AI is transforming SEO. It’s starting to automate time-consuming tasks and helping marketers analyze massive amounts of data. Find out how you can maximize the benefits of AI for SEO by achieving harmonious human-AI collaboration.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of attracting traffic through free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on search engines. The goal is to enhance your website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), increasing visibility and driving more visitors to your site. It’s an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes.
But the savviest marketers know that SEO has drastically changed since its early days. More specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed SEO, adding a new level of precision and efficiency to the traditional strategies we’ve come to know.
AI empowers marketers to make data-driven strategies by allowing them to analyze vast amounts of data and automate tedious tasks that take up most of their time.
In essence, leveraging AI for SEO is like giving your brand a jetpack during a marathon. While the fundamentals of SEO remain the same, AI propels your strategies forward with incredible speed and agility.
Today, we’ll explore how you can use AI for SEO and discuss what the future looks like for this dynamic duo.
Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newbie to SEO, this blog will teach you how to leverage AI and SEO’s power.
Contrary to popular belief, using AI for SEO is not new. Google itself has been using the technology to enhance its products and services for years; take, for example, RankBrain.
Launched in 2015, RankBrain is Google’s first AI-powered search algorithm. The model allowed Google to expand its capabilities from simply matching keywords to understanding search intent.
BERT is another AI model Google created to improve its understanding of natural language, improving the search engine‘s ability to interpret conversational searches.
Ultimately, AI and SEO have shared a symbiotic relationship for quite some time now.
As AI technologies continue to evolve, so will SEO. Google’s newest feature, Search Generative Experience (SGE), is slated to change how users find new information.
SGE, recently introduced to a wider audience in May 2024, uses generative AI to give users comprehensive summaries of the search results page (SERPs). This new feature allows users to find information without clicking through several websites.
These summaries could increase the likelihood of zero-click experiences, which occur when users find the answers they need without clicking through a website.
Moreover, expert risk assessments indicate that websites that rely heavily on organic search traffic could experience a 25% to 50% decline. This is especially true for informational sites that target straightforward queries.
For example, if users look for a guide on how to tie a tie, SGE’s summaries may provide the instructions they’re looking for, negating the need to click on another website. But the great news is there are several ways you can adapt and thrive in this ever-evolving search landscape.
Most people think AI can only be used in content writing for SEO, but the possibilities don’t end there. Here are five different ways you can use AI in SEO:
Keyword research typically involves finding, analyzing, and implementing keywords. Each step can take up much of your time, depending on the data you’re analyzing. But the good news is you can easily optimize this process using AI-powered keyword research tools.
Free tools like the Google Keyword Planner will help you quickly discover new keywords and analyze their search volume. Other paid platforms like Semrush and Ahrefs are also ideal for tracking keyword performance.
By taking time-consuming tasks off your plate, AI gives you more time to do important tasks like strategizing.
Content optimization is a strategy to boost your existing content’s ranking. Let’s say some of your brand’s blog posts aren’t doing so well. Tools like Google Analytics will help you audit these poor-performing blogs and identify the root of the problem.
Your audit results will give you an idea of how to optimize your content further, increasing your blog’s chances of ranking for its target keywords.
Search engines use backlinks to measure the authority and trustworthiness of a website. Traditionally, you have to review your backlink profile and assess each link manually. This process can be time-consuming, especially for sites with thousands of backlinks.
Fortunately, you can now find AI-powered backlink analysis tools to automate this task. These tools will crawl the entire internet and look for all the backlinks pointing to your website.
They’ll analyze the quality of each link and identify any low-quality sites that could affect your website’s health.
Schema markup is another area of SEO that you can automate with AI’s help. You can use AI tools to generate new schemas and identify errors in your current markup. This strategy ensures you send the right signals and messages to search engines.
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular among all age categories. Recent studies from Statista show that the number of people who use digital voice assistants is expected to grow in the coming years, highlighting a new frontier for SEO.
Since voice search queries are often phrased in a more conversational way, you’ll have to recalibrate your strategies and ensure your website is optimized for voice search.
AI can be a powerful tool in voice search optimization. It can assist you in identifying long-tail keyword opportunities and analyzing user search queries you can incorporate into your website’s FAQ pages.
Contrary to popular belief, AI cannot replace seasoned SEO professionals. Try as it may, it could never replace the expertise and critical thinking required to create effective SEO strategies.
At first glance, it may seem like AI could solve all your SEO problems. But in reality, it has its limitations. These limitations highlight the importance of achieving harmonious human-AI collaboration.
Below are some of the best practices on how to achieve this:
It’s tempting to use AI for everything but to maximize its benefits, consider where you need it the most.
Determine which tasks can be automated or are time-consuming. It would also help if you align AI’s strengths with your strategies. From here, you can determine which areas of your workflow can be improved with AI’s help.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, AI isn’t perfect. It has its limitations, one of which is its reliance on direct inputs. The results it generates are only as good as the prompts you give it.
You must learn and adapt to every tool you use. Test your prompts and tweak them to get more accurate results. Creating a prompt bank specifically designed for your SEO needs would also be helpful. This way, you’ll know which prompts will give you better results.
AI can expedite your workflow, but its quality is never guaranteed. You must review everything your AI tool generates, be it keywords or content, with a critical eye.
Ensure that it aligns with your brand, provides value to your audiences, and adheres to the ethical standards of AI use.
Remember, although AI is a powerful tool on its own, it’s most effective when leveraged with human expertise.
The SEO landscape constantly evolves, and AI is at the forefront of this transformation. Although some may fear its impact on SEO, its true potential lies in augmenting and empowering human capabilities.
AI excels at analyzing massive data sets and identifying patterns, but it lacks the creativity and critical thinking that differentiate effective strategies from mediocre ones.
Remember, effective SEO hinges on a deep understanding of user intent, an area where human talent truly shines. So, instead of viewing AI as a replacement, consider it a powerful tool that will take your SEO strategies to the next level.
To learn more about data-driven SEO, visit Growth Rocket’s blog.
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