With terms like ChatGPT being increasingly bandied around and most households now equipped with a virtual assistant, artificial intelligence is becoming more and more prevalent. Just this week, Meta announced the launch of their own AI assistant, to be used on Instagram and WhatsApp, and TikTok introduced a feature for labelling AI-generated videos.
No longer confined to Chatbot customer service assistants and driver assist vehicle systems, AI in 2023 is more capable and ubiquitous than ever before. The UK AI market is worth more than £16.9 billion, according to the US International Trade Administration, and 33% of medium-sized companies have now incorporated one AI technology.
In SEO and the wider marketing industry, AI is similarly gaining traction. It is transforming both how search engines are powered, and how SEO professionals are optimising their content. Google first turned to artificial intelligence in 2016 with its search engine algorithm RankBrain, and since then, AI has been increasingly incorporated into search experience and SEO strategy.
There is growing discussion about the positive and negative implications of AI for SEO; this blog is going to take a deep-dive into the different forms of AI, and how they affect SEO. The experts at Cedarwood Digital will be offering their predictions for the future of artificial intelligence in digital marketing, and it will finish by explaining why SEO professionals must work to adapt and evolve in line with the trajectory of AI.
Content-writing AI
The use of AI to develop and create content is becoming more and more widespread. In late 2022, Chat GPT was released and has now been followed by countless writing AIs including ChatSonic, Jasper and Claude. The revolutionary impact of these conversational AIs is to the extent that Google Search’s guidance on AI-generated content has changed in recent months to allow for AI content creation, provided it meets the same quality guidelines established for human writers.
It is therefore definitely possible to leverage AI to help you create great content. Google wants humans to write content, but there is no reason why AI cannot help improve your business’s content quality. It seems to make sense as, after all, Google’s ranking system is designed to reward high-quality content, and AI can be implemented to deepen your understanding of a topic.
However, there are also some concerns surrounding AI’s impact on SEO content writing. It’s important to bear these in mind when turning to a virtual assistant for help on a writing task…
>It is important to bear in mind that all the output of these assistants is based only on the data it has been fed, so, to create truly original and unique content you’re going to want to combine its generated information with your human creativity.
>Another concern is that it could decrease the quality of marketers’ content as they attempt to create content solely optimised for search engines. Note that Google wants content to be helpful and written by humans, for humans. SEO content still needs to provide real value for a reader to rank well.
AI and Search Results
On the topic of SERPs, this is one of the areas where we have seen the most significant impacts of AI. The way search engines understand and rank search results is changing, and AI plays a hefty part in this. Google is now using AI algorithms to analyse a user’s search history, location and behaviour to provide impressively personalised results.
But what does this mean for us SEOs? Well, we need to focus on optimising our content for these Natural Language Processing algorithms. Because Google’s AI can now understand the nuances of human search queries, our SEO strategies likewise need to produce content for the user. Include conversational long and short-tail keywords, and write articles that match user intent.
Also, the big search engines are going beyond merely using AI to better their results and are now launching their own AI-powered search engines. Earlier this year, Microsoft Bing chat and Google BARD were introduced as answers to the influence of ChatGPT. These developments give us an idea of what we can expect more of in the future, but they are not without their concerns. Queries are being raised as to the privacy of these platforms, and potential of information leaks. Additionally, these large language models run the risk of generating misleading information under an authentic guise – because everyone trusts Google, right?
AI and SEO Analysis
As well as optimising for artificial intelligence, we can also use AI assistants to improve our content. SEO professionals can now utilise data-led AI insights to understand how users interact with search engines and websites. There are artificial intelligence softwares tailored to give you the know-how on everything from link building and keyword creation, to measuring your own traffic and engagement conversions. AI can help you optimise for voice-search, or the latest helpful content update, by scanning existing content and suggesting SEO-related changes.
Here at Cedarwood, we make use of AI softwares such as Ahrefs and Semrush to deliver the most effective SEO strategies for our clients. However, as much as these softwares are very helpful, we would always advise using them with a degree of caution – make sure humans are at the beginning and end of this content – Google can tell!
One drawback is that as these AI-powered tools become more commonly used in the marketing world, the competition for rankings increases. As more and more SEOs discover the softwares to make their content extra-relevant, we all need to work that bit harder to rank.
SEOs must stay updated on AI
Whether you love or hate it, AI is here to stay, So it is really important for SEO professionals to stay up-to-date and somewhat prepare for future possibilities. We can’t be sure what the future looks like for SEO, but it is looking increasingly likely that artificial intelligence will play a massive role.
This means that companies need to look at how they can exploit the growth of AI for their own benefit. We’d advise:
📌Creating content that is optimised for AI-driven search results, see our very own comprehensive guide here
📌Provide clear, factual answers in your content that answer users’ queries (FAQs and how-to guides like this one are great!)
📌It is ever-important to show that real people are behind your content – AI can never completely simulate a human writer, so make sure to get emotions and personal experiences in to your writing
📌Keep an eye on your competitors and observe how they’re using and responding to AI developments to give you that competitive edge
What does the future for AI and SEO look like?
If the Cedarwood team were to have a go at predicting how AI could change in the following year, we would guess that:
~Natural Language Processing will only continue to get more advanced with search engines getting even better at understanding the meaning behind search queries, and especially voice search queries.
~We may see an explosion in the amount of AI content and automated creation of articles, videos etc. We imagine that this new content will consequently result in even more crawlers and advanced algorithms to dig out the meaningful content. After all, Google is famed for its ability to constantly evolve.
~Search engines will know us better than our closest friend. We predict more personalised search results than ever before, based on search history and behaviours across other platforms.
To sum up
Artificial intelligence is loud and it’s proud in 2023 and whether you like it or not, this is having a notable impact on SEO. As SEO professionals, we need to stay updated and adapt our strategies accordingly to stay ahead of the competition.
Looking for a helping hand with AI for SEO? Our SEO team here at Cedarwood are a whizz at all things artificial intelligence – get in touch with us today to discuss a tailored strategy for your business.
