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AI and SEO: How Artificial Intelligence Impacts Search Rankings

Glowing AI Button on top of a slate brick background

AI is increasingly everywhere these days. Considering AI seems to be doing so many different things, the term AI has become a bit of a confusing catchall and buzzword. Nevertheless, you now find most apps and programs are now including and loudly featuring some kind of AI tool or functionality. You’ll also find AI write-ups from Google’s new search AI, Gemini, at the top of many searches. It shouldn’t be a surprise that AI is now having a significant role and impact on SEO. Since search rankings are critical for any small business to expand its discovery on these platforms, we explain some of the ways to consider how AI impacts SEO.

How AI Has Changed SEO

AI and learning algorithms have drastically changed how internet searches work over the past decade. You will want to consider these when creating web pages that are optimized for search engines.

Moving Beyond Keywords

Search engines like Google have been using learning algorithms (i.e. AI) to move beyond simple keyword searches. These algorithms help identify word associations and larger concepts to create semantic based searches. Semantic search considers phrases and the associations between specific words. More advanced semantic searches will also consider previous searches, location, and the user’s profile for a more complex meaning. These are the same kind of semantics we use to understand language and meaning. Google began using these semantic searches in 2015 with RankBrain. They grew in sophistication when they launched BERT, and last year they launched an even more advanced semantic model with the AI MUM.

Understanding Pages

Search engines like Google have also begun to use the same AI tools on the web pages they crawl. Rather than searching for certain words that indicate a topic, Google’s algorithms now try to more fully understand the information and/or content on pages. The information and meaning they gleam from the page is then used to rank the site according to the semantic meaning in a search. This is to try and provide more relevant results for searches rather than just targeting what most fits those individual keywords.

Together, this semantic shift means that small businesses need to move beyond considering individual keywords to target certain phrases and start considering more complex connections. For example, you could consider, what is the kind of information or resources people might be searching to want this page? Is there a certain question or need that the page or your website answers? What related phrases are people searching that you could connect to your business’ website?

AI’s Getting to Know Us

Another way search engines are using AI that has a direct impact on search engines is understanding users rather than individual pages and searches. Along with monitoring search semantics, Google’s AI tools monitor how and what users search to personalize their results. These AI profiles are designed to help predict and re-rank sites according to that user’s calculated interests. However, these AI profiles are also beneficial for smaller businesses as they allow them to consider target audiences and profiles for their SEO. With these in mind, businesses can start to tailor their webpage’s content and SEO to users in whose searches they would prefer to rank higher.

How Gemini is Changing Search

One of the most recent developments of AI in search engines is Google’s Gemini. MUM, and BERT before it, who were already trying to extract immediate answers or quick summaries from high-ranking search results. However, Gemini is a generative AI, which uses language model functionality to produce a written-up summary and answer. Rather than quoting from a single page, Gemini consults multiple high-ranking sites and tries to combine these for a single ultra response.

While Google does link to the source pages Gemini used, there are drawbacks for websites. Ultimately, this result is not designed to motivate users to visit the actual page. Google has given the answer and users are expected to be satisfied. However, Gemini is often wrong. Most generative AI tools still suffer for any specific topic and tend to provide inaccurate or false information. In turn, this means users may still be motivated to visit specific pages for more accurate information from a human.

The other important thing to consider is that Gemini results like these are still more tuned to general research searches like “where do salmon migrate.” Gemini cannot put together products or services. Instead, if searching for products or services with Gemini, it will direct users to local businesses. Users will still be visiting and browsing the specific pages of small businesses.

Keeping an Eye on AI and SEO

As we mentioned, Google and other search engines have already been using more advanced algorithms for nearly a decade. However, we also can’t deny that the recent surge of generative and other AI tools has led to a rapid shift in SEO with significant impacts on search rankings. Small businesses will need to keep monitoring this active landscape to ensure their websites continue to rank high. Of course, that’s also the benefit of a dedicated marketing team, like Rosewood Marketing. We continue to actively monitor how AI and SEO are actively changing. If you’re interested in revising your SEO strategy or ensuring a new website will rank high in this new AI frontier, be sure to contact us.

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TikTok Marketing Strategies: Tips for Engaging a Younger Audience

A young woman reviewing her TikTok posts and marketing campaigns

It’s no exaggeration to say that TikTok has taken the world by storm these past few years to become one of the top social media platforms. While Meta and others continue to imitate features and attract users, TikTok holds onto its younger audience. As a result, it’s the primary social media platform where businesses can engage and develop a younger audience. We’ll explain the key TikTok marketing strategies and how your brand can use the platform to engage a younger audience.

TikTok’s Audience Is Young

TikTok’s 3.2 million Canadian users skew younger than other social media platforms. That shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but the numbers are still staggering. In fact, over 70% of TikTok’s users are under the age of 40 with 43% of all users in 2022 between the ages of 18 and 29. That means if you’re looking to engage and expand your business’ reach to a younger demographic, TikTok is the best place to find and engage with that audience.

How TikTok Content Works

TikTok is defined by its short video content delivered to the user on their “For You Page” (FYP). Like other feeds, this page will feature both followed accounts and the platform’s suggestions. Videos are typically merged with sound clips trending on the platform that TikTok easily allows others to sample, which contributes to the development of trends. These features have been more recently imitated in other social media platforms, such as Instagram’s reels. In the past 4 years, the platform has developed other kinds of posts, including pictures and longer videos. Today, you can post videos up to 30 minutes long, but overall shorter videos between 30 seconds and 2 minutes still define the platform. These work best for the FYP as users continuously scroll through videos. 

TikTok Ads and Sponsored Posts

Of course, TikTok provides businesses with digital marketing opportunities and tools. Like other social media platforms, these allow you to create advertising campaigns, track post metrics, target certain audiences or topics, and so on. This can include creating sponsored posts that will show up in users FYP. However, to foster engagement with a younger audience, you will want to focus on providing posts and content. That will need to be tailored to your brand and audience. Behind the scenes and candid product features tend to do well for e-commerce, while a catering service can feature videos of cooking or preparing their food. As well, just like Instagram, there are TikTok influencers, whom you can sponsor to create content featuring your products or celebrating your services to their own following and the wider platform. 

Engaging TikTok Content – Responses and Stitches

TikTok features the basic engagement tools found on other social media platforms. Users can comment, message or tag a business, and businesses and brands can reply and react. However, one of the strengths of TikTok is how its engagement tools are interconnected with its content tools. For example, you can create videos that reply directly to a comment, featuring that comment in the video and linking it to the original. This is a great, visible way to engage with your audience. For example, if someone asks a good question for which you want others to know the answer, you can create a video responding to that comment. This also shows that your brand actively engages with its audience, leading to more follows.

There are also stitches. These use content from another user to start the video and then cut to the actual account’s own video. These usually respond, react, or build upon the original video in some way. TikTok’s “green screen” feature is used in a similar manner, but instead the original content acts as a background. These can be a great way to interact with your community and audience if they create content featuring your products or services. Stitches are also one of the main ways businesses can jump on TikTok trends.

Jumping On TikTok Trends

Trends are not unique to TikTok. They happen on every social media platform. A certain post or type of content goes viral and then seems to fade just as fast. Where TikTok differs is that its stitching and sound sampling tools allow users to easily jump on and engage with this momentary popularity. Often these trends include the use of a particular sound or clip from another viral video in a playful twist of that original. The use of the same sound and video clip creates connections on the platform. TikTok’s own algorithm adeptly picks up on these connections and trends and will then surface the content on most users’ FYP. 

As a result, being able to hop on TikTok trends and engage with their community quickly is an excellent strategy for businesses. However, it also requires continuous awareness of the platform. TikTok trends sometimes seem to die faster than a lit match. To jump on a trend effectively, you will need someone who can actively monitor the platform and quickly create engaging content. Also, don’t worry if you miss out on a trend. There’s always another just around the corner.

Consider Whether TikTok Makes Sense

There is certainly overlap between the users of other social media platforms and TikTok, especially Instagram. However, the differences of its particular audience and content require specific content with a specialized focus. Instagram reels may work well for TikTok, but you also want to be sure you are creating content in TikTok itself to form the sound or video connections its algorithm prizes. Consider your customer persona(s). If your audience doesn’t skew younger or is already more present on other social media platforms, devoting that extra investment to TikTok might not generate the appropriate ROI. It’s the same with any other social media platform. Consider its suitability for your business.

The Clock is TikToking

TikTok provides businesses with a powerful algorithm and capable tools to engage with a younger audience. For businesses looking to grow its audience and community among Gen Z and even millennials, TikTok is a great digital marketing option. However, it’s distinct in certain ways from other social media platforms and demands specific strategies for creating content. With these strategies, you should have a better understanding for how to engage a younger audience through TikTok. A last bonus tip for getting this far, don’t try to wind back the clock and act young to appeal to a younger audience. They’ll find it artificial, and frustrating compared to genuine sincerity. If you want help delving into the wider network of TikTok or would like advice on how to improve your account’s metrics, contact Rosewood Marketing’s social media marketing team.

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The Psychology of Web Design: Creating an Intuitive User Experience

A web design implementing some key principles adapted from psychology

A lot of thought and planning goes into designing a website. Today, our design team benefits from decades of research about the psychology of how users navigate websites. Along with years of practicing to enact those principles, we have a better sense for creating an intuitive experience. For businesses, that helps users effectively learn about your business and complete purchases or hire you. We’ll explain some principles from psychology behind creating intuitive user experiences.

The Psychology of Web Design

Most humans process visual information in a similar way. Our eyes and brains work together to comprehend complex visual information. Today, psychology has a better understanding of how these systems work. However, human brains and eyes didn’t originally develop for screens and computers. So, web design applies this knowledge from psychology to create websites that are intuitive for people to navigate and use. There are a few principles that have become standard in the psychology of intuitive user experiences.

Fitts’s Law

The psychologist Paul Fitts studied how humans select a target and created a model that predicts the speed humans move their aim to that target. Originally, Fitts was looking at pointing, but today computer scientists and web designers continuously use Fitts’s law for predicting how fast humans can intuitively navigate an interface with a mouse pointer or their finger. The two primary factors of speed in Fitts’s law are size and width. The larger and wider something is, the faster someone can target it. This is why buttons in web design are larger than other text and horizontally oriented.

Fitts’s law is a great example of how psychology is critical to intuitive and ergonomic web design. Rotating a button 90° to be vertically oriented would be the same size and potentially closer to a mouse pointer. Plus, it might seem a better choice for vertical displays like mobile devices. However, the psychology of human visual systems makes it so that a taller but thinner button is harder and slower to interact with, and so less intuitive.

Hick’s Law

Another important principle from psychology, the Hick’s or Hick-Hyman Law is all about limiting choice. This psychological principle shows how for every additional choice a person will logarithmically take more time to decide. This is why too many options can lead to “decision paralysis” where it’s hard to make any choice. For web design this means reducing the number of choices you present to users at one time so they more intuitively navigate through your website. For example, presenting 16 buttons that navigate everywhere on the first screen can immediately overwhelm a user. Separating these buttons into sections on a home page, or into their own dedicated pages in a navigation flow will create a more intuitive experience that guides users through the choices they want to make.

Gestalt Principles

Another important practice from psychology critical to intuitive user experiences on your website are “Gestalt Principles.” These principles are a system of how humans interpret and organize visual information we see by grouping and recognizing patterns. A few of these are extremely beneficial for creating intuitive websites.

Hierarchy

Information arranged into visual hierarchies is critical to any larger visual project. For example, online stores sometimes have tens or even hundreds of options. According to Hick’s Law, that could be paralyzing. Using visual hierarchies allows us to better organize those choices into a set of larger more refined choices. Consider how someone chooses food at a restaurant. They typically go through the larger categories (e.g. salad, entrees, soups) before picking a certain item in that group and then selecting the specific options for that dish. The same can be accomplished in web design: major product categories, a main product page, variations on that page.

There are various ways to create visual hierarchy:

  • Size – larger elements are seen as more important and attract more attention. This is why headings go up in size with titles as the largest.
  • Colour – colours with certain hues, more saturation, or high contrast will get more attention. This can be applied to buttons, icons, graphics, and text. In fact, it’s an old practice for text and is where the term “rubric” comes from. Rubrication was making certain text like titles or headers red in old manuscripts to visually stand out.
  • Alignment – Something’s placement can have it gain our attention first or last. This depends on culture and language. For example, those who read western languages tend to give priority to things more left and at the top, while those who read Arabic will give priority to things more to the right.

Proximity

Humans group things together that are visually close to one another. This is used in web design to create visual associations between copy, images, videos, and buttons. Those closer together are intuitively understood to be more related than elements placed farther away.

Similarity

Besides being close, we also create associations between things that are visually similar. This can be because of an associated icon, distinct font types, or using specific colours. For example, a solid colour with high contrast can intuitively identify buttons. Those colour associations can then be made more specific. If every reference to one kind of service your business provides is in blue and another is in red, a user intuitively understands the colour associations and how to navigate your site.

Remember Accessibility

Keep in mind that these psychological principles for intuitive user experiences are usually defined according to an average user. Don’t forget to consider accessibility when designing a website. A part of your design might not be as intuitive to someone who is visually impaired or lacks full colour vision. Ultimately, the best way to determine if your web design is intuitive is to test user experiences.

Mindful Design

We can’t discuss every way psychology has helped to develop intuitive user experiences in web design. However, these laws and principles have become fundamentals of visual design. Understanding the psychology behind them helps to create a mindful design. Through these principles, you can develop a website that is truly intuitive and that also accounts for accessibility. If you’re ready to create an intuitive user experience for your customers and audience, be sure to contact our web design team.

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