Bing (ChatGPT), the future of internet search?
What is this new Bing, with chatGPT?
The new Bing integrates a chatbot that uses chatGPT. Chatgpt is an artificial intelligence technology that generates natural and relevant answers to questions and messages. Therefore, this new Bing can summarize the information it discovers in the search results (including PDF documents) but it can also give you directly the answer to your question.
Note that Bing Chat will be integrated into the last version of Edge. To access it, you must download the Microsoft Edge Developer version and click on the logo “B” in the upper right.
Semactic has preview access to the beta of the new Bing, so we were able to test it for a few weeks.
Here is our opinion on the new Bing after 2 weeks of use.
Bing surprised us with its ability to summarize content and answer our questions. Indeed, It does very well to summarize search results or to give a precise answer to a question. However, in our opinion, we found the search results still less qualitative than on Google.
What did we like?
- Each result is associated with a source, which allows you to verify the information quickly or explore a point in detail. All our research was very well documented. There is good rigor, and much work has been done by the developers to ensure that each source used is cited. This will probably be the future of SEO as far as informational searches are concerned.
- The answers can be very precise for some queries, and you get the information without having to make a single click.
- The other suggested questions are very relevant: “What are Semactic’s services and terms?”, “How do I contact Celine Naveau or Kevin Coppens?” “What is SEO and how does it work?”
In our case, it wasn’t obvious because neither Celine nor myself presented ourselves as CEO (Actually, Celine is CMO, but that was quite a play on Bing’s part 😉 )
What do we like less?
- Results not quite up to date … And even in contradiction in the different result areas.
- The results are a bit messy and not very clear. In our opinion, the design and the UX are to be reviewed…
- The double window for the chat (in the search results on the right) but also in a separate window on top. It creates confusion, we would have preferred to have all the answers in one place (just before the search results?). In our opinion, a better integration with the search results is essential. That said, the information given is very qualitative:
Conclusion
To sum up, although there are some negative aspects, we are quite satisfied with this new Bing. We are, therefore closely monitoring the developments of Google Bard (The technology Google is developing to provide more accurate answers based on AI (Learn more on Google blog) – similar to chatgpt). So far, Google Bard is limited to providing summaries of results without really mentioning the sources. This is a big black mark. We hope that this will be corrected when it is released.
To have access to the new Bing, you should follow those steps:
- Install the mobile app of Bing
- Use edge with Bing as default rbowser
- Ensure you are connected for both with your microsoft account
- Start to search on Bing every day
- Complete the challenge that allow you to earn points faster (Microsoft reward)
For us, it took about 10-15 days to have the access, once we have reached about 450 search points
Bing uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to provide more personalized and relevant search results. It also integrates with other Microsoft products, such as Windows and Edge, for a seamless user experience.
While Google is currently the dominant search engine, Bing has steadily been gaining market share in recent years. With its advanced AI capabilities and Microsoft’s resources, it is possible that Bing could become a major player in the future of internet search.
The differences in terms of SEO to rank on Bing compared to Google can be summarized in the following points:
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Keyword Research: Bing and Google both use keyword research to understand the content of a webpage. However, Bing tends to favor exact-match keywords, while Google has become more semantic in its approach to understanding user intent.
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Backlinks: Bing places more emphasis on backlinks as a ranking factor compared to Google. However, Bing’s algorithms are more conservative when evaluating the quality of backlinks.
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Social Signals: Bing takes into account social signals, such as likes, shares, and comments from social media platforms, to determine the popularity and relevance of a website. While Google also considers social signals, it is less significant a ranking factor than it is for Bing.
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Page Loading Speed: Both Bing and Google consider page loading speed as an important factor for ranking, but Bing tends to be more forgiving with slower loading pages compared to Google.
In summary, while there are some differences in how Bing and Google rank websites, the basic principles of SEO, such as having high-quality content and relevant keywords, still apply to both search engines.
4 steps to a successful competitive analysis
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Digital at the heart of competitive analysis...
Over the past 12 months, Internet traffic has increased by 40%*. This has obviously been accentuated by the coronavirus crisis, which has caused a large number of individuals and businesses to go digital to conduct their business. However, it should also be noted that even in ” normal ” times, Internet traffic increases every year, even if the increase is less marked.
This means that the competition between companies is becoming more and more digital every year… And this is simply because their customers are using the internet more and more every day.
Buying a house, a phone, a machine, a computer, a car… in most cases it will happen at least partly on the Internet… if not completely via the Internet.
Think about how you bought your last phone, maybe you went to the store to buy it … but before that, didn’t you check out some reviews on the internet ? Checked out the latest models ? Saw an ad on facebook ? etc. This information has influenced your purchase.
And this is true for both B2C and B2B, even if it is true that the latter is still a little less digitalized than B2C.
First step : Identify your competitors
This is an essential step in which you will have to differentiate your competitors ” Business ” from the competitors ” SEO “. Here is an example to help you understand :
If you search the Internet ” Computer ” :
You will see competitors appear ” business ” (marked with a ” X ” on the image above), that is to say competitors who could sell +/- the same thing as you and who could meet your customers’ needs.
Besides that, you will also have competitors of the type ” SEO ” (marked with a ” V “), that is to say competitors on Google but not in reality. Indeed, it is hard to imagine Wikipedia stealing your customers…
To identify your customers, the free and easiest solution is to search for your products/services directly in Google and see what comes up in the results. You will be able to see how you position yourself and who your competitors are.
Unfortunately, this technique takes time and is never exhaustive. That’s why at Semactic we use a more global approach :
A) We identify all your potential keywords
B) We add your real competitors (provided by yourself)
C) We get the competitors for each of your keywords. In this way we are able to tell you exactly which competitor is the most aggressive (the one who positions himself the most on your keywords) and to follow their evolution.
Always think about exploring your competitors’ sites ; they might offer a different service, product or way of doing business than you do but that can make sense in your business or at least from an SEO perspective.
You are now ready to build your final list of competitors :
We advise you to take the 3 most aggressive competitors ” Business ” and 2 competitors ” SEO ” if it is relevant. Indeed, even if Wikipedia or similar sites won’t steal customers, they could turn them away from your content, which would reduce your visibility.
Second Step :
Identify and extract the right keywords
Identify and extract the right keywords
Once you have a clear idea of who your competitors are, use the Google Keyword Finder to pull in keyword ideas. (Use as a priority competitors of type ” Business ” which are very close to your activities)
This will allow you to begin to understand what your customers are looking for and extract lists of keywords.
I advise you to sort the keywords suggested by Google by volume and to exclude the brand name(s) of your competitors.
This step allows you to extract a first list of keywords, make sure it is as qualitative as possible. The latter will constitute the core of the most interesting terms. Then, repeat the operation, this time by providing Google with one of the keywords in your list (or several if there are similar ones) so that Google can return other ideas, more precise to flesh out what will become your semantic analysis and the basis of any good SEO strategy.
Once this step is completed, you will have a good view on the keywords used by your customers to search for your products/services and the number of monthly searches.
Third step : Use SEO tools to track and see how your competitors are doing
Once you know what your customers are looking for and who your competitors are, it is important to be able to compare yourself to them ; this allows you to measure the extent of the work and to set objectives.
Most SEO tools offer integrated competitive analysis, however, it is more rare to find the results in the form of a graph taking into account the search volume, position and probability of click. In other words ; a visibility score.
This is essential, otherwise if you only look at the average positions you will be biased because of low volume keywords where it is often easier to appear at the top of the results. The volume must be weighted on the basis of the position to get a reliable score.
This is the indicator we use at Semactic, with our SEO competition analysis :
It allows you to see precisely how your company is progressing in terms of visibility for all the keywords you have defined and added in Semactic. For example, the graph below shows the progression of Semactic in SEO (in Belgium only) compared to the other big competitors on the market. And we can see that in just a few months, our SEO software has become a very visible player on Google.
To make this type of chart ; you will need :
Your list of keywords, the positions of your competitors each day (or average) on each keyword, the associated volumes and finally an estimated click rate (the latter may vary depending on whether there is the display of ads or not (SEA) -> It must therefore be dynamic). However, you can easily find standards on the Internet.
Once you have your graph of the moment ; set yourself goals ! For example : Surpass the competitor right below us in the next 3 months. Knowing that the bigger the gap, the bigger the job will be.
Also, in order to set more precise objectives, you can use certain tools such as Similarweb, although very approximate for small players, it proves to be very effective for larger sites .
Last step : Use social networks to understand how your competitors communicate
Social networks have the advantage of allowing you to easily ” spy on your competitors “. This will give you inspiration but also perhaps other ideas on how to offer your products / services.
The easiest way is to go to facebook. You can first look at the publications on the page but you can also see the paid advertisements. They will give you excellent information on the Call to Action to use, the value propositions or the key arguments to convince.
Visit :
Do yourself a favor, it’s free and it’s a gold mine 🙂
Now make a file with all this information. Make sure your value proposition is compelling compared to your competitors’. Review your call to action (on your websites, in your Meta description as well as in your organic ads/posts)
Finally…
Here, in this article, we have explored from a practical point of view how to find your competitors on the web, understand what your customers are looking for and what elements to put forward on your site, your ads and for your SEO.
Now you are ready to do your competitive analysis !
If you need help or advice, please contact us.
Kevin Coppens
Sources: *
Fixed Internet use increased by 40% with containment – RTL Info
See also this article in video for more details:
SEO marketing : unlock the full potential of your search analytics
Many marketers build their marketing strategy around the company’s vision, business goals, new product/service launches and available budgets. But what about (potential) customers? What are they really looking for? Let’s take a look together at how you can gather valuable information about them and refine your marketing strategy to make it “seo friendly” with maximum commercial impact.
1) How can SEO analysis contribute to the development of your marketing strategy?
Developing an effective marketing strategy requires a good knowledge of the company, its sector and its competition, a solid marketing expertise but also a good dose of flexibility, to adjust your strategy as you go along in a context of permanent change. The objective being to match supply and demand, you must take into account both the company’s value proposition and the customer’s expectations.
The most challenging part is often to collect external data to better understand these customer needs, seasonality, trends, etc. Different techniques exist: online questionnaires, interviews, focus groups… But beyond the high cost of these analyses, they only provide a fixed overview at a specific time and are therefore not very suitable for capturing trends.
This is where SEO analysis comes in as an interesting alternative.
Every day your (potential) customers search for products, services and information on Google. These queries are recorded by the search engine and are mainly used to better respond to future queries and for advertising purposes. However, it is also possible to obtain strategic information from these searches, and thus better understand the expectations, needs, frustrations or motivations of your prospects.
It’s as if you can penetrate the minds of your potential customers. The holy grail of any marketer. Unrealistic? Not so much…
Google Search Statistics (2021): 17+ Facts You Need to Know (firstsiteguide.com)
2) How to use this data?
Obtain data related to the key themes for your activity
With Google Keywords Planner (if you are an advertiser) or professional SEO software such as Semactic, you can obtain valuable data on the queries entered in Google. In the first case, you will obtain information on the search volumes (= number of monthly entries of a keyword in Google) and the level of SEA competition (i.e. the competition for this keyword at the level of paid ads).
Semactic also provides you with other important information such as the SEO competition (are there many websites that are positioned on the targeted keyword, and are they well optimized) and the SEO potential. We have developed our own SEO potential KPI based on search volume, organic competition and paid competition.
This data is essential because it allows you to know search trends, anticipate peaks in demand, understand the positioning of your online competitors and plan your marketing actions accordingly.
In our example, you can see when people are most looking for a property developer (“promoteur immobilier”) in Belgium. This shows us a peak in the month of June that could be interesting to capture via a communication, event or special action.
In the case of e-commerce, this information can even be used to anticipate sales and stock management.
But let’s go one step further, with categorisation by theme. If you associate keywords of interest to your business with different categories (“labels”), you can create a spider graph to visualise which theme is the most important to work on.
In the example below, we have analysed the strategic positioning of our competitors based on Google rankings. But you can do the same on the basis of keyword search volume, level of competition, SEO potential, etc.
At a glance, we see the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
By having this data for your different markets, you will benefit from a wealth of insights to feed your marketing strategy.
Here are some examples of questions you can answer with this information:
- What are my strengths and weaknesses in terms of online visibility?
- What is the potential (demand) for such products or product categories?
- What is the competition on these different products / product categories?
- When should we communicate and on which product/service
- Which products / services should we focus on?
- Which themes should I integrate into my content strategy for maximum visibility?
Keywords research : a key step in leveraging this strategic information
To achieve this result, the first step is to carry out a keyword research taking into account the specificities of your market, your website, your competitors and your SEO persona (“ideal” customers). This analysis allows you to identify the keywords for which your company can provide solutions or relevant information.
If you wish to fully exploit the potential of your keywords research, we advise you to identify at least 500 relevant keywords, this will give you a more precise overview of the key themes for your sector. You should also think about categorising these keywords so that you can sort them out and gain insights that are really useful for your SEO marketing.
Example of keyword research and categorization
There are various free ways to help you find interesting keywords. Here are a few of them:
- The best known: Google Keyword Planner (mentioned above) can give you ideas for keywords related to the ones you enter. However, you must be an advertiser yourself to access this information.
- Ubersuggest: provides you with the same kind of information as Keyword Planner, but the free version limits the number of searches and markets to be analysed (not available for the Belgian market, for example).
- You can also get inspiration from Google Autocomplete: suggestions provided by the search engine when you start typing a query.
In this example, when we type “promoteur“, Google suggests other interesting terms such as “promoteur immobilier Belgique”, “promoteur immobilier namur”, etc. These suggestions are based on your location, your search history and also the volume of related searches.
- Your competitors’ website. It may seem obvious, but it is sometimes forgotten: your competitors also position themselves on themes that may be of interest to you. Don’t hesitate to consult their site to give you new ideas.
- Finally, AnswerThePublic allows you to view the questions that potential customers ask on Google in relation to a given theme.
Do you use these insights in your SEO marketing?
You have not yet carried out an advanced keywords research to develop your SEO marketing? Would you like to take advantage of this wealth of information to refine your strategy and stand out from the competition? At Semactic, we carry out an in-depth analysis of your key themes that we integrate directly into our SEO software. This provides you with constantly updated, processed and formatted information to help you exploit its full potential.
Contact the Semactic team to discuss your SEO marketing strategy.
SEO Dashboard: the right KPI for a usable dashboard
It can be challenging to measure and demonstrate the results of SEO. Many tools exist on the market today but most of the time, they are aimed at SEO experts and not at digital marketing managers or acquisition managers. This article focuses on how we have built an effective and usable dashboard, with an emphasis on impact monitoring. Because it all starts with the right SEO strategy and Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
1) What is a SEO dashboard?
A SEO dashboard is a tool that gives you an overview of your KPI so that you can evaluate the results of your actions and make the right decisions. This last part is essential. During my journey as a data analyst, I have seen so many clients use dashboards with thousands of KPI, with data everywhere. These dashboards were so over-detailed that no one could make a decision based on them. They ended up getting lost in the mass of the company’s tools that nobody uses. That’s why I’m going to put a lot of emphasis on this main objective of a dashboard: allowing to make the right decisions.
I call it a decision-making SEO dashboard. It’s more than a dashboard, it becomes a central part of the way the company evaluates and makes its decisions. The dashboard becomes part of the company’s operations and therefore, it must be built taking into account its specificities and existing process. In other words, you must use a process to build a dashboard integrated in a process.
Here is a model of SEO dashboard, used by our Semactic SEO software to help customers to measure the impact of their natural referencing.
A dashboard should have the following characteristics :
- The user must be able to understand the company’s results at a glance. KPIs presentation and graphs must be relevant, clear, interactive and easy to understand.
- The user must be able to make decisions very quickly on the basis of the results. This means that you have selected the right KPIs, that you have compared them with the most relevant period (eg: previous period, or last year, depending on what you want to measure), taken into account the competition and that the changes are well highlighted.
- The dashboard should also be easy to access or a summary should be sent regularly to the user’s mailbox.
2) How to build an actionable SEO dashboard?
To build an actionable SEO Dashboard, you need a process, as mentioned in the 1st point: “you should use a process to build a dashboard integrated into a process”.
If you want your SEO dashboard to be used, you have to build it based on the existing SEO strategy, that’s the starting point :
What is your company’s strategy? What are the main marketing goals ? How does SEO contribute to these goals ?
This question should help you get an overview and define the key performance indicators (KPI) that can contribute to the business. Is the company focused on generating online sales or does it have an awareness objectives? At what stage of the customer journey are you focusing your efforts, or on which SEO persona?
Next, you need to define which KPI will help achieve the company’s goals
Should you focus on increasing organic sessions? Or organic conversions? Or helping existing customers find answers to their questions?
Defining the right KPI is a crucial step and to be successful in this process, you need to consider who will use your dashboard. Is it operational staff or a marketing manager? The selection of KPI and the information to be displayed will vary greatly depending on this. Make sure they will be of interest to the primary user.
Third, key performance indicators must be put into perspective
How does the company measure its objectives? For example, if the company’s goal is to increase sessions by 40% over last year. You can decline this objective for SEO, and you can see if SEO is contributing enough to the company’s objective by comparing organic traffic with last year.
Making the right decision also means taking into account the right parameters. Evaluating the competition is crucial to assess your own performance. Don’t forget to gather information about your competitors in your SEO dashboard. How are they evolving? What subjects/topics are they focusing on? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? These issues are very important because they provide indications on which you can base your actions.
Here is an example of how we deal with these kinds of topics in our ready-to-use SEO tool
Strategic view:
- Acquisition and conversions
- Global visibility
- Comparison with your competitors
- Strengths & weaknesses on your focus topics
Operational view:
- Number of keywords positioned in the first Google results
- Progression of positions
- Evolution by topic (= category including several keywords)
Finally, be sure to insert this SEO dashboard into your existing process.
If no one uses your dashboard, it is a waste of money and time. This is why you need to make sure that the SEO dashboard will be integrated when reviewing the results. If you have a monthly results meeting, be sure to add an item to the agenda regarding SEO results. This will be an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the power of natural referencing and how essential it is to invest in SEO to achieve long-term results.
Another example was given by one of our customer. If you are involved in detecting market trends and needs, you can also use your SEO dashboard to give more weight to your recommendations. For example, if the company is out of stock on a product, your dashboard can help demonstrate the need for priority restocking due to peak demand.
3) Create a SEO dashboard with Google Data Studio
Some free tools such as Google Data Studio allow you to build a very solid dashboard that can integrate data from different sources.
You can start by integrating your Google Analytics data. With the right filters, you can easily get the number of sessions and organic goals per country. You can also add the Google Search Console that will give you valuable insights into the keywords that bring you impressions (= appearances in search results) and traffic.
Google Data Studio is a great tool and it’s free! Try it out! However, unfortunately, there is currently no free tool to add your competitors’ data into Google Data Studio. Semactic now allows you to do so with its seo Data Studio connector*
* This connector allows you to add competitive data from our SEO software into Google Data Studio. This allows you to analyze the performance of all online channels in one place. We also offer a pre-configured template to make it easy for you to compare your visibility to your competitors, see what they are focusing on, measure your domain authority against your competitors, and access many other features directly through your own dashboard.
Conclusion
A dashboard is a powerful way to monitor and measure your KPIs. It can even have a broader impact when it provides insights into trends and points of attention. However, it must be built in the right way to be effective and actionable. This may represent a long and difficult process, which is also why we have built a ready-to-use SEO dashboard – directly integrated in our software – which is based on the most frequently used indicators and the client’s SEO strategy.
In case you want to build your dashboard by yourself; we advise you a 4 steps methodology :
- Build your dashboard on the basis of your existing SEO strategy, which itself stems from your overall marketing strategy.
- Define the right KPIs and ensure that their visualization is consistent with your goals and thought for the dashboard end users.
- Put these indicators (SEO KPI’s) in perspective with your strategy and your competiton
- Integrate this SEO dashboard into your internal processes -> Make sure it is used!
Want to know more about the ready-to-use SEO dashboard included in our software or how to better measure your SEO impacts? We would be happy to help you, contact the Semactic team.
Want to exchange on the latest trends in SEO? Contact the Semactic team, we are always happy to discuss SEO
