Over the years, we’ve seen some epic battles between search engine giants. We’ve watched as Google, Bing, and Yahoo have gone head-to-head, each vying for market share. Now, a new challenger has entered the arena–Bing’s chatbot AI. 

Launching this experimental tool last February 7, 2023 put Microsoft ahead of the race–and forced Google to take Bing seriously as a challenger for the future of search. 

But, the question is this: can Bing’s Chat AI take down Google Bard? Let’s probe further.

How Bing Chat AI Fares Now

Powered by OpenAI, Bing’s new chatbot was designed to deliver better search results and provide a new search experience for users–and it worked. 

Bing now has 100 million daily active users. While that seems like a tiny number compared to the millions that still use Google today, it’s enough to make them declare a “code red” with their own experimental chatbot, Bard.

On March 8, 2023, Yusur Mehdi, Microsoft’s Director of Marketing, shared that Bing surpassed its 100 million daily active users after their Chat AI was launched a month ago. Here’s what Yusur Mehdi has to say about their progress on Bing’s new addition:

“Of the millions of active users of the new Bing preview, it’s great to see that roughly one-third are new to Bing. We see this appeal of the new Bing as a validation of our view that search is due for a reinvention and of the unique value proposition of combining Search + Answers + Chat + Creation in one experience.

Secondly not only are we seeing growth in new users, but we are seeing engagement growing as more people are conducting more searches daily. “

What can we glean from this? First, that Bing has greatly benefited from its launch first-debug later strategy, which Google failed to establish as a pioneer in the AI chat field. Safe to say that Google lost ground when it delayed its Bard launch over Bing’s ChatGPT. 

And second, that Bing’s on the right track in reinventing the search experience. With more than a month of beta testing (and a few weeks of open testing for everyone who signed up for their waitlist), we can now take a better look at how Bing’s Chat AI performs.

How to Access Bing’s AI Chatbot

If you want to check it out yourself, you’ll find Bing’s AI Chatbot as a new feature on their search bar. It’s under the “Let’s chat” button or the “Chat” button at the bottom of the search box. You can also click the “Chat” option on the Bing homepage.

Doing so will bring you to the chatbot page. Here, you’ll see that it’s quite different from your typical search bar–and more like chatting with another person in something like Google Teams or Slack.)

I’ve been testing it out myself for the last two weeks, and I consider it to be a significant improvement over the functionality and user experience of ChatGPT. 

How Does Bing’s AI Chatbot Respond?

The ability to access the internet and current data is a significant improvement for New Bing. And New Bing takes this a step further by including sources and footnotes in search results, which addresses one key issue when you use ChatGPT.

It’s also content-aware, much like ChatGPT. It will remember your previous searches, so you can ask follow-up questions for more information on your topic of interest, without having to start over. However, there is a limit of up to 2000 characters per question.

New Bing also includes chat prompts for other search options. When users select a prompt, such as “What is the meaning of SEO? “, it also provides some follow-up questions, such as “What is online reputation management.” This can lead to a more engaging conversation experience that scrolls to a different area of the website.

After testing New Bing over the last few days, I’m finding that the results are pretty helpful when choosing a prompt after searching.

Recent Updates with Bing’s AI Chatbot

Following the weeks since its initial launch, Microsoft has introduced several updates to the AI chatbot. 

One of them is that it now offers replies in three different tones, in response to some of the earliest criticisms of the chatbot. 

 

The default is set to “Balanced,” which generally creates neutral responses that do not take sides on a specific topic. Other options are “Creative,” which generates more playful and original responses, and “Precise,” which generates the most concise and factual responses. 

Microsoft has also given another feature: the ability to generate images (which, at the time of writing, is currently a work in progress). Built on the DALL·E model, it allows users to generate images by typing the prompt “create an image,” followed by your instructions. 

Lastly, the search function on the chatbot itself is still limited to only 15 queries per session, and 150 queries per day. You can keep track of how many you have left in each topic at the bottom-right of the most recent response Bing provides:

How Does Bing Chat AI Compare to Google Bard? 

Building from the substantial amount of search behavior with ChatGPT, Bing comes out strong, showing a new paradigm of what users can gain from using a search engine.

At present, it also presents a new method of search that isn’t possible on Google, which means it can take some potential traffic away from Google–though that would only make a small dent in Google’s search volume.

And this isn’t to say that Google won’t contend with Bing. Google has long been the gold standard when it comes to finding information online. Its algorithm is sophisticated and efficient, able to sift quickly through vast amounts of data to provide relevant results in a matter of seconds. 

At the time of writing, Google has just opened up its waitlist for Bard–but has yet to share anything substantial about its AI chat results. All we’ve seen so far is a very basic walk-through of Bard, and it doesn’t show much. 

The one interesting thing that we do know is that Google wants Bard to improve on the Knowledge Graph Cards you often see in their SERPS, particularly when asking questions that have simple answers. 

They’ve also stated that Bard’s responses are designed to answer NORA questions – queries with No One Right Answer. This is different from the approach being used by New Bing. You can check out a preview of how this works on Brodie Clark’s Twitter thread.

Comparing the two at face value, I think that the approach used by Bing centers on publishers, whereas Google centers the content itself. But then again, as these two tools are still under development, we’ll just have to see how far they go with their implementation.

Can Bing Chatbot AI Take Over?

When it comes to the question of whether Bing AI Chat can take over Google Bard, there are several factors to consider. Both Bing Chat AI and Google Bard are chatbot technologies that use artificial intelligence to interact with users and provide information or assistance. Here are some points to consider:

• User Experience: The success of any chatbot is greatly influenced by its user experience. A chatbot is more likely to be effective if it is simple to use, offers reliable information, and can comprehend user queries. In terms of user experience, Google has a long history and a more well-established track record of excellence. Bing Chat AI is constantly developing, though, so it might be able to catch up in terms of user experience.

• Features and capabilities: Each chatbot’s features and capabilities should be taken into account. Google Bard is renowned for its capacity to comprehend complex queries and deliver precise answers. Also, it is compatible with other Google products, like Maps and Search. On the contrary, Bing Chat AI is still in its infancy and might not have as many features and functionalities as Google Bard might have.

• Integration with other services: Another important element in the success of a chatbot is its integration with other services. Because of its ability to interface with other Google services like Maps and Search, Google Bard has a significant advantage in this regard. Users now have an easier time finding information and receiving the assistance they require. The advantage of being created by Microsoft, which has a vast range of services and tools that it might interact with, is that Bing Chat AI is still developing its integration capabilities.
  
• Market share: Finally, market share is another factor to consider. Google is the dominant search engine, and Google Bard is built into its search results pages. This gives Google Bard a significant advantage in terms of visibility and accessibility. However, Bing Chat AI is also backed by a major tech company and has the potential to grow its market share over time.

It’s hard to say definitively whether Bing’s chatbot AI will eventually overtake Google Bard in terms of market share or popularity. However, one thing is certain—chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in search, and are already being used by some major companies like Amazon and Microsoft. 

As more companies begin integrating them into their customer service systems, they will likely become even more commonplace in the near future.

What Can We Learn From Bing’s Chatbot?

Bing is the first search engine to showcase what AI-powered features–such as a chatbot function–could mean for search. This means that it’s also the first to show just how difficult and unpredictable it is to work with new AI tools. 

Just take the beta tests with Microsoft’s Bing chatbot, which have been extensively documented by many over the past few weeks. This argument in particular is a good example of the surprises and mistakes it committed early on. 

But thanks to the open beta tests, Microsoft was able to put in additional content-generation safeguards, beefing up OpenAI’s own built-in restrictions. And as Microsoft learns its lessons, I’m sure that the rest of the Search Engine industry is following along.

Microsoft’s new AI also presents a novel way to search. It opens a new era of interacting with information online because it’s conversational AI that taps into both a huge search database and powerful AI language models.

That said, there is still the looming risk of potentially serious consequences–AI models, even one as complex and as tested as Bing’s chatbot, may not be able to reliably sort fact from fiction. And we’ve yet to see any AI who can do so. Bard, fueled by Google’s extensive resources and development, also presented misinformation on the day of its big reveal. 

Even so, there is now an open AI arms race amongst just about every Big Tech company. Meta just announced its intent to focus on generative AI, while Snapchat announced that it has an ongoing experiment with OpenAI, the same firm that Microsoft is working with for its AI-powered chatbot.

While I am interested to see where this takes us, I fear that the speed at which these companies are going might result in “experimental” features that are ultimately less credible or functional than standard search. 

So, as fascinating as these tools are, I’d have to caution users on how they take in and interact with the information these conversational AIs provide.

Key Takeaway

Bing Chat AI’s early release has the potential to change the search landscape and SEO as we know it. It even has the potential to catch up to tech giants in terms of user experience, features, and integration capabilities. 

But when it comes to Google Bard vs. Bing AI, the success of each chatbot will ultimately come down to how well it meets the needs of its users and how effectively it can differentiate itself in the market. 

While it had a good start, the outcome is still uncertain as Google Bard is yet to be released to the public. We can, however, glean some very interesting insights as to how AI can transform search from Bing AI’s beta testing to its initial release.

Only time will tell if Bing Chatbot AI will be able to successfully compete with its rivals, but there’s no denying that its capabilities make it a tool worth investigating!

Rendering is crucial to your website’s operations, enabling Google to retrieve your webpages, decipher the code, and understand its content and structure.

The rendering process then converts this code into a webpage with which users can interact.

Every webpage should be designed with the end person in mind, so choosing the most effective type of rendering is imperative when creating your website.

Each rendering technique has pros and cons, so in the first of our JavaScript series, we will cover server-side rendering (SSR).

Read on to discover what server-side is, how the server-side process works, and its advantages and disadvantages.

What Is Server-Side Rendering (SSR)?

Server-side rendering is where your site’s content is rendered on the web server rather than the browser. This server prepares an HTML file with user-specific data and sends it to the user’s machine.

The browser then interprets the content and displays the page, giving the user a fully rendered HTML page without waiting for JavaScript or CSS files to load.

Many think this method is favorable for SEO compared to client-side rendering, but let’s first see how SSR works.

The Server-Side Rendering Process

As we’ve discussed, server-side rendering enables website content to appear quickly by eliminating the need to download and run application code.

But how is your HTML rendered on the server in response to navigation?

• The user opens their browser and requests to open the webpage.
• The server creates rendered content in a viewable HTML file and sends it to the user. The CSS is also displayed on the browser, but the page is not yet interactive.
• Meanwhile, the browser downloads the JavaScript of the page, which is readily available on the server.
• The user can now interact with the site and the different elements.
• The browser implements the JavaScript (Document Object Model or DOM is fully rendered).
• The page is now fully loaded and can respond to the interactions of the user journey.

Many popular JavaScript frameworks, including Angular and React, use server-side rendering.

Social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter also use rendered content before it’s sent to the user.

But what are the unique pros and cons of using SSR? Here are the advantages and disadvantages:

The Advantages Of Server-Side Rendering

Faster Load Time

SSR only updates the parts of the HTML that need updating, so it generates faster page transitions between pages and much quicker First Contentful Paint (FCP).

Even users with slow internet connections or outdated devices can immediately interact with your webpages.

Remember, the less time a user has to look at a loading screen, the better for your SEO.

Easy To Index

Indexing SSR sites is much easier for search engines than client-side rendered sites. The content is rendered before the page is loaded, so they don’t need to run JavaScript to read and index it.

Ideal For Static Websites

SSR is excellent for static webpages as it’s faster to pre-render a static (or unchanging) page on the server before sending it to the client.

More Accurate User Metrics

SSR enables you to keep a healthy, optimized website by quickly and accurately gathering metrics.

Unlike client-side rendering, SSR will inform the server as your user moves from one page to another.

Evaluating how they navigate your site and interact with your content will help you continually improve the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).

Excellent Social Media Optimization

SSR also optimizes your pages for social media.

This means you’ll get a nice preview with the page title, description, and image whenever you share your webpage’s content via social media.

The Disadvantages Of Server-Side Rendering

Higher Server Load For Bigger Applications

The server bears the full burden of the requests for users and bots.

Rendering bigger, more complex applications on the server side can increase the loading time because it is a single bottleneck.

Increase In Expenses

SSR can get complex and expensive when it becomes difficult to maintain and debug and is more prone to errors.

You’ll need to use your own company’s server to install an SSR application, which means higher running costs.

Compatibility Issues

SSR can be incompatible with some third-party libraries and tools, including JavaScript code.

Slow Page Rendering Inactivity

Even though the user can view the page right away, they must wait for the JavaScript download to complete before interacting with it.

Inefficient Caching

Efficient caching is important for data retrieval performance, but SSR means each page’s HTML is different.

It’s harder to catch this on a content delivery network (CDN), so users who load a page that hasn’t been cached on the CDN will experience a longer page load time.

Server-Side Rendering Frameworks

Delivering rendered content to the browser is vital for frontends on SSR applications to load quickly.

Many of the frameworks we’ve highlighted support running the same application in Node.js, rendering it to static HTML, and finally hydrating it on the client.

Some of the most popular frameworks used to support SSR for web development are:

• Angular Universal – used to render an angular application on the server side.
• Ember.js – a JavaScript framework focused on scalable single-page applications.
• Gatsby.js – a React-based framework that’s ideal for building static websites.
• Next.js – a JavaScript, open-source framework built on top of React.
• React – an open-source JavaScript framework and library for building reusable UI components.
• Vue.js – a JavaScript framework developers mainly implement to create interactive user interfaces.

Is Server-Side Rendering Better?

SSR is effective for boosting your SEO performance because it indexes your pages before they are loaded in the browser.

It benefits the organization that builds the web application by tracking engagement metrics to fuel constant improvement for the end client.

Ultimately, you need to decide how it stacks up to client-side rendering or dynamic rendering when choosing your web framework and architecture and the type of features you require.

More Resources: 

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Featured Image: hanss/Shutterstock

If you want traffic coming to your website, you need website content—but not just any content.

Specifically, you need website content that: 

• Ranks on Google – You need a way for people to discover your content. Google’s your best bet: 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. 
• Engages your audience – Your target reader should consume your content and be compelled to take the next step, whether it’s subscribing to your email list or buying your product.

In this post, you’ll learn how to create content that achieves both goals.

You can’t get search traffic if no one’s searching for your keywords on Google. That’s why the first step is to figure out what your target audience is searching for. 

This process is known as keyword research. 

To get started, make yourself a cup of joe, sit down, and ask yourself: “What would my target audience type in Google if they were looking for my website?”

For example, if your website sells coffee equipment, then someone may be searching for websites similar to yours using these keywords:

• Coffee
• Espresso
• Cappuccino
• Coffee beans
• French press

We’ll then take these keywords and use them as seeds in a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. So here’s what we’ll do:

1. Go to Keywords Explorer
2. Enter the keywords you’ve come up with (in this example, we’ll use the five coffee keywords)
3. Go to the Matching terms report

Here, you see more than 4 million potential keywords you can target. However, not only is that too many, but most of them are also too competitive. After all, Google search doesn’t exist in a vacuum—if there are many websites vying for pole position, it becomes harder to rank. 

So we want to narrow down the results. We’ll do this using two filters:

1. Keyword Difficulty (KD) – How hard it is to rank for a particular keyword. We’ll set it to something low and manageable, around 20.
2. Traffic Potential – The potential amount of search traffic your page can get if it ranks #1. We’ll set it to 500.

It’s much more manageable now. Go through the list and pick out the keywords you think are relevant to your site.

With a list of keywords to target, it’s time to create content.

Here’s how:

Choose your content format

Your content can be a listicle, a how-to guide, an opinion piece, or more. 

Which one should you choose?

The most straightforward way is to look at what’s ranking in Google for your chosen topic. For example, if we look at the search engine results page (SERPs) for “how to save money,” we can see that—despite the two words “how to”—people are actually looking for a list of tips.

So if you’re tackling this topic, your content format will likely be a listicle. This helps you compete with the existing results on the SERPs.

Choose your angle

You’ll want to make your content specific so your audience can clearly identify its value. This is conveyed via your content’s angle. 

For example, a blog post teaching how to cook fried rice fast has a clearer proposition than simply how to cook fried rice. 

There’s no “best” or “correct” angle to select, so choose one that’s novel and interesting to your readers. Here are some questions that could spark ideas:

• Do you have personal experience or expertise? If you have a unique fried rice recipe, share it.
• Can you interview experts? For example, you can interview the chef making the fried rice that’s rated 4.5* on Google.
• Can you crowdsource ideas? For example, you can poll people part of r/chinesecooking on their best fried rice recipes.
• Can you back your content with data or science? For example, you can explain how to make egg fried rice using molecular gastronomy (and explain the science behind it).

Figure out important subtopics to cover

You don’t want to miss out on subtopics in your post—especially if it’s something searchers expect to see. 

We can figure out what these subtopics are by looking at the common keyword rankings among the top-ranking pages:

1. Enter your keyword (e.g., “inbound marketing”) into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Scroll down to the SERP overview
3. Select three to five top-ranking articles (make sure they’re similar)
4. Click Open in and choose Content gap

Here, we’ll want to make sure to see only the most relevant subtopics. We’ll do this by selecting the Intersection dropdown and choosing the highest two targets (in this example, 4 and 5).

From here, we can see that searchers also want to know:

• The definition of inbound marketing.
• Examples of inbound marketing.
• Inbound marketing strategies.

If we’re covering the same topic (“inbound marketing”) from a similar angle (“beginner’s guide”), then these subtopics would make good subheadings. 

Design your content to be readable

Nothing is worse than having to read a chunk of text. You’ll want to make your content comfortable to read and easy on the eyes.

You can do this using the ASMR formula:

• Annotations – Add elements like sidenotes, blockquotes, and call-out boxes to break up the monotony of the post.
• Short sentences and paragraphs – Break long sentences with lots of transitional words like “and,” “because,” and “that” into shorter ones.
• Multimedia – Including videos, images, and GIFs helps illustrate your points without extra words.
• Read your copy out loud – This pinpoints areas where the content doesn’t flow smoothly.

Write like how you talk

You don’t have to puke out a word salad to impress your readers. The best online writing is friendly and casual. Treat it as if you’re talking to a friend. 

If you’re afraid your writing is too business-like, paste your draft into Hemingway:

Reel your readers in with an eye-catching headline

The famed adman David Ogilvy once said:

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.

People are busy. You need to catch their attention with the headline. So no matter how hard you work on your content, if your headline doesn’t hook them, they won’t read it. 

The best way to come up with a good headline is volume. In other words, brainstorm as many possible headlines for your article as possible. Viral site Upworthy used to create 25 headlines for each of its articles, and bestselling author James Clear brainstormed 400 before coming up with “Atomic Habits”:

Many. I brainstormed over 400 possible titles.

— James Clear (@JamesClear) April 13, 2020

Fortunately for you, there’s a faster way to reach this volume today. You can use ChatGPT:

Don’t use what’s generated verbatim, but use it to spark inspiration and help you create the perfect headline.

Add your on-page SEO

On-page SEO focuses on helping Google and searchers understand and digest your content.

Follow these best practices:

Our content is well known in the SEO industry, and we’re often complimented for our content quality:

Testament to the power of content marketing. You guys have one of the strongest blogs in the industry

— MicroSaasGuy (@MicroSaasGuy) March 9, 2023

Our secret sauce? Peer review.

Each writer on our team is paired with another to review each other’s work. We point out inaccuracies, logical loopholes, structural issues, spelling errors, and grammatical mistakes. We help each other improve phrasing, suggest examples, or give more ideas.

This is so important to us that we even dedicate a section in the author’s box to contributors:

A writer can’t write alone—they’re too close to their own work. They need a third party with a fresh set of eyes to go through and provide feedback. That’s why authors hire editors—they’re there to sharpen the prose and tighten the copy.

If you have an editor to show your draft to, great. If not, you can always get the help of a friend, family member, or colleague. 

Even if they don’t finish reading, it’s still helpful because it tells you where they stopped reading. That’s most likely the part where they lost interest, so you know where you need to improve. 

Before you publish, run your draft through a tool like Grammarly to fix up any final grammatical, spelling, or phrasing errors.

Once that’s all done, hit ‘“publish.”

Then, head over to Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker and set up a project for your website.

Follow through the steps. And then in step #4, add the keyword(s) you’re targeting:

The tool will track your website’s ranking positions for the keywords you’ve added. 

SEO is a continual process, and a tool like Rank Tracker will enable you to keep track of your underperforming content so you can improve it over time.

No. You can outsource.

To help you decide if you should create content yourself, here are a few points to consider:

• Do you like writing? If you feel like vomiting every time you sit down to write a post, you should consider outsourcing.
• Is content creation the most important thing you can do? I’m a content marketer, so writing is my most important task. But if you’re in another role, say an entrepreneur or a salesperson, then perhaps writing is not your “one thing.” It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create content, but it may mean you don’t do the actual writing. (Remember: Many books are written by ghostwriters.)
• Are you overwhelmed with tasks? If you can never find time to create content, e.g., you’re a solopreneur, then it’s probably better if you outsource.
• Are you in an industry that requires domain expertise? For some industries (e.g., health), expertise is vital not just for the sake of your readers but for ranking. If you don’t have the required expertise, you may want to consider outsourcing it to someone who does. (Although you can overcome this through interviewing experts.)
• Do you have a budget for hiring? Time is money too, so it doesn’t mean you should create all the content yourself just because you don’t have a budget. Make sure it’s the most important thing you can do.

If you’ve decided to outsource, then you can start looking for freelance writers on job boards and marketplaces. There are general ones like Upwork, and there should also be ones specific to your industry (e.g., Swipe Files is a job board for marketers).

Final thoughts

If you follow through the steps above, you’ll create content that Google loves. 

Over time, your efforts will be rewarded and you’ll see organic traffic flow to your website.

Any questions or comments? Let me know on Twitter.