SEO’s next frontier: optimising news content for AI search

Editor’s note: we are publishing a guest column by Olga Odarchenko, partner of SEOforMedia agency, that looks into the future of search optimisation for AI tools.

Every media conference in the world now features a presentation, workshop, or discussion panel about artificial intelligence. It’s no longer a trend, it’s a part of media life! 

Even though news publishers are yet to reap huge benefits from integrating AI in their workflow, media outlets are already sharing users and competing with ChartGPT, Gemini, and other chatbots. In this article, we’ll look at what we know about SEO for ChatGPT and how media can use it to increase traffic on their websites. 

What does competing with AI tools mean for publishers?

Of course, you can dismiss AI services as potential competitors and close your sites from ChatGPT, or believe that quality journalism is not about answering any question in one paragraph. But, I propose that you consider this an opportunity for media sites. 

Let’s look at an example; imagine yourself as a media manager who decided to learn more about the peculiarities of taxation in our industry. You went to ChatGPT and entered the corresponding query.  

Of course, we see the traditional way of presenting information for a chatbot: everything is very structured, divided into a list with information sources and a link to Wikipedia.

Is it enough to understand the topic? No.

Is Wikipedia a source of information that a user will trust, knowing that it can be edited by a person who is not an expert in taxation? No. 

And the third source of information is the media website Bloomberg. 

It is very likely that a person who really wants to understand the topic will go to the website of a trusted media outlet to read expert opinions and comments of professional tax specialists selected by Bloomberg.

ChatGPT as a new source of quality traffic for online media 

As an SEO specialist who has been working with the media on a daily basis for the past 5 years, I see this as a new opportunity for the media. Adapt or die! 

In our new reality, chatbots like ChatGPT can become a source of quality readers. Imagine that you have a personal ambassador of your media outlet who “warms up” the reader before directing him or her to your website. This is not Google, which does not always understand the content (the intention with which the user is looking for something), but a real “search engine” that filters the most targeted visitors for you. 

Why am I so positive? According to statistics, in 2024, about 60% of searches are zero click, which means that the user receives the answer to their search query immediately in the search results without going to any site.

I treat chatbots as another “search engine” for which you need to optimise content and get a reader interested in information. But now we see another new player in the search engine market.

What is SearchGPT?   

SearchGPT and ChatGPT are two different technologies from OpenAI, each designed for different user purposes. 

SearchGPT, developed by OpenAI as a prototype for a new generation of search engines, was launched on July 25, 2024. It differs from traditional search engines such as Google and Bing by integrating generative artificial intelligence capabilities, which provides a more intuitive and conversational search experience.

Instead, ChatGPT focuses on generating textual content, charts, graphs, and visual representations of data based on textual descriptions. 

Summary: ChatGPT creates content and SearchGPT searches and summarises existing content!

Unlike traditional search engines that provide a list of links, SearchGPT responds directly to user queries by providing detailed answers and links to sources, which facilitates quick access to the information you need.

The main features of SearchGPT: 

• Conversational search: natural language interaction and contextual understanding
• Direct answers: information is presented concisely, rather than endless pages of Google results.
• Source marking
• Potential development of visual answers
• Even more personalisation than in other search engines 

Thus, this is another technology that the online media will have to “adapt” to in the future.  

What exactly influences you into getting the ChatGPT results? 

Since March 2024, ChatGPT has started adding sources to answer results with the launch of a new version, which helps to increase the credibility of answers and makes it easier for users to fact-check.

SEO for traditional search engines like Google or Bing is a mix of the experience of SEO specialists in different countries and a detailed study of the documentation provided by the search engine itself on how to optimise a website and the content on it. 

Unfortunately, specialists do not have experience in chatbot SEO because it is simply impossible to conduct enough experiments and establish cause-and-effect relationships in such a short time. 

Moreover, there are no comprehensive instructions from each of the AI tools on what content they like. That’s why all the tips that are currently circulating at conferences and among SEO specialists are quite generalised, but if you follow them, even your site’s position in traditional Google search results will grow. 

Let’s take a look at the most useful tips for media professionals. 

SEO strategy for OpenAI services

1. Allow crawling on your website

There is a trend among media companies to close their websites from OpenAI robots, but if the robot cannot read the information on your website, it will never indicate you as an original source of information. 

At the same time, there is no way to protect yourself from the fact that some other site will not take your information as the original source. In this case, their site will be displayed in ChatGPT results and will receive traffic from there.  

2. Conduct thorough keyword research

Determine the most relevant keywords for each piece of content and the site as a whole. Use tools like Google Trends to identify new trends and evergreen content for your readers.

3. Create original content without filler

It is the journalistic work that creates added value for the most valuable materials. AI cannot take quality commentary from a proven expert in a niche, but your authors can do it to emphasise your credibility. And this is just one example.

4. Optimise for clear and concise queries 

If appropriate, provide blocks of text that can answer your audience’s most frequently asked questions about the topic. 

5. Different content formats within the same piece of content 

Including relevant visuals can make your text more engaging and searchable. According to Semrush’s 2023 global report, including at least one video in an article can increase organic traffic by 70%.

6. Technical optimisation of the website 

In addition to the traditional absence of technical errors on the site, take care of implementing Schema content markup on the site to help SearchGPT understand the context and relevance of your resources to the reader’s request.

Risks for publishers

It may seem like the future is still far away, but the dynamics of visits to the resource according to the Similarweb service is consistently high and amounts to 3.7B visits in October 2024. Most likely these could be your readers who would satisfy their informational needs on the publishers’ website. 

But, I see a more significant threat…

AI services like ChatGPT have an impact on the quantity and quality of content on the Internet. It has never been so easy to write material and publish it on your website as it is now!

Search engines don’t yet have a tool to recognise AI-generated content with 100% probability. This content is given out by templated phrases and specific sentence structure, but even this can be bypassed by an experienced SEO specialist from Bangladesh who has decided to make his niche media. 

So, as before, we have only one thing to do – fight for the quality and reliability of information on the Internet and counteract disinformation and fakes. 

News media should always be monitoring changes in traffic and adapting to the next updates of AI chatbots and search engines.

Source of the cover photo: 1981 Digital via Unsplash

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