SEO and AI. Friends or Foes?

Artificial intelligence has divided the digital marketing world into two groups: those who fully embrace it and let it do most of the work for them and those who fiercely reject it. 

You can compare AI to the first time humans discovered fire. If mishandled, it can burn you. If handled right, you can cook, have light at night, and build civilization. 

Those who use AI for fast results and spew out thousands of articles a day to rank high on SERPs will have a negative experience. Those who use AI to make content creation faster, research keywords, and optimize for SEO are already miles ahead of everyone else. 

Like fire, AI is just a tool. It’s powerful. It makes you more efficient. It saves time. It can complete tasks for you and make you forget writer’s block. And it can do way more. If you treat AI as your friend and trusted companion in the SEO world, it will feel like having another buddy who does all the manual work next to you. If you treat AI as a foe, you’ll be eaten up by the competition who embraced it. Let’s look at some of the trends and tools you can implement immediately. 

Top Trends

SEO trends change quickly. But these trends will be evergreen for 2024.  

Search Generative Experience

Google gave the world a hint of its AI prowess with its search generative experience. It wasn’t a good test, so they’re returning to the drawing board to present information to users based on queries answered by AI. By combining data from multiple websites, Google could come up with an answer and show it to you. No one knows when the next update will take effect, but many experts guess it will be the permanent one when it happens. 

Zero Click Searches

Google has tools that allow you to complete a search without opening a website. Simple word translations or currency conversions happen in the interface. A recent study by SEMrush showed that 57% of mobile users perform a search and leave the tab without clicking on paid or organic placements. These kinds of searches will be on the rise. 

Top Tools

When it comes to AI, most people are familiar only with ChatGPT. But there are so many other good tools you can use for SEO to stay ahead of the competition. Here are some of them. 

SEMrush

SEMrush has a full suite of tools to make your life as an SEO professional easier. It’s globally renowned and recently implemented features that are enhanced by AI. Here’s what it can do: 

–          Ranking recommendations. AI can give you insights on how you can improve user engagement, content relevance, and website rankings. 

–          Backlink analysis. No one likes backlink analysis because it’s boring, and you have to make sense of data – which is where the AI comes in. It can identify potential risks and high-quality opportunities to enhance your rankings and boost domain authority. 

–          On-page optimization. It might take you 15 minutes to come up with the perfect headings and meta tags for that new piece of content. AI can take care of it in a few seconds. 

–          Content ideas. Based on your website, SEMrush can create engaging content ideas that you can explore further. 

–          Keyword insights and trends. Instead of wasting time overlooking the entire SEO landscape, you can ask the AI to analyze emerging topics and trends. 

VPNs

Virtual private networks aren’t AI tools, but they’re super helpful when it comes to SEO. You can use a VPN to connect to every country with an audience and see your ranking. That will give you a lot of insight into your competitors, where you can make small tweaks and come out on top.

And here’s another benefit. Many of your leads and visitors use a VPN ad blocker to browse the internet. They don’t want to see sponsored content. However, SEO-optimized content bypasses the ad blocker because it becomes a natural form of advertising that you can use. 

Jasper

Jasper is an AI tool that can help you create social media posts, product descriptions, blog material, meta descriptions, and so much more. You just need to feed Jasper with a couple of target keywords, and it can automate the entire project management for an enterprise! We’re talking content revisions, campaigns, and tasks. It’s one of the best ways to scale content production without lacking a single bit of quality. The only downside is that Jasper is pricier than their competitors. 

Things to have in mind when using AI for SEO

Before you run off to explore all how you can use AI for SEO, here are some of the key considerations to have in mind: 

–          Keyword relevance. SEO is all about keywords. You have to use tools that will integrate and identify the most relevant keywords with your brand and for your target audience. 

–          Content quality. You should never compromise on content quality. Even if AI produces a perfect article, comb through it with a human writer to add more value and see if it makes sense. 

–          Flexibility and customization. You want tools that integrate seamlessly into your workflow and allow you customization to use them in a way that feels natural to your team.

Cover : Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/google-search-engine-on-macbook-pro-40185/