How to Use AI for SEO this Year
Search engine optimization may feel like an uphill battle. Marketers pour countless hours into keyword research, generating content, building quality backlinks, analyzing data, and more. With AI, it’s possible to streamline lots of time-consuming tasks and take your SEO strategy to the next level. HubSpot’s 2023 report reveals that the use of AI has reduced manual work for 90% of marketers.
On this page, we’ll explore some practical ways of integrating artificial intelligence into SEO to get to the top in search and increase organic traffic. So, whether you’re striving to refine your approach or discover new tactics, this article is a great starting point. Read on.
AI for SEO Optimization: More than Just a Fad
Artificial intelligence has been a trending subject for quite some time. But the collaboration between AI and SEO isn’t exactly breaking news. Since the mid-2000s, Google has been actively incorporating AI technologies like RankBrain, BERT, and MUM into its algorithms to raise the quality and relevance of search results.
With the rise of generative AI, Google plans to transform how people discover and interact with information. It recently unveiled a new program, AI Overviews (also called Search Generative Experience). The key idea is to give users short summaries of their queries so they don’t have to jump from one link to another. Here’s how it looks.
Since Google, the world’s most popular search engine, heavily utilizes AI, this clearly indicates the value of cutting-edge technology for SEO. Below, we’ll explore the possible application scenarios for AI in boosting websites’ search engine rankings.
AI for SEO: A Winning Combination for Marketers
There’s no denying that a well-planned SEO strategy is integral to a successful online presence. However, many businesses struggle to implement SEO practices effectively because of the sheer volume of what needs to be done:
- Analyze competitors;
- Find relevant keywords;
- Create content of various formats consistently;
- Optimize on-page elements (title tags, meta descriptions);
- And more.
Plus, keeping an eye on the constantly changing search engine algorithms makes the whole SEO game even more challenging.
That’s where artificial intelligence comes into play, lightening the load and speeding up tedious work. AI, in fact, can save marketers up to 2.5 hours a day. Thus, they have more time to focus on creative and strategic activities to drive better results. Speaking of the types of AI apps, marketers’ preferences come down to the following four categories:
AI tools are perfect for exploring data. Actually, 48% of marketing professionals utilize them for research purposes. These smart systems spare teams from surfing the internet for hours and scrolling past countless pages to find what they need.
Generative AI models like ChatGPT make data analysis less demanding. Powered by advanced machine learning algorithms, natural language processing (NLP), supervised fine-tuning, attention mechanisms, and other AI technologies, conversational chatbots parse online information instantly and present it in a user-friendly format.
Best AI SEO Use Cases
AI’s ability to analyze colossal data sets, identify patterns and trends, and generate insights makes it a trusted sidekick for maximizing SEO efforts. Here are five ways marketers can apply AI SEO without wasting a great deal of time on mundane tasks.
Upgrade Technical Aspects
There’s a lot going into technical SEO: improving page loading speed, fixing broken links, removing duplicate content, creating schema markup, generating hreflang, and more. AI proves incredibly useful in some of these tasks.
For instance, if you want your web pages to appear in rich snippets on the SERPs, make sure to implement proper schema markup. It’s code taking the form of structured data. Search engine bots use it when crawling web pages to better grasp the content. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Jasper AI can create schema markup for different types of content.
For example, we asked ChatGPT to generate FAQ structured data, and here’s the result:
It’s worth checking the output for errors. Consider analyzing the code using the Schema Markup Validator on Schema.org. The tool easily spots structural or syntax issues and gives advice on how to fix them.
Optimize Keyword Research
Identifying the right keywords is part and parcel of effective SEO. When done properly, keyword research enables businesses to:
- Spot terms and phrases their target audience commonly uses.
- Understand their clients’ pain points better.
- Tailor content to address those needs effectively.
- Drive relevant traffic to their websites.
With AI-based software, you can find related keywords within minutes or even seconds. Tools like Twinword or Wordtracker have intuitive interfaces, making the whole process less time-consuming and challenging for marketers of all skill levels.
By simply typing in a seed keyword in Twinword, you get a list of terms along with valuable data points regarding their search volume, keyword difficulty, competition, and more. Besides, the tool automatically groups the words by search intent, which is an excellent time-saver for SEO professionals.
Generate Content Faster
Crafting quality content, be it a blog post, landing page, or some other piece, takes a decent amount of time and effort. With AI, you won’t have a blank page staring back at you. Consider ChatGPT as an example.
The generative AI model can effortlessly brainstorm topic ideas using your keywords and generate outlines. For example, we asked ChatGPT to suggest blog topics for the keyword “Shopify store design.” Here’s the output:
You can even write full-length articles based on the prompts you feed it. However, the output may be generic, thin, and unoriginal. This is because ChatGPT generates responses based on its training data, which comprises an array of pre-existing online texts.
That’s why depending entirely on ChatGPT or other AI tools is not the best approach for content creation. Despite their impressive abilities, these systems cannot replace human creativity, intuition, critical thinking, and expertise, which are vital for producing unique and engaging content.
Plus, if you’re striving for top positions in search, remember: Google’s ranking systems reward original, helpful, user-oriented, and high-quality content that follows E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) principles.
Therefore, it’s always best to revise your AI-generated text, humanize it, add a creative touch, as well as dilute it with real-life examples, statistics, or expert quotes to make it more valuable to the reader.
Streamline Content Optimization
Writing an engaging content piece is not enough. Optimizing it for search engines is just as crucial. Strategic keyword placement, formatting text for readability with proper headings and subheadings, crafting meta tags, and more are all part of the process. Multiple AI-powered services are available to facilitate the task.
Yoast SEO, Rankmath, SurferSEO, or NeuronWriter are perfect for the job. For instance, NeuronWriter compares your text against competitors and scores it based on multiple SEO factors. The tool also boasts an NLP-driven editor that gives relevant suggestions for improving your content, such as where to put keywords, how to refine headings, and ways to make your writing more engaging for the audience.
Enhance Link Building Efforts
Quality backlinks are similar to votes of confidence, telling search engines that your website is credible and trustworthy. The equation here is simple: the more top-quality backlinks you earn, the higher your rankings on the SERPs are.
Link building is a time-intensive task. Marketers devote considerable effort to identifying relevant sources for potential backlinks, reaching out to website owners, and developing connections with them. With AI tools, there’s no need to comb the internet manually. Platforms like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Buzzsumo, Marketing Miner, and Moz Link Explorer, to name a few, help decode backlink analysis.
With a few clicks, they give comprehensive data on link quality, domains, anchor texts, and referring pages of your site and your competitors. This information is crucial for recognizing areas for improvement and building a solid backlink profile.
As for writing backlink outreach messages, AI tools can take the grunt work out of a marketing team as well. ChatGPT, for instance, helps you create personalized emails at scale. Just give the conversational chatbot a few key details about your pitch and target audience, specify the tone of voice or any other crucial info, and in seconds, it will compose a draft. You can further tweak the message to your liking before sending it out.
Key Considerations for Using AI SEO Tools
Before integrating AI into your SEO strategy, you should clearly define what areas you want to improve. Do you need AI to create optimized content, conduct keyword research, or build a strong backlink profile? After outlining your specific needs, start researching the market.
With a profusion of AI SEO tools, your goals and budget will be the main factors determining the choice. Also, look for an option that seamlessly integrates with your current SEO software. Make the most of trial periods and demo versions if they’re available. This way, it will be easier to assess whether the AI tool is the best fit for your requirements.
After implementing AI into SEO, you should constantly monitor performance changes and make adjustments to your approach whenever needed. For example, you should always review and edit automatically generated SEO content. With human oversight, you ensure the written piece is relevant and accurate, aligns with the overall digital marketing strategy, and meets Google’s quality guidelines.
The Future of SEO Is With AI
AI SEO is all about incorporating artificial intelligence to speed up tedious SEO tasks, such as finding keyword opportunities, generating content ideas, optimizing content for humans and search engines, carrying out competitor analysis, enhancing link-building strategies, and more.
Wise implementation of AI-based tools can elevate your SEO strategy and ultimately improve your website’s search performance. Balance human knowledge and expertise with AI’s impressive capabilities to maximize your SEO efforts and outrank competitors.
Kate Parish is the CMO at Onilab, a full-service eCommerce agency focused on Magento. She has worked on diverse marketing strategies and activities for more than eight years. With the intention to find top-notch marketing solutions, she constantly explores SEO, branding, SMM, PPC, and Magento PWA development.
