Ensuring your business can rank higher than your competitors is an ongoing practice that can feel overwhelming because search engine optimization is changing at such a pace, not least with the advent of AI shaking things up. When it comes to search engine optimization, we have to look to the future, not just because of the impacts of artificial intelligence, but to ensure that everybody uses search engine optimization, not as a bible of rules that must be adhered to, but as a guide to creating more worthwhile and genuinely helpful content for people. Here are some things that will inform anybody’s future SEO strategies.

Prioritize Quality and Relevance

AI has scared so many businesses into completely revamping their content because they had previously used search engine optimization tactics like keyword stuffing as a way to rank higher. Now, we must prioritize quality and relevance and ensure that we understand search intent and remember that our keyword research has to be just so, and we tie these keywords back into our content. Arguably, content has to do better than it ever did at serving the intent of the searcher. 

Content relevance and providing context are far more important if you want to rank. This is where the EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) acronym, which now encompasses “Experience” too, will help you make sure your content is always focused on quality and relevance.

Incorporating Video Content (if You Haven’t Already) 

This is still an essential aspect of marketing because it is the most engaging type of content. In terms of SEO, search engines are getting better at understanding what an image, audio clip, or video is about, and this will completely shake things up for content creators. You have to look at things like blogs as your bread and butter of content and start thinking about images as the biggest draw for your new and old customers. 

Using search engine optimization for video, such as optimizing keywords within descriptions and tags, will help you create a far better video content strategy. Of course, there is a lot more to learn when it comes to creating visual content because it’s not the same as conducting research on a subject and creating a written piece of content. Therefore, it’s important for the overall user experience on any website to utilize the image-creating tools out there that AI is spearheading. While many organizations are fearing AI, it’s important to use them appropriately. There are many content creation tools that incorporate AI for the written words, but it’s also critical to bring these into play for creating winning images as well.

Consider the Increasing Popularity of Voice Search 

Optimizing your content for voice search will be even more important for search engine optimization. Businesses will have to work to adapt their content for voice search if they haven’t already, and there are a number of different ways to do this, but arguably, one of the most important ones is to use conversational language within your content. Because voice search is conversational, you need to give your content a more conversational tone to engage with users. 

This is a tough balance to get right, especially if you are running a more professional website, but there are simple ways to make your content more conversational, for example, by avoiding overly technical language and incorporating snippets of humor to support your context. Because if you’ve already established a specific brand voice, it can be tougher to optimize for voice search, but if you can slowly shift the dial towards more casual intonations, this will help. It’s important to remember that it’s not just about making your work more conversational, but you should not downgrade your content quality. There is a middle ground to be had here, and it may take some time to truly understand how you can get this right.

Local SEO is Still Around, Use It

Local search engine optimization is still a vital component when you are running a brick-and-mortar business. It is criminally overlooked, but when it comes to optimizing for SEO and even voice search, you should be improving your local SEO stance. Upgrading your business profile on Google is one of the first steps, but it’s usually the most important method to ensure that users get accurate information about your business.

Be More Selective with Link Building

This is critical in the face of artificial intelligence. Smarter search engines will start to analyze if people click on your links, stay, and engage with your content, which is why you need to focus on relevance and quality, especially in your backlinks. When it comes to improving link relevance, you need to utilize backlinks that come from similar categories or industries as your website. For example, if you are selling SEO services, you would need to use similar marketing or SEO websites. 

This is tough because you don’t want to be linking to competitors, but you still need to think about that overall sense of relevancy. Going forward, this will mean having to build proper relationships with other companies within the same niche. If you can come to an understanding where you can both operate with a tit-for-tat approach, where you can have your link set on one of their pieces of content and vice versa, this old-school method of building relationships can increase your potential for getting your business seen.

No More Black Hat

Black hat strategies like paid links, poor-quality content, redirects, and cloaking are slowly dying a death. This is a good thing because it ensures that over time, you are creating content that is to the point, relevant, and actually helps people. We have to remember that when it comes to having search engine optimization as a foremost strategy, as constraining as it may be, it forces us to focus on the all-important relevance and quality of our content. 

When it comes to the future of SEO, a lot of it has already been in place, but it’s more prominent now because people are scared witless by AI. Use this as the perfect opportunity to make sure you are creating real, relevant content.