Google began rolling out the new Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) to people on the Search Labs waitlist.

SGE adds generative AI capabilities to Google Search results. Here’s a look inside the SGE on desktop and mobile and how SGE results compare to typical Google SERP features.

How To Get Access To Google SGE Via Search Labs

To access SGE and other experimental features, you must sign up for the Search Labs Warteliste.

SGE features will be available in Google Chrome for desktop users and in the Google app for iOS Und Android users.

Watch for an email from Google or a notification from the Google app welcoming you to Search Labs.

Once you receive your welcome, you can find SGE on the Search Labs page and other new experimental features like Code Tips and Add To Sheets.

Note that Add to Sheets is not available for mobile users in the Google app.

SGE For Desktop & Mobile Users

Here’s a look at Google with SGE enabled in Google Chrome on a desktop. You can see AI conversation prompts below the search bar.

SGE in the Google app on mobile offers a similar option, labeled Converse, below the search bar. This leads to a screen with prompts to start your SGE conversation.

Now, let’s look at Google SGE responses compared to standard Google SERP features.

1. SGE For SERPs With FAQ, People Also Ask, & Knowledge Panel Features

First, I tried a simple question: What is Google Bard?

Google SGE provided an answer using six sources to answer the question. Five of the six sources about Google Bard were from publishers, while one was an official Google Bard Help page.

You can toggle the viewing option at the top right of the AI result to see which sources are used to craft the summary.

Beneath the generative AI response, you can see the standard Google search results appear with organic search results, people also ask, and a knowledge panel.

While you may have access to the Add to Sheets feature in Search Labs, it only appears on organic search results – not the AI-powered answer.

Add to Sheets simply adds the search result to an existing or new Google Sheet.

In the Google app with SGE, you can see a variation of the generative AI response, followed by the knowledge panel, people also ask, and organic search results.

In this example, you can see that the sources chosen by SGE do not always match the top organic search results.

2. SGE For SERPs With The Local Pack Feature

Next, I asked about the top Italian restaurants in Phoenix,

Google SGE provided an answer similar to the local pack.

The top three restaurants the generative AI chose slightly differed from those shown in the local pack on the desktop browser.

The generative AI response on mobile provided the same restaurants as the local pack, followed by the usual local pack and organic search results.

3. SGE For SERPs With Sitelinks

For this one, I searched for Semrush, which usually includes sitelinks, people also ask, and a knowledge panel.

In this instance, Google asked if I wanted to “Get an AI-powered overview for this search?”

SGE provided the following answer using third-party sources about Semrush after I clicked on Generate.

The generative AI provided a similar response in the Google app after asking if I wanted the AI results.

4. SGE For SERPs With Shopping & Reviews

Are you looking for a 4k camcorder under $500? Here are the shopping results with reviews provided by SGE, which include advice on what to look for in a camcorder.

Standard SERPs only show where to buy a camcorder that fits your search query, followed by shopping results with reviews.

On mobile, SGE generates advice and a lot of suggestions on what camcorders to purchase before showing organic search results.

5. SGE For SERPs With Product Details & Store Listings

When inquiring about a specific feature of a product, SGE can give you precise details, followed by reviews and the best purchasing options.

Typical search results would focus on content from the brand, followed by people also ask and organic search results.

The mobile SGE response also includes a list of stores before returning to the official website in organic search results.

6. SGE For SERPs With Sponsored Ads & Featured Snippets

For a broad search on link building, SGE offers a definition based on six sources about the topic.

Google SERPs would typically show several sponsored results from Google advertisers, followed by a featured snippet, people also ask, and organic search results.

The generative AI response from the Google app was similar, although it used eight sources instead of just six.

7. SGE For News And Top Stories

When searching for the latest AI news, SGE pulls from the five most recent news sources.

Google SERPs, on the other hand, typically display seven of the top headlines related to the search query.

On mobile, SGE serves up six of the most recent new sources, followed by a different selection from the news and top stories results.

8. SGE For SERPs With Images

If you want a new pack of social media logos for your website, you must be more specific about SGE. Its response is the definition of social media logos from articles around the web.

Standard Google search results begin with image results from websites that offer social media logo packs and the ability to filter image results by criteria such as a transparent background.

The generative AI provides a similar definition and guidelines for using social media logos on mobile, followed by images, people also ask, and organic search results.

9. SGE For SERPs With Video

Do you need to fix a broken pair of glasses? SGE offers advice from three sources.

Without SGE, Google offers several videos with key moments to choose from based on the part of the repair you need assistance with, followed by people also ask, more YouTube videos, and organic search results.

The Google app offers AI-powered advice, followed by a featured snippet, people also ask, organic search results, and videos.

10. SGE For SERPs With Events

Want to see what events are coming up in your area? This SGE response for upcoming events in San Francisco offers a long list of suggestions from five sources.

Google search results commonly provide the following list of events in calendar format.

The SGE experience on mobile offers a similar list of events with more sources, followed by the events list calendar and organic search results.

11. SGE With Code Tips

Some queries, such as this for a Python SEO function, will result in a response from Code Tips if enabled in Search Labs.

Generative AI offers an immediate solution. Typical Google search results would give you links to find similar solutions.

The Google app will also provide Code Tips for mobile users, followed by people also ask and organic search results.

12. SGE For Unavailable Queries

Some search queries will (ironically) result in the message, “An AI-powered overview is not available for this search.”

Initial Observations About The Search Labs Preview Of Google SGE

Google seems to be placing publishers first in its new generative AI search experience.

Most AI-powered overviews included information from three to five publisher websites instead of the official website or social profiles for the topic at hand. While this could help increase traffic for publishers, it may decrease traffic for brand-owned properties.

When a generative AI response appears in search results on a desktop or mobile device, it pushes SERP features like featured snippets, images, videos, people also ask, knowledge panels, and organic search results below the fold.

While some SGE answers seemed to provide less value than typical SERP features, it’s important to remember that this is just the beginning of the future of AI search.

---

Featured image: 13_Phunkod/Shutterstock

If you get paid as an SEO consultant by the hour or project, your earning potential will always be limited by the number of hours you work.

And once you stop working, the money stops flowing, too.

Even if you manage to work more efficiently or raise your rates, there will always be a maximum limit to your income. How do you get over that wall?

Roland Fraiser suggests you start getting paid for the value you bring to your clients to overcome this limitation and unlock higher earnings.

“Don’t let your genius be someone else’s retirement.” – Roland Fraiser

In a recent episode of the SEJ Show, we had the privilege of hosting Roland, an award-winning podcast host, Stanford University Advisor, and principal of six of Inc.’s fastest-growing companies.

Roland shared some fascinating insights into alternative payment models and how consultants and agencies can start the transition to generating wealth and income.

Why Consulting For Equity Is The Smart Way To Get Paid

Roland emphasized the importance of not relying solely on traditional compensation models such as flat fees, hourly payments, or revenue shares.

These models are not sustainable from a quality-of-life perspective because they require continuous work to generate income.

Instead, Roland suggests that consultants and agencies avoid the “dollars for hours” trap and find ways to transform their efforts and the value they provide into equity.

The concept is to leverage your knowledge, skills, and connections to negotiate compensation that reflects your long-term contributions and the growth in business value.

If your contributions continue to benefit the business, you deserve to be rewarded with a share of profits or equity.

How To Find Consulting For Equity Opportunities

Getting paid in equity requires some effort. Negotiating these payment models takes time, and if you’re not careful, it can result in no immediate income.

Roland learned this lesson firsthand:

“When I started out in this field a long time ago, I made several mistakes and ended up with equity in twenty businesses but no money. Most of the time, the businesses either didn’t generate profits or reinvested them for growth, leaving little to distribute…So, I was putting in a lot of work without any income. It taught me the importance of having both income and wealth.”

To avoid this pitfall, Roland recommends the following steps:

1. Focus on businesses with existing cash flow and profitability rather than startups.
2. Identify areas where you can significantly impact and add value to the company.
3. Quantify the value you can bring, such as cost savings or revenue generation.
4. Calculate the percentage of value you can contribute to the overall worth of the business.
5. Approach the business owner with a clear proposal, emphasizing the ongoing value you can provide.
6. Negotiate the terms, considering factors like milestone-based or KPI-based compensation if necessary.
7. Present your contribution as an ongoing investment that increases the business’s overall value.
8. Determine the specific valuation and agree on the terms reflecting your added value.

One of Roland’s most critical tips is to maintain open communication with the client and ensure that you deliver on your promises to establish trust in the relationship.

Positioning Yourself To Consult for Equity

Unlike hourly or project revenue models, equity payment models require preparation, including branding, strategic positioning, and demonstrating the value of offering comprehensive services.

1. Transition From SEO To Growth Strategist

To avoid being limited to a specific role or expertise, it’s crucial to establish a clear brand and define your desired positioning.

You need to move beyond being solely identified as an SEO specialist.

Instead, aim to be seen as a strategic partner, offering a broader range of expertise for greater value and opportunities.

2. Build Strategic Alliances

Align yourself with professionals who offer complementary services to enhance your value proposition.

Collaborating with experts in different areas allows you to take a holistic approach to problem-solving and demonstrate a broader range of capabilities to potential clients or employers.

3. Craft A Unique Brand Identity

Throughout the episode, Roland emphasized the significance of branding in shaping a potential client’s perception.

Defining a differentiating factor that unifies your various areas of expertise is crucial, he says. Choose a specific focus or specialization within the broader growth landscape, such as AI for demand generation.

This niche selection allows you to stand out in a crowded market by presenting yourself as a problem solver with unique insights and approaches, bringing exceptional value to the table.

4. Content Strategy for Brand Expansion

After establishing a focused brand identity, consultants can gradually expand their content strategy to cover broader topics within their expertise.

For example, Roland Fraiser transitioned from being recognized as the “acquisitions guy” to exploring related fields like exits and fundraising.

This progressive expansion demonstrates his continuous growth and adaptability while retaining his initial brand positioning.

4. Communicate Your Value And Goals

Consulting for equity relies on your ability to communicate your value and long-term goals to clients.

From the beginning, share your intention to deliver exceptional results and create lasting partnerships.

And don’t hesitate to express your desire to obtain equity in a company. Roland says doing so does four things:

1. The client realizes that having you as a partner is an option.
2. Clients demonstrate that they believe in you.
3. Shows the client is willing to invest in themselves.
4. The client understands your goals.

It also demonstrates your long-term commitment, brings the value you provide to the front of their minds, and can be the foundation for a solid long-term relationship.

Abschluss

For the right SEO, marketing professional, or agency, alternative compensation models such as equity or fractional c-suite positions may be the ideal way to take your career (and your income) to the next level.

Looking for more tips and insights from Roland on how to start consulting for equity? Be sure to check out Episode 308 of the SEJ Show.

On May 27, 2023, WordPress celebrates 20 years of extraordinary growth. It powers approximately 43% of all websites and is the leading content management system by far.

How did WordPress achieve this milestone and will it be able to continue as arguably the most successful open source project ever?

About This Article

This article was initially conceived as a comparison between Duda, WordPress, and Wix.

However, as I spoke to the developers and people behind the scenes at each company I realized that each platform was the best at solving the problems they set out to solve.

So, what began as one article about three platforms became a three-part series about each platform individually.

Today we look at why WordPress is popular with web design agencies, search marketers, enterprise publishers and ecommerce sites, to name a few successful uses of WordPress.

This article features Josepha Haden Chomphosy (LinkedIn), the Executive Director of WordPress, as well as others who partner with WordPress, to discuss why WordPress is so successful.

WordPress Democratized the Internet

Previous to WordPress one had to spend a small fortune for an enterprise Content Management System (CMS) to obtain what WordPress gives away for free. The alternative was to learn how to code or at the very least to know how to use software like Dreamweaver.

The launch of WordPress democratized online publishing, and arguably became the single most important innovation to spring from the Internet.  The positive economic impact on millions of people worldwide cannot be overstated.

A strong case could be made that WordPress, a free open source software, is the most important innovation of the Internet age today.

Secret to Success: Make it Easy to Use

What makes drove the success of WordPress is the fact that it is purposely designed to be easy to install and get publishing fast. This is literally a guiding principle of virtually every decision made in the development of WordPress.

This principle is laid out in an official statement of the WordPress philosophy:

“Great software should work with little configuration and setup. WordPress is designed to get you up and running and fully functional in no longer than five minutes. You shouldn’t have to battle to use the standard functionality of WordPress.

We work hard to make sure that every release is in keeping with this philosophy. We ask for as few technical details as possible during the setup process as well as providing full explanations of anything we do ask.”

Underlying their philosophy is the dedication to freedom.

The webpage on philosophy promises WordPress users:

• “The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
• The freedom to redistribute.
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.”

Launched Millions of Businesses

This focus on simplicity, freedom and fostering an ecosystem of innovation has, over the course of the past 20 years, resulted in the launch of millions of websites and the success of millions of businesses around the world.

Tom Zsomborgi, Chief Business Officer at managed web hosting company, Kinsta, had this to say about the power of WordPress:

“Smaller merchants benefit tremendously from WordPress. For them, budget is often limited when it comes to building and maintaining a site, not all can afford a developer.

WordPress gives them the software for free without the need to pay a monthly fee for using it, which includes the free WooCommerce ecommerce plugin that unlocks ecommerce capabilities.

Tens of thousands of plugins give the freedom and flexibility to merchants to tailor WordPress for their custom needs.

Plus it doesn’t require a steep learning curve. Learning how to use WordPress is easy.

But all these benefits attract not just smaller merchants but also big enterprises and huge media companies, too.

I’ve seen many times a store starting with one product turning into a big e-commerce store with thousands of offerings in just a few years or a blogger sharing her thoughts and turning that little blog into an industry news site with millions of visitors.”

WordPress Is  Adaptable

A major reason why WordPress is so popular is that it is adaptable for seemingly any use case, from simple blogging to ecommerce and even enterprise level publishing.

Leading websites such as TechCrunch, Southern Bancorp, Vogue, Sony Music, The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, all use WordPress.

Jason Cross, SVP of Digital Presence and Commerce, Newfold Digital (parent company of Bluehost) offered his observations on the remarkable adaptability of the WordPress publishing platform.

He shared:

“WordPress delivers broad compatibility with existing technologies and rapid compatibility with emerging ones.

WordPress’ greatest advantage is its flexibility and the way you can incorporate practically any imaginable feature through plugins.

If a feature does not yet exist, the open platform allows web developers to build custom functionality.

Managed WordPress, in turn, bridges the best of open-source and proprietary CMS by providing powerful all-in-one solutions and the relative ease many closed platforms offer, but with significantly more control and long-term reliability via open-source software and data formats.

All of the data and code on your site is yours; you can take it with you as you upgrade to more powerful platforms, switch domains, make a backup or move the data to another platform or service.

Since WordPress is portable, you can start out on an affordable shared hosting plan with a low barrier to entry given the cost, flexibility and functionality available.

Once your site picks up in popularity, you can upgrade to a Managed Hosting plan for additional peace of mind and a much of the same functionality a closed platform provides.

Many hosts, Bluehost included, are actively working to simplify the website setup journey.”

Managed WordPress hosting takes care of the technical overhead typically associated with using WordPress, allowing publishers and ecommerce stores to focus on publishing and selling products.

Factors such as site speed, automatic backups, hacking defense, software updates and maintenance are all handled by the managed WordPress hosting provider.

That a web host can configure WordPress to provide an experience similar to a closed source system is an example of the remarkable adaptability of the WordPress publishing platform.

Interview With Executive Director of WordPress

We interviewed Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the Executive Director of WordPress, to explore why WordPress is the first choice for so many publishers and developers around the world.

WordPress was initially known as a blogging platform but it’s actually a good platform for ecommerce, as simple or as complex as is needed.

What kinds of merchants benefit most from creating in WordPress?

WordPress’ mission is to democratize publishing, meaning merchants of all sizes and types can benefit from creating with it.

Whether they use WordPress to build their entire business—from stores and customer management to marketing and communications—or as part of a suite of tools, they get more control and ownership of their brand over time.

However, if I were to choose a single group that benefits the most, it would have to be small to medium business owners. They can get high-quality sites and tools at costs that work for any business budget while ensuring that their software is here to stay.

Can WordPress scale with a business?

“The versatility and freedom of tools offered by WordPress are key advantages for businesses of all sizes over other solutions.

It’s software that gives you everything you need but lets you remove anything you don’t want, no matter your size or what you’re doing.

But on top of being flexible, it is absolutely scalable.

WordPress is a high-performance platform with strict security standards that powers millions of sites ranging from blogs to internationally recognized corporations and media outlets, attracting millions of daily page views.

This demonstrates how powerful and trusted WordPress is as an open source content management system (CMS) and its scalability to meet the needs of the highest volume, most security-conscious, and most demanding digital properties.”

What is the cost-benefit of a platform like WordPress versus closed-source solutions?

“While owning a copy of the WordPress software is free and requires no licensing fees, like any site solution, there are some costs associated with hosting, domain registration, and premium upgrades.

Yet, the cost-benefit of choosing WordPress lies in long-term predictability and ownership.

No matter what platform you choose to create your online presence, it can take a few days to get started.

And after that, it can take you a few months or years to build your audience.

The benefit of choosing WordPress is that you own all that hard work (and that hard-won audience attention) for as long as you want to keep your site.

We have no centralized content recommendation algorithms, no claims of ownership over your published work, and no terms of service changes that can cut you off from the effort you put in.

It’s yours. And that’s it.”

How does managed hosting add value to WordPress?

From the outside, managed hosting of WordPress has the same benefits as any hosted proprietary solution—namely, the convenience of not managing your own server.

As a bonus, content and configurations made on a managed host are still yours to keep. So you can move your sites from a GDPR-conscious host to a sustainability-conscious host if you want and not have to start over from scratch each time.

WordPress Creates Opportunity

WordPress enables people to create a business and livelihood online.

But it also helps create thousands of jobs around the world, from web hosts and domain registrars to theme and plugin developers, and web developers whose jobs exist because WordPress exists.

WordPress comes with a massive community of supporters that help make anything possible with it.

Josepha had this to say about the WordPress community:

“WordPress creates jobs around the world. I’m thinking of web developers, plugin developers, and so on.

The WordPress ecosystem creates opportunities that no other closed system can claim.

WordPress owes so much of its success to the open source community, and one of the key elements that being open source gives us is that we are open by design, which lets us be inclusive by design.

Contributors explore problems, test solutions, and teach each other all in public, creating an environment of innovation for the software and a vibrant town square mentality for the people who contribute to it.

By staying true to the guiding principles of free, open source software, we can recognize that ‘good ideas can come from anywhere‘ applies to all parts of our ecosystem, including who can participate and thrive in it.

This understanding led us to create the Five for the Future program and initiatives, ensuring the software’s continuity and the future sustainability of the project and its ecosystem.”

WordPress Is Here to Stay

What makes WordPress a viable product is that it has  a strong community supporting it, which means that it is here to stay.

The Five for the Future is a program that encourages WordPress related businesses to give back to the community in order to help keep it healthy and viable.

According to the WordPress Five for the Future webpage, contributing can take many forms:

“Anyone can contribute to Five for the Future.

Many contributors focus on the technical side of WordPress, such as core development, but there are also teams working in other areas like marketing, translation, training, and community.

There is always a way to get involved, whatever your skill set.”

WordPress is the most popular publishing platform today with an ecosystem of support that can help anyone start a site and grow their business, no matter what kind of business it is.

It has transformed the face of the Internet and is the reason for millions of jobs. The websites published on the platform are quite easily a part of everyone’s life today, even if a reader discovering something new doesn’t know it.

Happy 20th birthday, WordPress!

Featured image by Shutterstock/Ink Drop