more and more and more important to be able to do that.

So doing things like responding to comments and questions from potential customers on your website, social media, other channels, everything like that. Start conversations. Nurture these new customers as well. And this can help to build relationships with potential customers, and it can also help to address any concerns that they may have as well.

So that’s a few things that, like I say, there’s nothing massively new in there. It’s just how we can adapt our existing strategies to keep getting better. But the next thing I want you to think about is we need to then think, how can we build AI-friendly content with that personalisation in mind? So we now know the type of content we should be focusing on: human first. But then the question then becomes, how do we actually present that information in a way that’s AI-friendly and is still going to appeal to the customer, and not just appear good to generative search engines?

So as I said before, we now know Google’s new search is going to be enhanced by personalising the search experience for users. We kind of mentioned that earlier. So let’s break that down. What does it actually mean? Because what it means is that Google is soon going to be able to consider a user’s past search history, things like their location, the user’s interest, to provide more tailored results of their future searches.

And again, this isn’t massively new. We see this now, but it could affect how your content’s actually then presented back to the user. Because remember, generative AI is taking all these bits of information and building a new piece of info to kind of kick off that search. So it’s thinking about how the content’s presented back to the user. And this could be based on things like the searcher’s location, the time of day that they’re searching, also, like I say, their past history across Google products.

So that means that you should be thinking around these following things, and a bit of a checklist here. So the first one that I would be thinking about, when we’re thinking about constructing content for AI, is, again, conducting thorough audience research. Now, if you haven’t done this for your business yet, honestly, just hit pause, do it now. Get in there and come back in here later. Because you do need to gain that true understanding of your target audience and their needs.

And we’ve shared this a lot in the past on the podcast. These new search updates, they all point towards having a clear customer persona, which makes this stage of conducting thorough audience research even more important. Conduct surveys, analyse social media data, talk to potential customers, build your customer personas. Start by even creating fictional representations of your ideal customers, and then even using those fictional names when you create your content as part of your content workflow.

Start by creating content for those specific personas. Refer to that person in your workflow as you’re building it. So you want to move away from you and your team or yourself simply writing a website landing page, to instead writing a website landing page for Dave, that persona that you’ve created. Again, build your customer personas. That’s the key.

The next one is then prioritise optimising that content for conversational queries. And again, what does that even mean? And it means creating content designed to be answered in a conversational way as well. So we want to go back to thinking about things like natural language that users may be using in search. What questions are they going to be asking? How might our search behaviours even change in the future as well?

If we take, for example, the world of prompts are suddenly being used across all AI tools like ChatGPT. So maybe we need to consider how users may start thinking about and using prompts for their search, and using more conversational searches instead of just putting queries into Google search as well. So how can we adapt our content based on conversations instead? And again, knowing that tailored audience is really going to help for you to figure out what they’re potentially going to be using in a search engine.

And then we need to create tailored content for the different segments within your target audience. What does that even mean? Well, again, it’s going back to creating content that’s specific to the needs and the interests of different segments of your target audience. It goes back to customer personas, ensuring that landing pages on your website actually answer their questions based on their persona, about who they are.

Remember, right back at the start of the podcast, we spoke about this informational content versus action-based content. So you need to understand your persona to then truly understand their intent about why they’re going to a search engine. And then you need to ensure that the content on your website or your marketing is actually matching that intent as well.

Hence why, if you know your customer persona, you know their intent, then you know what type of content you’re going to need to create on your website, or what type of blogs you need to write, or white papers or research or webinars or things like that. You know the type of content you need to be using within your marketing strategy. But then you also need to consider creating the content that’s really AI-friendly.

And what does that even mean? And what I’m thinking there is using formats that are easy for AI systems to really understand and to process. And again, it’s nothing new. It includes using things like bullet points, lists, tables, snippets. Just make sure that technically you have a website that is set up with correct usage of things like headings, subheadings. Make sure you break up your content into smaller, easy, digestible sections. Provide clear and concise answers to the questions that your customer personas are asking. And again, this can be done with things like FAQ pages, writing question-based headings into your articles as well.

Again, it’s nothing massively new. It’s nothing groundbreaking information. The frameworks that we’ve been speaking about for years are right here. But the difference now is that we’re getting a clearer roadmap on why this is becoming so much more important for us as well, as we enter a more AI-defined world.

So let’s just sum up. Here’s your opportunity and here’s your challenge right now. We know already from the beta testing that new search experience, officially called that Search Generative Experience, will likely highlight things like video responses, social media posts are going to appear, forum comments, expert articles, snippets of information. So you need to start establishing your personal branding for you and the individuals within your organisation, especially those with subject matter expertise.

You want to create strong online presence for your expert-based content, including things like your blogs, social profiles, your LinkedIn, your YouTube, things like that. And this is going to help you to establish your business as a thought leader in your field and your expertise, and make you more likely to be cited as a source for AI-generated answers in the future as well.

So perhaps collaborate with people like influencers and other experts, and use the leverage of people who have a following currently on social media or in a particular industry. And this can actually help get your brand in front of that wider audience, but also build trust with potential customers, or get those experts featured within your content. Maybe guest posts or podcast guests or webinar guests, or somehow involved in things that you are doing.

Again, we’re focusing on human-first experiences, focusing on your personal expertise, the expertise of your team, the results that your customers and your clients are getting by using your products and services. And over time, this is going to help you share knowledge and expertise with your audience, and again, position your brand as that thought leader in your industry.

And make sure that you’re showcasing all of the thought leadership stuff that you’ve got going on. You’ve got your insightful articles, your white papers, research studies, industry reports. Create content that’s going to be informative and valuable to your target audience as well. And this is going to help you to establish your brand as a trusted source of information, help you to attract new customers, and ensure that your brand is following these guidelines that we’re seeing from Google’s new search.

We’re focusing on real human first. Search user intent is the king of search, and as marketers and business owners, we need to focus on real human experiences, perspectives and expertise with our content. And then we’re going to package that all up into AI-friendly formatting that this new search engine is absolutely going to love.

We’ve thrown a lot of content here at you today. A lot of different ideas. It starts with that strong strategy, which also happens to be what we do best: helping you to build your strategy, identify customer personas, plan your tactics, formulate the plan on how you’re going to execute that plan out to the market as well. So if you do want to get in touch with me or the rest of the team, you can go across our website, donebynine.com, go to the contact page, and you’ll find all the details about how to get in touch with us, if you did want to chat about your strategy and how your strategy could lean towards these different changes that we’re seeing in the search engine landscape.

Or if you just want to learn some of the other pieces of content that we’ve shared in the past as well, you can literally go to the website, donebynine.com. At the top, you’ll see the word podcast. You’ll see all the other articles and podcasts that we’ve recorded, and videos that we recorded, up there. And hopefully you’re able to get a little bit of information to help guide you towards building that marketing strategy for you as well.

And I hope that you’ve been able to take away some ideas around Google Search’s generative experience. And like I said, right at the top of the podcast, it may seem a bit difficult, may seem a bit over your head. But actually, a lot of the things that we’ve spoken about are probably things that you’re doing already. So I think it’s just around how you can adapt our strategy slightly, how we can incorporate new things into the strategy, how we can package up our content slightly different to make it more AI-friendly.

And once we get that going, then we should be in a great spot once Google do start to release some of these new Google search ways of searching into the marketplace in the future as well. And look, thank you so much for joining us on another episode of the Marketing Mindset podcast. And look forward to chatting about another topic next Thursday.