AI has been completely overhauling everything it touches. Our daily lives, the stock market, and even digital marketing are not exempt.
Which has had some digital marketing experts (and eCommerce entrepreneurs alike) asking for some time – and can you use AI for SEO?
Well, there are lots of ways (which you’ll see a bit further down in this article) but at the same time, there is one thing you should definitely not use AI for in SEO.
It’s generative AI to produce copy. Here’s what you should know.
The Problem of Generative AI for SEO
AI can be used for generative purposes. It can write out whole novels in a matter of minutes, or for our purposes, completely generate web pages or blog posts from scratch.
The problem is not only that AI is one massive (and disappointing) echo chamber, but also that it often gets things dreadfully wrong. For optimizing content that already exists it’s passable, but using an AI-driven model to write it? Forget that.
AI, when it is used for content generation, unabashedly offers bad (and in some cases, dangerously inaccurate) information to users (Google’s AI overview telling users to literally eat one rock per day comes to mind) regularly, and with abjectly reckless abandon.
This is a big problem in SEO since by this point in the evolution of search engine optimization, the most important ranking signal is content, far and away.
Now here’s the truth; when it comes to structure and overall SEO-friendliness, AI hits it out of the park. That’s why these websites with AI-generated content tend to do well in the short term.
But just like the black hat SEO of old (which also generated short term results) AI-generated copy usually does not have staying power. If it ranks it will usually fall off shortly.
This is because, first of all, the information in pure AI content tends to be specious at best, and inaccurate at worst, but also because it is usually very thin, and very surface level.
As a result, user engagement metrics tend to flag, signalling to Google that other sources are better, which causes AI-generated content to start to drop in the rankings.
That’s how it works currently, but there’s also the risk that Google will start to use AI detectors in its algorithm at some point in the future, which makes using generated content even riskier.
The bottom line is not to use AI engines for generative copy, at least for SEO or content marketing purposes. SEO-optimized and written content might save time now, but it will cost you later.
Is There Anything You Can Use AI for SEO?
With all of this being said, there are still many ways you can use AI in SEO. Here are just a few of them:
- Drafting outlines
- Doing cursory research
- Competitor analyses
- Tech audits of a website
- Scrubbing for structural errors and broken links
- Monitoring analytics
- Keyword research and target URL assignment
- Making basic technical and on-page optimization
- Identifying areas where the UX of a website could be improved
- Coding and integrations
- Finding and removing excess code
- Automating repetitive work
- Understanding how to use SEO tools
- Proofreading copy and asking for suggestions
As you can see, even though AI is not particularly good with generative copy, it still has plenty of use cases in SEO, and even more in digital marketing in general.
Either start getting familiar with one of these AI engines today to learn how it can benefit your digital marketing strategies or else get in touch with a specialist that is prepared to leverage these efficiencies for your business.
Working with SEO Experts that Leverage AI-Powered Efficiency
Rather than using AI for SEO, it’s better to work with human SEO specialists that really know how it works well. People that have worked in SEO for years not only know how to get websites ranking in the search results, they also know what can and cannot be done effectively with AI.
It’s almost time for you to budget for the new year; get your marketing initiatives in order and get in touch with an SEO expert to start generating higher organic traffic to your website today.
