Some “digital marketing” “experts” (note the double use of quotation marks) would have you believe that AI is the solution to all of our problems with SEO.
Some even claim that, using generative copy, they’ve gotten websites to the top of page one overnight.
If they have, those websites that are built with AI content generation didn’t stay there long.
The truth is, there are ways you can use AI for SEO, though what’s described above is not one of them.
Rather, you can use it for one of the following items, with which it may be able to help.
1. Ask it for keyword recommendations
This is one of the areas in which AI for SEO really shines. It can help you find lucrative keywords in your vertical, as well as those which are unattainable and that you should thereby avoid. Plus, free AI-driven models for keyword research are a lot cheaper than paid models like SEMRush or Ahrefs.
2. Ask it for a real-time technical website audit
There are numerous technical items that can make or break a website with respect to SEO, but uncovering all of these technical issues, together, is both difficult and time consuming. An AI tool may be able to help you find and fix those problems.
3. Ask an AI-powered SEO tool for help with integrations or other code-based items
One of the things that AI is really good at, generally, is code-based work. Therefore, if you have a bug on your website or you’re having trouble with an integration, an AI model may be able to help solve that problem for you.
4. Get it to compile a list of your biggest competitors relevant to your SEO strategy
Knowing your biggest competitors is one of the most vital aspects of developing a viable digital marketing strategy. AI can help you with that and often is fairly accurate in its assessments – just be sure to double check what it tells you.
5. Ask it to vet keyword-URL recommendations
One of the big disconnects in SEO, at least for some website administrators or owners, is not just what keywords to target, but which URLs to target with them. AI models can help you choose the best existing URLs for a given target keyword so that you can leverage your efforts for link-building most effectively.
6. Ask it to sweep your domain for broken links or other technical errors
Combing your website manually is time-consuming, expensive, and liable to miss important items. Letting AI do it for you is far more cost-effective, passive, takes little time, and far less likely to stumble over mistakes. AI may be able to help you with pretty much any technical error, actually.
7. Ask it for ideas for blogs, or for what your website is missing in terms of content
To be clear, you do not want to ask AI to write any copy for you. But you can ask it for advice on what your website’s missing, or for ideas for blogs or other copy, or even for help optimizing your content. Then you can take those recommendations and draft and optimize the copy yourself. That is one of the best ways to leverage AI for copy optimization, far better than using generative AI to do it, and far more likely to yield viable results.
Using AI for SEO: Not As Impossible As It Might Seem
At the end of the day, yes, you can use AI for SEO. It’s just a matter of how you use it – and that you’re sure not to use it for things that definitely won’t help, like generative copy.
Otherwise, experiment. Making any optimizations is better than doing nothing, and you might discover a hitherto unknown use of AI for SEO.
