AI And SEO: What Does The Future Hold?

While AI has been around in various forms for a few years now, it has taken over the media since ChatGPT created a frenzy and Microsoft announced it was partnering with Open AI for search. There has been a lot of concern about whether AI is going to replace humans in the content creation space, and I don’t buy into the hype. I think AI is going to be our largest resource—and I'll tell you why. 

Will AI Replace SEO?

The short answer is… no. I really do believe that AI is going to be our largest resource. You may not even realize it, but you have been utilizing AI in so many ways already. One example is Grammarly, which hasn’t replaced human editors yet. However, it has helped people write concise emails or articles with no grammatical errors. *Spoiler, I used Grammarly and human eyes to edit this blog* 

I was so curious about what chatGPT will do to SEO that I decided to ask the AI “Are you going to replace Search Engine Optimization Specialists?”

Here is what I got in response. 

How AI Can Assist and Complement SEO Efforts

Phew! You read it here first: SEO jobs are safe. However, remember that AI is only growing in popularity, so those who elect not to use it could be left in the dust. Instead of ignoring it, start finding ways to work with AI to improve your approaches, your processes, and your output.

So how do you use AI to enhance your search engine optimization efforts? Here are a few ways:

Keyword Analysis 

AI can help identify high-traffic, low-competition keywords that can be targeted in content. For example,  “Digital Marketing agency” is one of Tribute Media’s keywords.  There is a long list of Digital Marketing Agency keywords that aren’t relevant to what we do, like, “How to start a digital marketing agency.”  Utilizing AI to clean up a list of keywords by providing it with the parameters for what a quality keyword is for your content will not only provide you with some great low-hanging fruit to target but also save you time.

Content Optimization

AI can help optimize content by providing recommendations for content improvements around quality, relevance, and engagement. However, AI-generated content will always lack emotion, personality, or style. Let’s face it—no one can write like a human except a human. Plus, over the years, Google has penalized AI-generated content and deemed it spammy or unhelpful. They have changed their wording around AI content after their announcement about BARD, their AI search assistant. You can read more about what they deem helpful or unhelpful here.  This makes us ponder the question, “Is AI content still considered bad?” For years Google has been telling us that AI-generated content is bad, and they were penalizing sites for using it. To be fair, most of the AI content that was created was spammy and/or completely unhelpful for readers. AI has advanced a lot in the past few years, and the content AI is able to generate is actually quite good. I’ll show you some examples later.

Increased Efficiency

AI can automate time-consuming tasks, freeing up time for more strategic initiatives. For example, ChatGPT can put together schema code based on your instructions or make suggestions based on content. It is important to note that these aren’t always perfect, so you should read over them to make sure it accurately reflects your point, company, and your voice. Basically, ChatGPT is your new helpful assistant that still needs to be monitored because it can’t see the big picture or understand complex testing (yet). 

What Can’t ChatGPT Do?

Though it might seem like ChatGPT has no limitations, there are actually a few key barriers that you should be aware of before you start using it. In fact, these are all points that should defer you from using Chat GPT as your sole content creator. 

Search

As of now, ChatGPT does not have the ability to search the internet for sources or use that information for its answers. ChatGPT has access to information through September 2021. It cannot update its own database just yet. So if you are looking for timely data, you are better off using Google or reaching out to an expert in the field. 

Relay Relevant Data

As I mentioned above, ChatGPT’s training is only as current as September 2021, so you won’t be getting up-to-date information. Chat GPT is good at telling you that what it knows isn’t as current as you’d like if you asked the question correctly. So if you’re looking to replace your marketing team with Chat GPT, I’d advise you to reconsider, or else your content will be a few years behind the game.

Be Accurate

There are countless cases on the internet right now of people showing errors in Chat GPT’s responses to writing code, best practices, and more. Many users are urging folks to have an expert look over some items before going live with them, for example, if you’re having Chat GPT write you code, it is best practice to have your developer look over it for errors. 

Be Human

Is that too obvious? I stated it before, but emotions and personality are lost to AI. These are important factors when it comes to a customer's journey. Humans tend to follow content they can relate to. With AI, you are getting, dare I say, stale or bland content that ends up blending with all the other noise on the internet.  Here are some examples and how you can utilize them in your work. 

Here I asked chat GPT to explain SEO to an 8-year-old.

Wow, that’s pretty good and easy to understand as a child. Don’t believe me? Ask your child—I’ll wait.

Next, I asked Chat GPT to explain SEO to a seasoned professional, as I don’t see too many 8-year-olds exploring the ins and outs of digital marketing. (But if you are KUDOS!)

These are two great examples of  AI capabilities. So what can we do with this? Well for starters, please don’t copy and paste the answers right on your website. That is incredibly unoriginal content (think about everyone else who asked the same or similar questions as you). This ties back to the question, “Is using AI content bad?”—if you start pasting AI content directly to your site, Google can tell it is AI created and you will be dinged. You should use this answer as a guide and add your own words that speak to your expertise. Need help figuring out if your content is AI created? Open AI created an AI detector. 

If you work in the search engine optimization space, I don’t think you need to start searching for a new career yet. In our world of SEO, algorithms, data, and results are always changing. This makes it necessary to utilize technology in order to improve productivity. So, if you aren’t utilizing AI, you will be left behind. The world is changing, and you must change with it to keep up.