UK Businesses Adapt Strategies as AI Reshapes Online Visibility
The landscape of online discovery is undergoing a seismic transformation, with AI playing an increasingly dominant role. Companies like HubSpot, a provider of sales and marketing tools, have observed a dramatic decline in website visits, attributing a loss of 140 million visits in a single year to the rise of AI in search.
Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot's chief marketing officer, highlights the change: "What you have now is access to all the world's intelligence in an instantaneous way. How people find information and subsequently take action is very, very different." This evolution means users often receive answers directly from AI overviews in search results or dedicated AI tools, negating the need to click through to a website. Consequently, click-through rates for searches with AI overviews can be 60% to 70% lower.
The Rise of Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
In response, businesses are now focusing on Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), sometimes referred to as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). AEO aims to enhance a website's ranking within AI tools and overviews, working in conjunction with traditional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
The shift demands a new understanding of user behaviour. While traditional search might involve four to six keywords, AI searches are often much longer, averaging 40 to 60 words, indicating a demand for greater specificity. To be cited by AI, content must anticipate these detailed queries. For example, a motorhome rental company might publish an article on popular animals in New Zealand for children, written in natural language, to be referenced in a family holiday plan generated by AI.
HubSpot has restructured its content into smaller, easily extractable chunks, ensuring AI tools can swiftly locate specific information. This strategy has already resulted in 7% to 12% of HubSpot's monthly visitors originating from AI, a figure expected to grow significantly.
Expertise, Authority, and Trust in the AI Era
Spice Kitchen, a seller of spice gift sets, is developing a dedicated content cluster on the history of the spice trade. This approach, crafted with agency Lumos Digital, aims to establish authority on a topic, attracting AI bots and potential customers researching the subject. Nathan Pearson, co-founder of Lumos Digital, notes the shift from optimising product pages for immediate purchases to winning customers during their research and decision-making stages. He advises creating comprehensive buying guides with clear recommendations, as "AI loves that."
Andy Lochtie, also from Lumos Digital, stresses the importance of Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-A-T) indicators. This includes securing inbound links from reputable sites, linking out to high-quality external resources, and maintaining clear content policies and author biographies to boost credibility.
MKM Building Supplies, an independent builders' merchant, has also adopted a "defensive strategy" to ensure their expertise is referenced by AI models. Andy Pickup, their digital director, explains that AI visitors are proving to be more likely to make a purchase, theorising that receiving comprehensive information from AI instils greater confidence in buyers. MKM's new content features clear summaries, bulleted lists, and FAQs, making information readily digestible for AI. Despite Google's dominance, Pickup notes a "seismic shift" in user preference towards tools like ChatGPT, which is now sending more visitors than Google's own built-in AI.
