We knew it wouldn’t be long before Google released their first core update of 2024 and, unsurprisingly, it’s been a big one.

In March’s core update, Google has continued their focus on reducing low-quality, unoriginal content, introducing new policies and features to help clear out their search engine results pages (SERPs) of spam.

We’ll be going into more detail about the core update and the new spam policies, so if you’re interested in learning more about the update features and policies and how they may impact your business and website, keep reading.

What did the March core update feature?

As we know, Google uses core updates to make updates to its search algorithm. In October, they focused on improving search results and minimising spammy and low-quality content – a theme that has continued into 2024.

With AI usage increasing and becoming more popular, Google took action in March to tackle low-quality content and introduce new spam policies targeting manipulative practices. Google hopes that, by introducing this update, spammy and low-quality content will reduce by 40%, helping SERPs to showcase more useful and valuable content for users.

So, how does the spam update work? And, how will it impact businesses and website owners?

Understanding the spam update

The spam update focuses on two key things:

• Reducing low-quality, unoriginal results
• And, keeping spammy content out of SERPs

According to Google, the update will focus on:

“refining some of our core ranking systems to help us better understand if webpages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people. This could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries.”

Google has also updated their algorithm to include spam-fighting systems and spam policies that will include scaled content abuse, expired domain abuse and site reputation abuse. The first two policies came into effect immediately, however, site reputation abuse won’t come into effect until May 2024.

You may be thinking, what constitutes scaled content abuse or expired domain abuse? Well, we know that Google has been working hard to tackle automated and AI generated content in favour of supporting original content that focuses on Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Whilst AI can be helpful for inspiration, mass-producing automated content leads to unoriginal, and most of the time unhelpful, content that can impact the results of content that is useful and valuable. As for expired domain abuse, Google is on a mission to reduce the purchasing and repurposing of expired domains that are used for the primary intention of boosting the ranking of low-quality content.

Best practices for staying compliant with Google’s spam update

As you can imagine, this is a pretty big, hard-hitting update that Google has released. In general, users may experience a drop in rankings when a core update is released but this usually starts to recover when the next update comes. We saw a big hit for users in the last half of the year with all of the core updates released and it appears the March update may not have helped matters. Whether this is a fault with the March update itself, or it really has had a bigger impact than expected, remains to be seen. But, there are best practices that users can follow to help improve the rankings of their webpages.

Avoid automated content

Seems self-explanatory and something that’s been shouted about for some time, but we feel it’s important to emphasise. Whilst there are benefits to using AI to inspire content ideas for example, it should not be solely relied upon. For one, it’s not entirely accurate in the data and facts it presents, and two, it lacks the human element that makes the content engaging to read.

E-E-A-T is the winning formula that will ensure your content is seen as helpful and valuable to Google.

Be careful of third party content

As per the site reputation abuse policy, Google will be cracking down on low-quality, third party content posted on websites for search ranking benefits. The best way to combat this is to be mindful of the third party content posted on your website. If it’s not high-quality content then it’s time to make changes to your website.

Don’t purchase and repurpose expired websites

It’s becoming a trend to purchase and repurpose expired websites in order to boost search rankings for low-quality content. Google considers this as spam and, therefore, will be taking measures to crack down on this practice and push high-quality content to the top pages.

Navigating Google’s core updates

There’s always a lot to unpack with Google’s core updates, and March’s update was no different. At this time, we’re not sure when the next update will be released but, as always, we’ll be here to help you navigate the changes.

Our SEO team is always on hand to answer any questions you may have about the core updates. Get in touch with the team today or check out our SEO marketing how-tos.

In the meantime, keep up-to-date with the latest SEO news and trends on our blog.

Millennials and Gen-Z have recently been reported reflecting that “prioritising experiences over material possessions is important to their personal life.” When considering how these age groups are expected to account for 75% of luxury goods buyers by 2026, this presents luxury brands with a significant challenge when it comes to engaging the — increasingly young — audiences they are targeting.

Off the back of this, alongside other changes in this sector, new strategies will need to be developed to help luxury goods companies elevate their marketing and stay relevant.

Read on to find out more about the emerging trends and accompanying strategies that are shaping the luxury goods market today.

Emerging luxury goods marketing strategies

Brands are having to work much harder to stand out from their counterparts and reach and engage consumers. This isn’t made any easier by the rising interest in sustainability and conscious consumerism. It’s clear that luxury brand marketing strategies need to be more considered and innovative in order to stay ahead of the curve.

With plenty of experience working with businesses in the luxury goods industry, we know a thing or two about marketing high-value wares to modern audiences. Here are the top strategies that we’ve seen come to the fore in luxury goods marketing recently.

1. Leveraging AI for luxury goods marketing

In the last 12 months, Artificial Intelligence has come to enjoy a status akin to fame, being unanimously heralded as a transformative tool enhancing performance and driving efficiencies across the board — and, for the most part, we’d have to agree.

A prime example of this was London Fashion Week in 2023, where AI’s connection to human creativity was explored as a creative concept, fully integrating this technology into the luxury domain with both elegance and flair.

Selling cutting-edge products, luxury goods brands must also use cutting-edge methods to market those products, in order to accurately convey core values such as quality, innovation, and sharpness. So, you’d be unsurprised to hear that AI has been making great waves in the luxury goods industry as a tool for strategic marketing.

In fact, according to Zipdo, the use of AI in fashion marketing is expected to reach $4,391.7 million by 2027, growing at a 38.20% CAGR (compound annual growth rate). Figures like this illustrate powerfully how pressing the need is for luxury businesses to gain traction with AI technology in order to remain competitive.

But how? Generally speaking, we have seen AI integration appear in two core areas so far:

1) Targeting & strategy 2) Delivery

AI offers endless possibilities for audience targeting options. By harnessing AI, luxury brands have been able to unlock much richer consumer insights about their audiences — even to predict purchasing behaviours and habits ahead of time. Not only does this allow a more precise approach when it comes to the creation of custom messaging, but it allows for marketing campaigns to be proactive instead of reactive.

AI-driven analysis of consumer data can add so much value to traditional insights. As an example, marketing spend can be optimised significantly by using AI to identify the most effective channels and times for engagement.

When it comes to the creation of assets, AI has proved invaluable so far — not only for helping to produce impressive, sharp, and eye-catching images like never before but also doing so quickly. As a caveat, using generative AI for text and images is not a walk in the park; a lot of factors need to be controlled in order to avoid common pitfalls such as hallucinations and misinformation. However, if done correctly, the payoffs are significant.

2. Authenticity & brand personality

The importance of brand authenticity has been on the rise for some time now, but, as consumers actively demand more from the brands they buy from, authenticity will become even more vital to building loyalty and trust.

Customers are increasingly looking for brands that are authentic, open, and honest. In the luxury goods industry, where products are worth significantly more and fake goods pose a potent threat to brand integrity, authenticity is one of the most foundational elements in messaging.

A great example of a luxury brand leaning into authenticity on social media is Kate Spade, a brand that uses its Instagram profile to feature outfit pictures and behind-the-scenes shots of the design process. The behind-the-scenes shots build trust with the customer by removing the fourth wall of a polished, finished product.

Brand personality is also an emerging strategy for luxury brands that plays a significant role in authenticity. Customers are keen to see “the person” behind the brand, and this can be expressed through tone of voice, core values, beliefs, and visual identity. It’s not just about what your brand looks or sounds like – it’s about how customers feel when interacting with your business.

3. AR/VR in luxury goods advertising

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) were relatively untapped elements of digital marketing until recently. These technologies have been increasingly integrated into marketing strategies to great effect – and the luxury goods market has been testing the waters with them too.

A luxury brand retailer that is pioneering augmented reality in their marketing strategy is Flannels, who have reinvented the purpose of their Oxford Street flagship store in order to engage more deeply with their Gen-Z customers. According to a recent article from Vogue Business:

“The 18,000-square-foot store’s primary function is shifting from selling products to acting as a “stage” to exchange and broadcast creative ideas. The idea is to invite influential creatives to act as cultural curators and offer a more intimate look inside their personal universes.”

AR and VR can also be harnessed to enhance digital assets for ad campaigns.

For example, Ralph Lauren has been focusing on creating immersive experiences for their customers, creating virtual stores that immerse customers into the brand’s world. These virtual stores can feature lounge areas and interactive technology that allows customers to personalise their own products.

Keeping a close eye on the developments and functionalities of these kinds of technologies will be essential for luxury brands looking to capitalise on innovation in the near future, particularly when it comes to impressing users with visuals and curating standout experiences. While this technology still feels bold and experimental in nature, it may soon be leveraged in advertising assets or other forms of brand content.

4. Sustainability & luxury goods marketing

Sustainability and ethical practices are becoming an absolute must-have in building brand loyalty among a socially-conscious consumer base. More and more customers are looking for evidence that luxury brands are doing their part to reduce their impact on the environment.

Luxury brands are already starting to pioneer environmental strategies within their marketing. For example, in 2018, Gucci announced its commitment to becoming carbon neutral and launched the Gucci Equilibrium programme, focusing on advancing sustainability in all aspects of the brand’s operations.

Another brand example of pioneering sustainability and ethical practices is Alex Monroe, one of Sleeping Giant Media’s clients and a leader in handmade, sustainable jewellery. Their approach to sustainability includes sourcing materials with as little impact on the environment and reducing their carbon footprint with the aim of reaching zero-net emissions by 2030. The brand has become a firm favourite for royals and celebrities alike, including HRH Princess of Wales Kate Middleton, a keen supporter of sustainable fashion.

5. Targeting custom audiences

Audience targeting has significantly improved in its functionality in the last few years, particularly when it comes to in-platform targeting options for marketers to leverage. Now, it is easier than ever to create a custom audience for ad campaigns — and we are seeing more and more luxury brands use this to their advantage by creating niche audience filters for their marketing efforts.

It’s also possible to exclude unqualified audiences regularly using words like “cheap” and “free” from viewing your ads.

Pinterest is a great social media and e-commerce platform for marketing aspirational and luxury products. It allows users to create audience targeting based on website visitors or email lists, interest targeting based on audience interests, and keyword targeting which focuses on keywords or phrases that audiences are searching for.

6. Utilising social media and influencer partnerships

Lastly, the power of social media and influencer marketing can’t be dismissed when we consider trends that are shaping the luxury goods industry. Many luxury brands are taking advantage of the pros that social media apps, such as Instagram and TikTok, offer in terms of reaching and engaging with Gen-Z and Millennial audiences.

Partnering with influencers is a great way for luxury brands to expand their reach and engage with more diverse audiences. An example of this was Gucci’s collaboration with TikTok trainspotter, Francis Bourgeois. The collaboration resonated well with Gen-Z and led to a significant increase in engagement for Gucci’s campaign.

Elevate your luxury marketing strategy

As new technologies develop, audiences change, and targeting capabilities evolve, marketing strategies for luxury brands are in flux right now. For brands selling high-end products, it is difficult to know where to focus their attention.

At Sleeping Giant Media, we’ve been offering digital marketing delivery, insight, and education to achieve industry-leading results for over 15 years. In that time, we’ve partnered with multiple luxury brands on paid ad campaigns, technical SEO, and content writing to increase website traffic and conversion rates. If you’re ready to elevate your digital marketing strategy, get in touch with our team of experts today.

You can also head to our events page to see our upcoming marketing how-to sessions and webinars. In the meantime, read more about the latest digital marketing news and trends on our blog.

Louis Vuitton currently reigns supreme among the luxury goods brands on social media, with a cross-channel following of 102M (Feb 2024) and an average cross-channel engagement of 66.7k per post.

From their brand collaboration with sensational K-pop boy band, BTS, to their viral TikTok videos, Louis Vuitton enjoys a comfortable position in that sweet spot between widespread popularity and exclusivity. But how?

In this blog, we’ll explore how luxury brands use social media to maintain digital prestige, while simultaneously extending their reach and maximising their engagement online.

The strategy behind digital prestige

The customer base for the luxury goods market is expected to hit 500M by 2030, an impressive amount for any sector — let alone one that prides itself on exclusivity and rarity.

And just like that, we’ve touched on the central conundrum for luxury goods marketers: cultivating a sense of exclusivity while still maximising reach. The famous ‘4 E’s’ of luxury marketing, coined by expert, Michel Chevalier, hold this conundrum at their centre:

• Emotions: Luxury brands should create a sense of desire and/or aspiration.
• Experiences: Through tactics such as immersive shopping experiences or events, luxury brands should offer value beyond their products or services.
• Extension: Luxury brands should interact with buyers beyond their products and services through things like influencer collaborations and features

And, lastly:

• Exclusivity: Customers investing in luxury brands should feel like part of an exclusive club.

Uniquely, the goal of exclusivity sits at odds with the typical, core objectives of any marketing strategy — visibility, widespread reach, maximum exposure, and engagement.

So, marketers in the luxury goods industry have to deploy much more sophisticated strategies — leaning on audience targeting, core messaging, and brand storytelling — if they want to reach the masses, but engage the select few, high-net-worth individuals (HNWI). The most effective way to do this? Social media.

Using social media to generate digital prestige

85% of luxury consumers use social media regularly – each using an average of three platforms. So, consider the outdated myth that true luxury marketing is purely an off-line activity to be well and truly debunked.

Using an effective combination of the following social strategies, luxury brands in all niches — from fashion to technology — have been growing their digital prestige. And, using examples, we’ll show you how you can too.

Influencer collaborations & user-generated content

Authenticity and representation are increasingly important values that consumers are demanding from brands. Products being used and reviewed by trusted individuals is an essential part of marketing now. In fact, 92% of people trust recommendations over a brand.

With this in mind, we see user-generated content becoming an indispensable tool for luxury brands to increase the desirability and perceived popularity of their products.

Collaboration in action

Studies have shown that the Asia-Pacific region is the top market for luxury brands. So, the recent trend of numerous brand partnerships with K-pop stars makes sense — especially when it comes to engaging Millennials, Gen-Z, and Gen Alpha (expected to make up 80% of luxury product consumers by 2030).

One of the most effective examples of this in action is Louis Vuitton’s influencer partnership with BTS member, J-Hope. After this announcement, they saw a staggering 10.7% engagement rate increase from their followers.

Identifying and partnering with influential figures that compliment your brand, perhaps themselves embodying values such as elegance and poise, is an excellent way to elevate your prestige while benefiting from the increased visibility that comes with such a public partnership.

Campaigns to promote prestige

An often overlooked aspect of cultivating exclusivity and a luxury brand is the product or service itself — nothing works as a selling point quite like physical, tangible scarceness. Limited edition products, exclusive events, personalised services, and limited-time offers are excellent ways to further cultivate a sense of exclusivity.

As for translating this onto social media, campaign messaging should be tailored to this approach using phrasing that conveys luxury and limited availability — similar to the tone of voice in remarketing ad copies, with an emphasis on the fleeting nature of the products or services on offer. More on this later.

Nuanced audience targeting

When it comes to paid social media advertising, luxury brands have their work cut out — accurately identifying buyer personas and then translating these into effective audience targeting strategies. Beyond mere demographics, psychographics are needed here too, taking into account shopping habits, values, and aspirations.

Taking Facebook as an example, there’s a versatile range of ad targeting options available to luxury brands looking to engage a distinct segment of users.

Let’s say you sell luxury watches. You could create a custom saved audience that allows you to target individuals of a certain age, with a certain household income (this is possible for US-based audiences only at the moment), and with interests in luxury goods like watches.

If you want to get really granular, you can exclude certain interests that pertain to lower-expense activity. For example, luxury, high-end travel agents could exclude interests such as cheap tickets or flights.

Communicating prestige with organic social media

Circling back to messaging, when creating assets and copy for your ads (and any social media posts for that matter), prestige has to shine through there too.

The luxury feel of your brand has to be communicated to your audiences at all levels and touchpoints — from the words and emojis you use in captions to the images you post on the grid. So, investing heavily in quality copywriters and adhering to strict style guidelines is a must here.

Breaking this down into its components:

Tone of voice & content topic

It is estimated that nearly a third of global luxury sales will take place online by 2025. So, viewing online users as viable bottom-of-the-funnel audiences (and marketing to them accordingly) is essential. That being said, sales-focused content should always be diluted with a tasteful steam of ‘lifestyle’ content — more so than in any other market group.

Most luxury advertising shouldn’t be to inspire direct conversion. Instead, it’s about showcasing a lifestyle, or the feelings associated with it, that consumers and HNWIs can buy into. A great example of this is those lengthy, lavish perfume, aftershave, or car adverts that feature the product briefly against vignettes showing a certain type of elevated lifestyle.

Convey luxury through imagery

It goes without saying that the imagery associated with your brand should betray the value of its products and services.

Image quality cannot be compromised — especially for physical products. Take Rolex, for example. They have an iconic product that speaks for itself, and their Instagram feed clearly lets it do the talking. Non-cluttered images with simple backgrounds that showcase the product on offer work seamlessly here.

Video content

Rolex has also perfected utilising video content on social media to showcase the lifestyle their target market could have if they buy into the brand.

Rolex has been using YouTube to share videos with a high production value to evidence the luxury lifestyle they embody. This includes short, dramatic clips or montages of golfing, skiing, and orchestral pieces. Cleverly, alongside this content, they also share general how-to videos that people who already own Rolexes will find helpful.

TikTok

A social media platform previously untapped by luxury goods businesses, TikTok is often ‘slept on’ by luxury brands. Why? Partly due to the example term we just used.

• TikTok’s informal, accessible nature is often perceived to be at odds with the polished, exclusive image that many luxury brands are going for,
• On the other hand, TikTok’s many trends and terms can also be tricky terrain for an established brand to navigate — leaving it, well, slept on.

In fact, it has been estimated that only half of the brands in this landscape actively post to TikTok. This is fascinating when considering that this is the platform where brands have largely generated the highest engagement rates.

However, according to recent research, younger generations are not only predicted to make up the large majority of luxury markets by 2030, but Gen-Z, the largest age demographic of TikTok users, are buying luxury items three to five years earlier than Millennials. With this shift in luxury goods purchasing habits, brands cannot afford to ‘sleep on’ this platform for much longer.

As a side note – just because you’re posting on TikTok, doesn’t mean you have to compromise on core brand values like quality, elegance, and poise. Take Versace, for example:

• Versace has one of the highest engagement rates of luxury fashion brands on TikTok at 7.98%. How? They lean heavily into a few popular trends — using brand ambassadors and posting video footage of fashion shows.
• However, they’ve maintained their digital prestige by not stooping to common or irrelevant trends, and consistently posting exceptionally high-quality video content with sharp, crisp shots. This lets their audience know that, while they’re relevant, they’re still high quality.

Storytelling

As much as it is worth letting the products do the talking, this only works if founded upon a solid foundation of brand storytelling. While not every brand will have a mythical origin story like Cartier or Chanel, much of the perceived value of luxury goods is bound up in their creation, how they came to be, and their founding.

So, using social media to give voice to the history of your brand and its vision, values, and mission — especially connecting to strong concepts like heritage, sustainability, and innovation — works well.

Staying selectively exclusive with social …

Putting that all together, luxury brands have to navigate modern social media trends and be seen to be ‘in touch’ with modern audiences, while still maintaining that desirable, cool ‘aloofness’ synonymous with luxury itself.

They must fine-tune their audience targeting strategy and complement it with well-placed, consistent organic activity — taking into account asset quality, and even emoji usage. They should also extend their brand beyond their own efforts, with influencer partnerships and collaborations, while maintaining absolute control over their perceived value online.

To say it’s a bit of an art would be an understatement. But that means there’s room for savvy players to stand out from the crowd.

If you’re looking to better leverage social media to grow your digital prestige as a luxury brand, get in touch with our team of experts today.

Or, head to our events page to see our upcoming marketing how-to sessions and webinars. In the meantime, you can read more about the benefits of a reactive social media strategy on our blog.

In international SEO, hreflang tags are something that often cause a lot of confusion. They can be difficult to get right, but doing so can really help your multilingual SEO efforts. You can use them to target different languages, countries, or even a combination of both.

In this blog, we’ll provide an in-depth introduction to what hreflang tags are, what they do, and why they matter. So, if you’re keen to learn more about why you need hreflang tags, keep reading.

What is an hreflang tag?

A hreflang tag is most commonly a meta tag that goes into the <head> section of a webpage to help search engines understand what language the page is in and what country that page is targeting.

Imagine you have a website targeting the US, UK, and Australia. The only difference between these pages is the currency. If the content is exactly the same, how does Google know which one to show a user in the UK, or another country that speaks English, such as Canada?

Google might see these pages as duplicate content, and will normally choose only ONE to index and show to customers.

Add hreflang tags, and Google understands that the content is supposed to be the same, just served to different audiences who are in different countries. The confusion over which page to show is solved, and Google indexes all three pages in search results and serves them to users in different countries.

Why do hreflang tags matter?

From a user experience perspective, users expect to see the pages in search results for their language and region, not irrelevant pages from another country.

hreflang tags can help increase conversions on your site, as, if someone from Germany lands on the French site from search results, they’ll be unlikely to convert. But, if they land on the German site, they are more likely to convert, as it’s in their language and currency.

From Google’s perspective, hreflang tags help with URL discovery and also help Google understand which pages on your sites are supposed to be targeting different languages and countries.

Always remember though: the hreflang attribute is a signal but not a directive. This means that it is still possible for a different copy of your page to rank higher in the SERPs, although its language is less relevant.

When should you use hreflang tags?

You should only use hreflang tags when you have the same content but in two different languages. If the page is completely different, then don’t use hreflang tags.

You are essentially creating a connecting web of pages for Google to follow so that it understands that Page A is the same as Page B but in a different language, targeting a different country.

How do hreflang tags help Google?

Google uses hreflang tags to understand which variations to serve to different customers. It does not use them to detect the language of a page.

As per Google’s guidelines:

“Use hreflang to tell Google about the variations of your content, so that we can understand that these pages are localised variations of the same content. Google doesn’t use hreflang or the HTML lang attribute to detect the language of a page; instead, we use algorithms to determine the language.”

Google uses the most specific hreflang tag to match which URL to return to a customer in the search results:

1. Google first looks for a language-country match (e.g., en-es) and returns that page if it exists.

2. If not, it looks for a language code match (e.g., en-us). Crucially, the country code doesn’t matter. Google simply looks for a matching language code.

3. If that doesn’t exist, Google will fallback to the x‑default version.

Do hreflang tags help with duplicate content?

No, tags do not technically resolve duplicate content, they only serve as an indication of which version of a page to serve to customers. Google is much less likely to see a page as duplicate content along with another country’s page if hreflang tags have been added.

Why are hreflang tags important?

For a multilingual website or an international website targeting different languages or countries, hreflang tags are very important. Without them, you’ll end up with SERP results that look like this:

Here’s an example of a site with good hreflang tags and optimisation, which shows only UK results in the UK search results:

If we change countries to Italy and go to www.google.it, the following shows:

You can see that we have results in the native language of Italian, all of which are from https://www.samsung.com/it/ which is great. Here’s another example of a global company:

Here’s the links shown in Italian search results for their brand:

https://www.qantas.com/
https://www.qantas.com/it/en.html
https://www.qantas.com/it/en/book-a-trip/flights.html
https://www.qantas.com/au/en/book-a-trip.html
https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequent-flyer/log-in.html
https://www.qantas.com/it/en/manage-booking.html

You can see here that Google is very confused. There are results from the USA, Italy and Australia here.

Now Qantas doesn’t offer results in Italian, their Italian pages are only in English. Their hreflang tags for the Italian English homepage https://www.qantas.com/it/en.html look like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.qantas.com/it/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-AU” href=”https://www.qantas.com/au/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-US” href=”https://www.qantas.com/us/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-GB” href=”https://www.qantas.com/gb/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-AR” href=”https://www.qantas.com/ar/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-AT” href=”https://www.qantas.com/at/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-BR” href=”https://www.qantas.com/br/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-CA” href=”https://www.qantas.com/ca/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-CL” href=”https://www.qantas.com/cl/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-CN” href=”https://www.qantas.com/cn/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-FR” href=”https://www.qantas.com/fr/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-HK” href=”https://www.qantas.com/hk/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-ID” href=”https://www.qantas.com/id/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-IT” href=”https://www.qantas.com/it/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-KR” href=”https://www.qantas.com/kr/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-MX” href=”https://www.qantas.com/mx/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-NC” href=”https://www.qantas.com/nc/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-NL” href=”https://www.qantas.com/nl/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-NZ” href=”https://www.qantas.com/nz/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-PG” href=”https://www.qantas.com/pg/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-PH” href=”https://www.qantas.com/ph/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-SG” href=”https://www.qantas.com/sg/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-TH” href=”https://www.qantas.com/th/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-TW” href=”https://www.qantas.com/tw/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-ZA” href=”https://www.qantas.com/za/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-DE” href=”https://www.qantas.com/de/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-BE” href=”https://www.qantas.com/be/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-VN” href=”https://www.qantas.com/vn/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-CH” href=”https://www.qantas.com/ch/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-ES” href=”https://www.qantas.com/es/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-FJ” href=”https://www.qantas.com/fj/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-PF” href=”https://www.qantas.com/pf/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-VU” href=”https://www.qantas.com/vu/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-IN” href=”https://www.qantas.com/in/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-IE” href=”https://www.qantas.com/ie/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-FI” href=”https://www.qantas.com/fi/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-JP” href=”https://www.qantas.com/jp/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es-CL” href=”https://www.qantas.com/cl/es.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fr-FR” href=”https://www.qantas.com/fr/fr.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”ja-JP” href=”https://www.qantas.com/jp/ja.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”zh-CN” href=”https://www.qantas.com/cn/zh_CN.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”zh-HK” href=”https://www.qantas.com/hk/zh_TW.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”zh-TW” href=”https://www.qantas.com/tw/zh_TW.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”ko-KR” href=”https://www.qantas.com/kr/ko.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x-default” href=”https://www.qantas.com/au/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”ko” href=”https://www.qantas.com/kr/ko.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”ja” href=”https://www.qantas.com/jp/ja.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”https://www.qantas.com/au/en.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fr” href=”https://www.qantas.com/fr/fr.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”zh” href=”https://www.qantas.com/cn/zh_CN.html”>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es” href=”https://www.qantas.com/cl/es.html”>

It’s a lot. We know.

You can see that there’s 3 different rules here for English:

• One which says if you speak English in different countries then you should go to that country’s website
• One which says if you speak English anywhere else in the world (en) then you should go to the Australian website in English
• And then, thirdly, if you speak any other language (x-default) then you should go to the Australian website in English.

Since we’ve used a VPN to pretend that we’re in Italy, we’d expect to see all of the indented links to be https://www.qantas.com/it/en.html, however, they aren’t. This can provide a bad user experience for customers who are looking to book a trip or looking for frequent flyer information for example, as they go to the wrong country version of the website.

Get support with hreflang tags

Hopefully, this introduction provides a good overview of what hreflang tags are and what they do.

If you need support implementing hreflang tags into your metadata, get in touch with our expert team today. Our team is always on hand to provide help and advice to current and new clients.

In the meantime, keep up to date with our blog to read more strategic technical SEO advice.

Did you know that 48% of marketers now use AI to assist them with content generation — and a further 10% plan on using it in the future?

Since generative AI tools such as ChatGPT made their debut a little over a year ago, they have well and truly changed the marketing game forever. A year on, we can safely say that we’re out of the ‘sensationalism’ phase where these new and exciting tools seemed like a fad. Now, as more and more individuals embrace this technology seriously, generative AI is gradually becoming a permanent feature in many marketers’ toolkits — and for good reason.

We’re entering the ‘refinement’ stage, where it’s up to individuals and businesses to leverage the potential of this technology and enhance our workflows and processes. In this blog, we’ll show you how.

Understanding AI-generated content

Before we outline the best practices for onboarding the newest extension of your marketing team, AI, let’s get to know it a little better. AI content is often seen in two minds — as unusable gibberish or the product of a highly complex process that isn’t accessible to individuals outside the tech world. Both of which are wrong!

What is AI-generated content?

AI-generated content refers to any text, images, videos, gifs, or other media types generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence technologies. In essence, any written or visual content that has not been directly produced by humans.

The spectrum of AI-generated content is broad, including everything from the creation of custom images to long-form blog content and short social media posts. A huge draw of AI-generated content is the time and effort it saves on behalf of the writer or designer. However, the task is now for marketers to learn how to meet the AI halfway — saving time where possible without compromising on quality or accuracy.

How does AI content generation work?

At its core, AI content generation is not a complex process; the algorithms and machine learning it relies upon, however, are.

AI content generation works by using computer programs that have learnt a lot of information from existing text to produce responses to prompts. These programs are called algorithms and they have a strong understanding of how language works by using machine learning and something known as NLP (or natural language processing). This allows them to mimic human linguistic structures in their responses while also analysing vast quantities of data and learning from context.

So, when you interact with a GPT, a ‘generative pre-trained transformer’, the AI is using what it knows to produce responses that look like they are written by a human.

What does Google think about AI-generated content?

Now that tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini have been around for a while now, they are, of course, being used in professional contexts like content writing and marketing. So much so, that Google themselves have produced some guidance on using AI-generated content.

Google’s quality guidelines

All content on the web is subject to a number of quality guidelines outlined by Google. This is to ensure that the content users are able to access is high-quality, valuable, helpful, accurate, and does not intentionally mislead or offer false information. Google is also keen to uphold integrity in its rankings, ensuring only the best content is served in those coveted high SERP positions.

So, what does Google have to say about AI content?

Their key message? “Rewarding high-quality content, however it is produced.” Now, don’t get ahead of yourselves; this doesn’t mean that Google happily turns a blind eye to blogs entirely written by ChatGPT. There are, as expected, caveats.

Google’s stance is that humans should be utilising AI insightfully to produce the kinds of content most valuable to users — these being ‘Helpful’ content and content that conforms to the ‘E-E-A-T’ acronym.

Helpful content

In line with Google’s Helpful Content update in August 2022, Google favours content that is purposefully designed to be helpful to users in their search for answers.

This should be content that demonstrates a depth of knowledge, contributes new or valuable information, and provides a satisfying reader experience for users.

E-E-A-T content

Google’s ranking systems always aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates qualities of Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Now, at this point, if you’re thinking that AI tools can’t really demonstrate first-hand experience, you’d be correct. Human input is needed here as GPTs can only go so far.

Google stands firm on the fact that “using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results” is a violation of their spam policies.

The latest

In March 2024, Google also rolled out their Spam and Core Updates — both of which contain new advice about AI-generated content with the aim of reducing the amount of spammy, low-quality content on the web.

It’s expected that the Core Update should reduce unhelpful content in Google Search by up to 40%. What’s more, one of the key areas of the Core Update, ‘Scaled content abuse’, strengthens Google’s spam policy on using automation (e.g. AI) to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale with the intention of manipulating rankings.

Leveraging AI-generated content for marketing

With that being said, and keeping Google’s guideline front of mind, let’s now take a look at how we can use AI-generated content in our marketing efforts.

From ideation and creation to optimisation and assistance in measuring performance, the uses of AI are endless. Below are just a few examples to get you thinking about the possible areas where you could harness the potential of AI-generated content.

• Idea generation. If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for your blogs, AI tools can be helpful in producing sample titles or concepts for you to use as launching-off points.
• Blog post creation. If you’re tasked with writing a long-form piece of content about a specialist topic you are not familiar with, you can always ask AI to produce a draft for you to read and get a feel for the style of content associated with said topic before writing yourself.
• Social media post content. By using specific prompts such as tone of voice and character limit, you can encourage an AI like ChatGPT to produce sample social media posts for you. Just remember, if these are about upcoming events or things in the news, the AI may ‘hallucinate’ certain information if it does not know for certain – so be careful.
• Email marketing copy. Generative AI can help you personalise your email marketing copy for different segments of your audience to help increase open rates and engagement.
• Transcripts for videos. There are AI tools out there that can watch videos and produce transcripts, saving you time. However, the accuracy of these transcriptions varies greatly as they will always need to be sense-checked by a human.

Caveats

With all of the examples listed above, however, it is essential to remember the core caveats that come with generative AI content. These include (but are not limited to):

• AI content should never be copied and pasted word-for-word as your own content.
• Generative AI tools often get things wrong and ‘hallucinate’ fake information, especially about current affairs and recent events. So, fact-check everything.
• Context matters. Sometimes, due to grammar and linguistic nuances, generative AI can produce text about something different than the prompt you entered, as it interprets the written cues wrong.
• Unless you enter specific prompts outlining a tone of voice and writing style, AI-generated content has a common, formulaic approach and style that can be picked up on by content writers and maybe even users. So, any content that it produces will need to be reworded by a human.
• If it’s SEO content you want, that definitely needs to come from a human. AI tools are getting better at naturally inserting keywords into text, but they struggle with context and cannot add embellishments such as vital internal links.

AI content Dos and Don’ts

To make things easier for marketers who are eager to integrate generative AI into their workflows — but not eager to anger the Google gods — here’s a list of the key dos and don’ts when it comes to generative AI.

Dos

✅ Review all content produced by generative AI to ensure that it is accurate, in line with your brand’s tone of voice, and, most importantly, adheres to Google’s quality guidelines.

✅ Allow AI to enhance your creativity — not hinder it. Let AI help you get those creative juices flowing and cure writer’s block with idea-generation sample drafts or blog outlines.

✅ Test AI at every given opportunity. You’ll only really know what generative AI can do for you by experimenting with it and seeing what it can do. Vary your prompts and search online for the success stories of others.

✅ Use detailed and informative prompts. Let’s say you had a PA; if you told them to bring you ‘a coffee’ but you wanted a caramel macchiato with oat milk and drizzle, that’s on you. So, tell your AI what you want.

Don’ts

❌ Never depend entirely on AI. Copying and pasting reams of ChatGPT-generated content is not only bad for content quality but also against Google’s guidelines which could land your site in some pretty hot water.

❌ Don’t neglect the human element. AI-generated content alone is never enough. Remember that you can’t have ‘Experience’ with human input.

❌ Don’t believe everything AI comes out with. While GPTs are increasingly trained on recent, accurate data, sometimes they just get it wrong. So, check dates, double-check sources, and triple-check any YMYL (your money or your life) content.

❌ Don’t forgo your brand styles. While generative AI opens up a world of possibilities when it comes to tone of voice and writing style, ultimately, AI should be tailored to you and your unique style.

You can’t beat human touch

If you’re looking for further guidance on using AI in your content marketing efforts, get in touch with our Giants — real-life humans! — and we can answer any questions that you may have.

In the meantime, be sure to keep the human-centred aspect of content creation front of mind. You can always rely on our expert team of content marketers to help strategise and optimise your content output.

In the meantime, keep up to date with our latest blogs for more digital marketing advice and insider tips.