How Has AI Changed SEO?
Changes in the Way Consumers Search
AI has reshaped the way consumers search for products and services. Rather than relying on traditional search engines, there has been a sharp increase in the use of AI engines to answer questions. These engines rely more on topic-based searches rather than exact keyword matches, so companies are being forced to reconsider how they build content to fit this new method.
New Tools to Aid in Automation
The rise in AI has led to an increase in automation speed and accuracy. Knowing how to utilize these tools can help you create a fast and functional SEO plan catered specifically to your unique business needs.
Desire for Quality Content
While content is easier than ever to create, there is a strong desire for high-quality content. AI can allow you to refine and polish your website so that you’re always putting your best foot forward.
Advantages of using AI for Your SEO Plan
Scaling to Your Needs
No matter the size of your company, AI can help you create a plan that fits your needs. As you grow and your needs change, it’s fast and flexible to help you adapt to whatever changes you need to make.
Improved Analysis
AI is highly skilled at analyzing and extrapolating large amounts of data very quickly. This can help speed up research, more accurately track performance, and map ways to improve structure and organization.
Cost and Resource Effective
Utilizing AI for repetitive tasks can be a cost-effective way to free up resources and staff for other tasks. Not only does it help to optimize your SEO strategy, but the low cost can further increase profit margin and reduce team workload.
Using AI For Research
Keyword Research
Because AI is good at quickly analyzing large chunks of data, you can utilize it to research what keywords are performing well in your industry. By asking the AI search tool specific questions, it can help generate a list of keywords that can provide a starting point for your content plan.
Identifying Gaps
An in-depth keyword analysis can help you find places your competitors rank where you don’t. If the products and services that you offer fit into these gaps, it can give you an idea of where to focus first on content creation, or what pages you should prioritize updating.
Competitor Analysis
AI tools can help examine competitor websites to see what they’re doing right and where you may be able to carve out your own niche. See where your competitors are ranking and use AI to find where your content can stand out from the competition.
Creating an SEO Plan
Topic Clusters
Modern SEO requires a web of related topics, and AI tools can help identify what topics to include across your site. Once you have your centralized hub pages, you can then branch out for child pages and related information to make your site flow from one topic to another.
Building Organizational Strategies
Having dozens of pages to match specific keywords is no longer enough for a successful SEO plan. Your site needs to have a strong organizational structure in order to rank within AI search results. Use the tools at your disposal to help map these organizational routes to help the algorithm easily scan and index your content.
Staying Flexible
Consumer behaviors are rapidly changing, so your SEO plan needs to change with them. By regularly analyzing changes in the way customers search, AI can help you stay up to date with the latest search trends.
Mentions and Building Credibility
Mentions across reliable sites are a huge part of ranking within AI search engines. AI tools can help identify trustworthy sites to focus your digital PR efforts on in order to gain quality mentions.
Optimizing Technical SEO
Title Tags and MetaData
Utilizing AI to help organize and write meta-data can help to optimize how the back end of your website communicates with AI search engines. This metadata is vital to ensuring your site is scanned and indexed properly so it shows up the way you intend in search results.
Technical Auditing
By feeding your website’s technical aspects through AI tools, you can highlight places where the back end may need to be polished. Rather than reviewing every page and link manually, this can save you time and resources to allow you to get to work refining your site faster.
Internal Linking
Once you start building your content, you can use AI to map the best way to link your site together. It can also help ensure that all of your internal links are working properly and that the site structure is logical and organized.
Tracking SEO performance
Data Analysis
With its enhanced ability to process large amounts of data, AI is a powerful tool when it comes to tracking performance results. Rather than logging everything manually, which can be time-consuming and lead to errors, if used correctly, AI can help quickly and accurately keep track of your performance analytics.
SERP Research
Using AI to track SERP can cut down significantly on the time spent conducting research. It’s important to keep in mind with SERP, sometimes AI models don’t pick up on nuances and human shifts, so while it’s a good place to start, you’ll have to interpret the data yourself.
Common Mistakes when Using AI for SEO
Over-Optimization
While it may seem counterintuitive, there is such a thing as over-optimization. Too much reliance on refining to specific keywords and topic webs can cause your content to sound robotic and artificial.
Unreliable Sources and Content
How accurate AI is when it comes to sources and content relies fully on the sources it values. Rapid changes in information can cause the research to be out of date, and not all sites that rank highly are always fully accurate.
Not Implementing Enough Human Insight
AI is a fantastic tool, but it is, at the end of the day, a tool. Human insight will always be needed to make decisions that take into account emotional depth, nuance, and voice to make your site meet high standards.
Author Bio Below:
Jason Khoo started freelancing in SEO in college, sold his first agency, and now is the founder of Zupo, an Orange County-based SEO consulting agency helping construct powerful long-term SEO strategies for our clients. Jason also enjoys multiple cups of tea daily, hiding away on weekends, catching up on reading, and rewatching The Simpsons for the 20th time.
