Introduction

Featuring on the first page of a Google search query is big business and ranking as the very first result is the holy grail of marketing for any business. An online business can pad several millions to its bottom line if the almighty Google anoints its website, product, blog or web page as the first result of a search query. Similarly, a business can see its downfall if it’s relegated to just the second page of search results. According to various studies, 75% of users don’t go past the first page of Google search results. Astonishing as it may sound, recall the last time you went to the second or the third page of search results retrieved by Google—it's very likely that you can’t.

The importance of ranking in Google’s search results is so crucial for businesses and especially online ones that it has spawned an entire new discipline within the tech industry known as “Search Engine Optimization,”commonly abbreviated as SEO. We emphasize on Google search rankings as Google is the most dominant search engine. Still, we shouldn't forget there are other search engines too, such as Bing and Yahoo, and the optimization techniques apply equally well for those search engines.

Search engines

Search engines are the interface or the gateway to accessing the internet. By far, Google is the most used and well-known search engine, but there are also other search engines on the market. Some are listed below:

1. Google

2. Yahoo

3. Bing

4. Baidu

5. Yandex

6. DuckDuckGo

7. Ask

8. AOL

How search engines work

A modern search engine works by performing several processes:

Crawling: The search engine uses web crawlers to explore and index billions of pages on the internet by following links from page to page.

Indexing: The indexed pages are stored in a huge database, allowing the search engine to search for relevant results in real time.

Ranking: The search engine uses complex algorithms to rank the pages based on their relevance to the search query. This ranking is determined by several factors, including keyword usage, relevance, and the authority of the website.

Query Processing: When a user enters a query, the search engine processes it to understand the user’s intent and the context of the search.

Retrieval and Presentation: The search engine then retrieves the most relevant pages from its database and presents them to the user in a list, ordered by relevance.

SEO defined

Formally, SEO is defined as the process of optimizing a website to improve its ranking on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. This is done by using techniques such as keyword research, content optimization, link building, and technical optimization to make a website more visible and appealing to search engines, with the goal of increasing organic traffic and visibility to potential customers. The ultimate goal of SEO is to improve the visibility and ranking of a website on search engines so that it appears higher in the search results and attracts more visitors.

SEO helps small and medium businesses especially budget conscious ones to create an alternate channel to paid advertising for customer acquisition. Businesses can increase their brand awareness and online presence by investing in SEO activities. Similarly, established businesses leverage SEO to increase organic traffic and hold onto online market share.

Determining factors

There are three primary factors that determine rankings for any content on the internet to be ranked for a given search query.

1. Trust

2. Authority

3. Relevance

A university website such as Stanford holds a lot more authority and trust for a search query asking for latest research on artificial intelligence than your friend’s blog on the same topic. Similarly, a search query looking for late-night pizza has no relevance to Stanford University’s website; the local pizza joint’s website should pop up on the first page results for the query. Trust and authority can grow over time for websites. For instance, a lot of queries in the context of software development have results from Stack Overflow but it has taken years for Stack Overflow to command the authority and trust with search engines for higher rankings by accumulating relevant content. The interplay of these primary three factors, i.e., trustworthiness of a website, authority wielded by a website, and relevance to the search query come together to determine the spot a website lands at in the list of results.

Some literature on SEO goes further and divides these three principle factors into finer categories, but at the core these three factors remain the major determinants of rankings for websites.

Effect of ChatGPT and AI on SEO

The growth of chatbots and AI-powered language models like ChatGPT is likely to have had and will continue to have some impact on SEO. Here are a few ways this may play out:

• Voice Search Optimization: As more and more people use voice-activated devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to search the web, the importance of optimizing for voice search will increase. This could lead to changes in the way content is written and structured to cater to these devices.

• Increased Importance of Natural Language Processing (NLP): Chatbots and AI-powered language models like ChatGPT rely on NLP to understand and respond to user queries. As a result, the development of NLP algorithms that can accurately interpret user intent will become increasingly important for SEO.

• Impact on Keyword Research: Keyword research has traditionally been a key part of SEO. However, with the rise of chatbots and AI-powered language models, users are likely to search for information in a more conversational and natural way. This could make traditional keyword research techniques less effective and lead to a shift towards more sophisticated methods for understanding user intent.

• Changes to Search Engine Algorithms: Chatbots and AI-powered language models are likely to influence the way search engines rank and display results. Search engines may prioritize websites that are optimized for chatbots and AI-powered language models, which could lead to changes in the way that websites are optimized for search.

Overall, while it is still too early to predict the exact impact that chatbots and AI-powered language models will have on SEO, it is clear that they will play a role in shaping the future of search.

Conclusion

In crux, as the world around us digitizes and increasingly moves online, search engine optimization plays an ever bigger role in the online success of businesses.