AI is flooding the zone with content. New AI content is so easy to create that stores who used to struggle to post once or twice a week can now post multiple times a day. And they are posting multiple times a day, so you need to; but it’s cheap, and easy, so everyone is doing it more, and more, and more…WAIT! It all sounds great until you realize that all that content is going to make indexing the web and determining which sites are actually awesome, much harder for search engines. Google’s customer is the searcher, who has tasked Google with finding the best answer for their query. Before AI, Google rewarded sites that provided lots of up-to-date, relevant information. It’s a smart machine, but it’s still just a machine that uses AI to rank sites. That’s getting harder to do by the minute. So what’s a nice search engine like Google or Bing to do? They can spend time trying to determine if the content on the site is AI generated. That’s going to give their AI a workout, which means a lot more computing resources will be required. Sites will probably get dinged if they use too much AI content. How much is too much? Only the search engines will know that, but it’s probably going to be a ratio like follow/nofollow links.

So what IS going to make your site rank?

Engagement is the hardest metric to fake. It’s a measure of how long and how much visitors interact with a site. Sites that post a lot of AI content will get more eyeballs on social media. Just like a fisherman who puts out lots of baited hooks will catch more fish than a fisherman who just puts out one. That is, until there are so many AI generated memes, reels, ads, clips and junk that only your peeps are going to see the new content and everyone is going to have to pay to get seen beyond your active subscribers. (Seriously, Facebook is already creating “characters” aka fake people, to boost engagement.) Getting real visitors to click more and stay longer is where the magic really is.

So how do you increase engagement?

The same way you get anyone to hang out with you — bribe them or be fun. Bribing them can get expensive, (God knows I’ve spent a fortune on my nieces.) but free shipping, gift with purchase, BOGO and other types of sales are a great way to attract shoppers. You can add one of the spin to get a discount wheels, which add a few clicks, but costs margin dollars. You can start a loyalty program or work with influencers. Then again, you could just make your site more fun to shop for almost no money.

So how do you make your website fun to shop?

If you’re on Shopify, just add Stylaquin. It’s that simple. Stylaquin adds a whole new experience to shopping that turns the boring click in, click out, click in, click out, shopping experience into one of discovery. It’s so much more fun to shop with Stylaquin that shoppers stay 70% longer and view 185% more items. Not all shoppers use Stylaquin when they shop, but think about what a huge impact having 10-15% of your visitors stay 70% longer and view 185% more products would have on your SEO.  Did I mention that they come back more often? They do. In fact they are 300% more likely to come back if they shop with Stylaquin, and they’ll buy more. Stylaquin increases conversion rates about 300 basis points for the average Stylaquin shopper, but it really slays with repeat visitors who convert around 600 basis points higher. Check out the video below to learn more.

What’s the best strategy to break through the AI chatter?

Post good relevant content. If you are using AI to generate your content, be sure to add a human touch. AI is amazing—I use it to generate ideas, do research, spot mistakes in my own writing, and more. The temptation to just hand over the hard, and not always rewarding, job of content creation to a hardworking bot is almost irresistible, but once the dust settles, you may find the path less traveled has led you to a better place.