Following months of testing, Google recently released Google SGE (Search Generative Experience) to all users in the United States, with more countries getting the upgrade soon. At the same time, Google has also expanded Gemini and will soon be bringing it to more apps than ever before.
Now that AI is starting to really have an impact, we’re going to give you an overview of Google’s primary AI products — Google SGE and Google Gemini – as well as some advice on making AI work for you.
But before that, let’s break Google Gemini and Google SGE down.
Gemini and SGE are Large Language Models (LLMs) that provide answers to queries. LLMs are computer programs that understand the relationship between certain words and then use that relationship to answer a question, create a long-form piece of text, or create an image.
LLMs are very impressive. However, they’re neither perfect nor ‘true’ intelligence. To give you an idea of what we mean, let’s talk about Google Gemini.
What is Google Gemini?
Google Gemini (formerly Google Bard) is Google’s answer to ChatGPT. It’s an LLM that mimics human responses and can provide responses to questions.
Google Gemini is currently hosted on a subdomain and is available to try now. Google has also been importing Gemini to other applications. For example, the Samsung S24 uses Gemini as part of its AI suite. However, Gemini is not on the SERP itself.
Because Gemini is isolated from Google, it’s unlikely to have a massive impact on the search process. However, the way it generates responses will provide us with a good overview of the likely strengths and weaknesses of a Google SGE response.
Analysis – Gemini’s Edinburgh Itinerary
We asked Gemini to provide an itinerary for a ‘3-day trip to Edinburgh in July.’ We received an itinerary for a 3-day trip in response. However, that response had several glaring issues:
- The answer implied the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) was on the Royal Mile in Old Town. In reality, Holyrood is on Canongate (the other side of the Old Town).
- The answer recommended taking a boat trip to Leith. In reality, Leith is only three miles up the road from Edinburgh.
- The answer recommends taking in a Fringe Festival performance. In reality, the Fringe Festival is in August only.
- The answer recommended taking a trip to the Highlands for the third day. Not only would this take you away from Edinburgh (outside the parameters of the itinerary) but the response recommended ‘Loch Ness, Glencoe, and Stirling Castle.’ In reality, these locations are in reverse order away from Edinburgh (Stirling Castle is only about an hour away, Glencoe about 3 or 4, Loch Ness an additional 2 or so). Who wants to spend 6 hours in a car on the last day of their trip, and why would you start farthest away from your actual starting destination?
- Finally, the response was vague. It recommended generic locations and activities and didn’t demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, or trustworthiness.
As you can see, there is some understanding of the question – none of the suggested locations were 100% incorrect. However, in the nuance, the generated response shows itself to have little value, especially compared to an itinerary created by someone who knows and understands the area.
But what about something simpler?
Even here, Gemini is far from perfect — which is par the course for AI-generated itineraries.
We asked a history-based question: ‘Who was the first president of the Continental Congress?’ Gemini responded: ‘I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.’
But what about Google SGE?
What is Google SGE?
Google SGE is another LLM developed by Google. However, where Gemini sits away from the SERP, on a phone, or in an email app, SGE sits at the top of the SERP. This makes it very important for anyone working in search marketing.
At the moment, Google’s SGE hasn’t been released in the UK yet – which is why many of our clients won’t have noticed it yet. However, it was released to everyone in the US on the 14th of May 2024, so it’s likely that it won’t be long before SGE is out over here.
How Will SGE Impact SEO?
Based on the analysis above, SGE-generated responses probably won’t be perfect. But we do need to target this new part of the SERP. While analysis is ongoing, some researchers have predicted that around 91.4% of all search inquiries could generate an SGE response.
Our research has shown that SGE may impact CTR (click-through rate) for most places on the SERP. Likewise, PPC may become more competitive, as there will be less space for paid results to appear.
But appearing within the generated response isn’t that different from appearing high on the SERP or within a featured snippet.
You just have to know how.
How To Use Google SGE For Ranking Success
Based on our research, there are four ways to ensure success in the post-SGE search space. These are:
Know Your Search Intent
The current SERP is somewhat lenient in how it ranks sites with different search intents. Google SGE is much stricter.
For example, in the current system, a blog about cruising through the Mediterranean Sea can easily battle for the top position with a landing page for that product, with the actual SERP determined by ranking factors such as the number of high-value links a site has, site speed, quality of content, etc.
However, in SGE, these ranking factors have less of an overall impact on appearing within the generated result. Instead, it’s much more important to match the search intent that Google SGE assumes each keyword to have.
For example, let’s say you have a landing page for luxury safaris in Botswana, but the SGE auto-generated result for Luxury Safari Botswana is an informational response talking about what to look for in luxury safaris in Botswana. Based on our research, getting your landing page included in the SGE response will be highly unlikely.
Instead of trying to get your landing page within the SGE response, you should create a blog post/article matching the intent of the generated response. You’ll need to channel readers to your landing page via internal links, but you’ll have a much better chance of being included in the generated response.
Summarise Information
How do we ensure that our informational-intent pages are included in the AI-generated response?
We summarise.
Blog posts and information-based pages are often written in a way designed to keep the reader engaged until the end. Questions are broken down into smaller parts and then summarised at the end – normally before a Call To Action.
This structure works well for human-focused content. But it’s not well optimised for indexing and generating an SGE response. This is because Google favours easily parsable information near the top of the page when crawling a site.
When writing content that we want to be included within SGE responses, we want to adopt an academic essay-based response model – one that starts with a thesis statement that quickly answers the question/responds to the keyword before expanding outwards with supplementary information.
For example, imagine you want to appear in the response for ‘weather in Kyoto in July.’ Your response should start, below the H1, with a simple thesis statement:
July is a hot but rainy month for Kyoto. The average temperature is 81 degrees Fahrenheit, but has been known to go as high as 88 degrees and as low as 73 degrees Fahrenheit. Kyoto normally experiences 14 days of rain in July, and the average rainfall is around 230mm.
From there, you can expand outwards, discussing average temperatures during the day and the night, humidity, average UV index, etc in their respective paragraphs.
We’ve also seen this technique work very well following the HCU content update. As a result, we’re recommending that all clients implement this mindset when writing content moving forward – even for phrases that don’t trigger an SGE Response.
Use Schema/Structured Data
For more commercially focused phrases and searches, such as holidays and vacations, we need to make sure that Google knows what it’s looking at. The best way of doing that is through using structured data – particularly TravelAgent and Product Schema.
If you’re unfamiliar, structured data is a small code snippet on a page. Schema speaks to Google in a way that lets Google know that the site in question has what the visitor is looking for.
In metaphorical terms, it’s the equivalent of positive word of mouth and appropriate signifiers – the smell of freshly baked bread for bakeries, for example. In short, schema is everything behind the scenes that lets a searcher know your site is what they’re looking for.
Using the appropriate schema, in coordination with the other recommendations above, will ensure that the pages we ask Google to index are lit up like a Christmas tree.
Embrace Your Brand
Moving forward, it’s important to embrace your brand when creating content for your blog posts and landing pages. From research, we’ve found that while CTR may be impacted due to SGE and generated content appearing in the SERP, the visitors who do land on your site are more likely to be more engaged.
As such, it’s important to leverage your knowledge and experience when writing content for your audience. This will help you stand out against your competitors and demonstrate your authority within your subject matter.
Google SGE – The Next Steps
With these recommendations in mind, you should be well-positioned for the SGE rollout. It’s important to remember that SGE is not a replacement for Google’s existing ranking system – it is an evolution of it.
As such, the recommendations above are in addition to our current set of general SEO recommendations. These include:
- Create title tags that make sense.
- Use a logical, optimised header structure.
- Add structured data to your pages.
- Use appropriate, optimised alt text when adding images
- Create relevant and authoritative supporting content that links to your commercial pages.
- Make sure that supporting content uses a thesis statement to introduce itself.
- Implement an internal linking structure that’s as thorough as possible.
If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with us as soon as possible. north9 is here to support you and your travel business.
About The Author...
Tom is here to steer the ship in the right direction, to ensure what we offer is best in class, and to keep clients and the team happy! Naturally, he loves to travel, but Honduras is a favourite destination after having spent a year there teaching after finishing school.
