Before Larry Page and Sergei Brin rolled up their garage door for the first time, ready to launch Google, with its tight-fitting logo font and awkward, noughties energy, nobody thought to search like they do now.

Imagine having to go through a university degree without Google.

I’m serious, just imagine it.

Awful, right?

But believe it or not, there are some brave souls among us who used to have to lug books on their back, like a camel with a library card, searching for their erudite oasis somewhere in the depths of page 372.

Now the reason this is important is because GPT-style searches will be the same. Not only are you going to access new information, but the way you find it will change.

This means your SEO will have to update to meet it.

We’re so used to asking a direct question for a direct answer. A to B makes sense.

But a conversational style search is rolling in. That means more talking as like you and I would, and asking your questions in stages.

It opens up huge opportunities but our issue is that you (and every marketing team on the planet) has structured your SEO around an index model, rather than a conversational one.

But that’s changing. Google just released their new Bard AI and every big player is implementing their changes too. Soon, your customers will be searching far more conversationally and in incremental stages. Less people will land on your website, because their answers will be in the actual search itself.

So rather than trying to game your SEO, focussing on being as human as possible will probably be the way to go. If less people land through search engines, you’ll need to maximise the ones who do. A structural shift to focus on UI and Copywriting is going to be huge to keep them engaged. Don’t let them down.

If people are using chatbots to find answers to their questions, they won’t just stop needing your website for information. They’re also not going to benefit from Ads on SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) too.

So whilst you might personally find it a lot easier to get the exact detail of your next recipe without having to read an excruciating life-story about hummus, you need to be mindful that your business could be vulnerable too.

Consider exactly how much Ad traffic you could afford to lose and think of ways to diversify. You might need to shift to strategies like Demand-Gen. Focussing on offering genuine value to users first, to cultivate a relationship that trickles into commercial success.