Beyond Google: Navigating SEO in the age of AI, voice assistants and TikTok

Where do you turn when you have a question that needs answering?

If this were 2014, the clear and obvious reply would be Google Search. But today, the response is more likely, “It depends.”

• Maybe you ask a voice assistant like Alexa or Siri.
• Maybe you look up social videos on TikTok or Instagram.
• Maybe you scour Reddit for people’s thoughts on a subject.
• Maybe you turn to a generative AI tool like ChatGPT.

That leads to another question: What does this all mean for SEO?

For more than a decade, search engine optimization (SEO) has been an essential marketing practice to bring more traffic to your website. The basic premise is that you engineer the content on your pages to “optimize” it so Google will rank it higher in their results.

With so many options around now, how do you optimize content to be found across 20 different platforms and tools? And how do you use those tools to bring people back to your website—especially when it comes to generative AI?

Search Engine Land estimates that generative AI alone could lead to a 30% reduction in organic web traffic since it provides answers without a link. “Every single website is going to feel the pain,” Anna Crowe writes.

Mitchell Chokas, RKD’s SEO expert, found a great article from Advanced Web Ranking that provides tips on how to optimize your nonprofit website for generative AI:

• Keep page load time (in Google Search Console) below 500ms. 
• Have as short of a rendering time as possible. 
• Have all the main content available without any JavaScript dependencies. 
• Have a lot of text content. And summarize it either at the top or bottom of your page. 
• Have an up-to-date presence on relevant database-style websites like Yelp, Crunchbase and IMDB. 
• Be included on the most important community-moderated sites like Wikipedia, Reddit and Quora.  
• Get (positive) coverage in relevant large news and media websites. 
• If you can, get mentioned in books. 

Mitchell also shared a tool that can help: HubSpot’s AI Search Grader. It analyzes your brand sentiment on ChatGPT and provides a free report on where your brand shows up in AI search results.

For example, here are some strengths that HubSpot’s tool identified for RKD Group:

This is a great place to begin by understanding how ChatGPT sees your nonprofit organization. With that understanding, you can begin creating content to address any areas that need improvement.

Google lands in hot water with US government

Speaking of Google Search, a federal judge ruled this month that Google violated antitrust law by creating a monopoly as the world’s default search engine. Google controls 90% of the online search market.

"Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, Washington, D.C., wrote.

Now, the U.S. Department of Justice is weighing options on breaking up the tech giant. Some of those options include:

• Divesting the Android operating system
• Selling AdWords
• Separating out the Chrome web browser
• Sharing data with competitors

Google plans to appeal the ruling, but it faces another antitrust suit next month as well.

GivingTuesday GIFs

How about some lighter news?

If you’re looking for something fun this GivingTuesday, check out this “epic selection” of GivingTuesday GIFs on Giphy. GivingTuesday has also partnered with Instagram to create official stickers:

Advice for AI changes to Apple Mail, Gmail

Back in June, we shared some big changes coming to email thanks to Apple’s new AI tools. Most notably, those changes included:

• Writing tools to help craft your emails
• Sorting tools to help prioritize your emails
• Language tools to help summarize your emails

These new features are great for email recipients, but they could bring new challenges to email marketing programs at nonprofit organizations.

Sara Lebow at EMARKETER has some great tips to alleviate some of those challenges:

• Make sure your emails are relevant to donors. Recognize loyalty, charitable gifts and behavior, and use that to create relevant messages to different audiences.
• Avoid oversending and relying on irrelevant content to ensure emails are opened.
• Personalize email campaigns to make them stand out in inboxes and signal to AI that they are unique and important.

Additional digital news

• Google is keeping cookies—what should nonprofits do now?
• Nonprofits, get ready: Apple’s new AI tools aim to change email
• Adjusting your nonprofit's digital strategy for the 2024 presidential election