Every conference in the local search and commerce worlds in recent history has featured sessions on location data, listings, and SEO strategies. But that’s not to say it’s repetitive… there are always new ranking factors, devices, and user habits to consider. So what’s new this year? (spoiler: lots of AI).
Key Takeaways
- Generative and conversational AI impacts local data and SEO, just like they’re starting to impact every corner of the digital marketing world. This plays out in several ways.
- On the consumer end, they’re gradually being conditioned by ChatGPT to search in conversational natural-language ways, as opposed to keywords.
- Benish likens this keyword-driven behavior to searching like a caveman (“want food near me”). It’s not natural, so the adoption curve for natural-language search could be relatively fast.
- All the above impacts the art of SEO and place data, given that searches are becoming more granular. In other words, conversational language is inherently more detailed (e.g., I’m looking for a downtown bar with a rooftop that is pet-friendly and has gin-based specialty cocktails).
- This will compel the local data providers of the world to align their software and make sure that they can enable local businesses to optimize their online presence accordingly.
- Speaking of which, generative and conversational AI will offer benefits on the merchant end, in terms of automating some of their digital marketing and SEO workflows.
- We’re already seeing this play out with Google’s recent updates that write things like page meta descriptions on behalf of a local business.
- This will resonate with SMBs because they’re not natural writers and marketers. And it will resonate with multi-location brands that can streamline the painful process of managing business data at scale.
Building Blocks More Crucial Now With Generative AI
As the utilization of OpenAI and ChatGPT continues to soar, the demands and expectations of customers will escalate, emphasizing the utmost importance of precise base Listing information and POI
Speakers
Stu Kendall, Foursquare
Kelly Benish, Uberall
