It’s time to take SEO and Google Ads Seriously
Yes, this is about AI and we have to stop pussy-footing around with SEO and Google Ads. Double, Triple or even tenfold budgets if we want to stand a chance in the AI Race.
I write these meagre articles for our client base, we manage some 140 websites and carry out the full range of services from Domain Name Registration to full consulting work on an organisation’s Internet presence. Everything from advice on Newsletters to how to set up email on a mobile. Our finger is in all pies and while we pride ourselves on being a one-stop shop, we know we’re a jack of all trades and potentially a master of none.
Enough of the servitudes, AI – what’s going on? Essentially, we have all heard of ChatGPT, Gemini, Co-Pilot, amongst quite a few others, so how are they affecting our websites? Numbers are being bandied about that Google Search has lost around 20% of its search queries as people take to AI to ask the question instead. We have probably all met AI advocates (as well as detractors) who ask their mobiles everything and virtually never visit a website. This is becoming more common and is genuinely set to continue.
The big AI issue, in case you have not read the papers, sorry, I mean not being following the news online, is that AI gives the answer. We’ve written about this before, years ago. Google’s been threatening for years to just give the answer, but in the past, it’s always been blocked by vested interests insisting that a potential customer cannot bypass a website. Google has had to ‘connect’ the user to the website.
This is no more, the cat is out of the bag and AI essentially steals all our data to more effectively give answers within its own micro-climate APP.
New Kid on the Block
The next big lead for AI is called AI Agents – these are services we will subscribe to that will do things for us. Let us start simple. Buying a train ticket. Instead of us asking Google for the train times for London, instead, we’re asking ChatGPT for the most cost-effective and quick way to get to London. The result is a train ticket recommendation.
But with an AI Agent – we can pre-command it to buy the ticket for us. Now, when we ask our AI Agent for the quickest and cheapest way to get to London by train. It will just go buy the ticket for us. It will directly connect up to Trainline.com, Trainpal.com, NationalRail or any other service available that sells tickets online.
The result is two things, for our websites. First, we still need to offer our services, AI will use them, and second, we need to feed the AI monster our content.
Which brings me to
Our glorious websites, SEO and Google Ads.
SEO is the foundation of all web marketing. There is no point in spending a penny on Social Media, TV, Newsletters, or Google Ads without a firm commitment to SEO. The three golden rules still apply:
- Fresh Content – we need to get new copy onto a website constantly.
- Well-liked website – we need to promote that content across our outlets, social media, etc.
- Well-made website – The website has to be coded nicely, most are these days, luckily.
Here at NCompass, we cover Rule No. 3 pretty well; most of our SEO effort is behind the scenes and about increasing the search engine friendliness of a website.
But we really need to ramp up the content side. We run some SEO campaigns where our client has not changed the content in years, it’s inexcusable in today’s climate, we’re just wasting money.
In days gone by, we have recommended a minimum of 1 blog article per month as the very least a client should do to maintain a position in Google. With AI, we have to seriously ramp that up to at least 4 articles per month + plus many other changes to a website’s homepage, product pages, services pages and so on.
SEO and Google Ads
Somehow, all this AI has to be paid for. Users are being fairly swiftly converted into paying customers, but Google has shown us actually the mega bucks for these new AI companies is in the Paid Content, what’s behind the firewall, what’s the extra value. And it works both ways.
You can bill users, but this relies on their commitment to the service and increasingly ,they want access to multiple AI services; their pockets are simply not going to be big enough.
It’s the advertisers that have unlimited pockets. eCommerce Store Temu, we’ve all seen the adverts, contributed roughly 20% of Google’s entire revenue before Trump killed the business over tariffs. With companies, there is virtually no limit to what they will spend if the returns are right. Why would there be?
Google Ads is, of course, extremely well positioned for advertisers, already much of the Ad Creation business is automatic, dynamic and self generating, one can throw a product feed at Google Ads and there is hardly a need to even upload a photo, Google gets all it needs to know from our websites.
Set the Budget and leave the rest to Google – that’s the current motto from Mountain View, California.
For our purposes, though, we have to understand, this is how our content is going to get into AI. Ai will suck and feed off our SEO, by us adding content to our websites, we feed the beast. But paying for Ads is how we’re going to get customers, our content has to be referenced and if required our content has to be above other competitors, that put simpl,y means paying for it.
Start Small
I’ll finish this post with a simple piece of advice. If you’re not using Google Ads start now… just spend £100 per month and get your foot in the door, learn how it works, see what it brings. But gone are the days when you thought you could get by without it.
Google Ads has an advantage over Meta (Facebook or Instagram) – firstly, it will be picked up in AI and secondly, at the moment, it’s more transparent. Sadly, at this point in time, I can put almost no faith in the results Meta brings.
One final understanding that investing in Google Ads will bring is that if you pay for it, you’ll want to make it work, which means you’ll prioritise your website and may even add some new content to it. Now we can do all that for you. But at least you’ll be on your way.