This time last year, phrases like generative AI and AI SEO probably weren’t even in your vocabulary, let alone significant concerns. However, in just a few short months, AI technology has appeared across multiple industries and become available to nearly everyone, including small businesses.
But does AI have a place in your ongoing SEO strategy, and if so, how might it be used to help you achieve your marketing objectives? Here we’ll take a closer look at how modern businesses use AI to produce optimized content and meet SEO goals.
We’ll also cover how forward-thinking business owners and digital marketers can get ahead of the pack by balancing AI-powered tools with the unparalleled human touch offered by key platforms like WriterAccess.
How Has AI Been Used for Content Optimization?
AI may feel like something that came out of nowhere and took the entire world overnight, but it’s been around for a long time.
Do you use Google Maps to help you get around? Do you have Alexa or a Google Mini in your home that you use to help you with various things? You may be a content writer who relies on popular tools like Grammarly to ensure your writing sparkles for your clients.
Alternatively, you may have heard of Bing’s new AI search function or the introduction of Google AI-powered ads to pay-per-click marketing. If so, you’re already familiar with how AI can streamline workflows and simplify things.
Years ago, SEO pros personally completed complicated tasks like data collection and analysis, keyword research, or on-site optimization. But now, they’ve got numerous AI SEO tools at their disposal to simplify workflow and make their jobs easier.
AI SEO tech allows it to keep up in an increasingly competitive digital world. Search engine algorithms change frequently and quickly. When human marketers and SEO experts catch up, they’re changing all over again.
What Are the Main AI Trends in Content Marketing?
Even though AI SEO is still pretty new, it’s already significantly impacting how businesses approach content marketing. Here’s a closer look at some of today’s most prevalent trends.
Content Automation
It’s nearly impossible to read anything about AI SEO and AI-powered content marketing these days without ChatGPT coming up at some point. ChatGPT can generate surprisingly human-like texts on almost any topic in a fraction of the time it would take a human being to write the same thing from scratch.
As any content marketer already knows, content is still king when achieving stellar SERP rankings. And between company blogs, social media feeds, and guest blogging opportunities, you need a lot of it to get ahead and stay there.
It can be tempting to let a tool like ChatGPT take over the entire job of producing all your content, but it’s essential to realize that doing so has its drawbacks. AI bots are prone to spitting out misinformation and generating text lacking the depth a human writer could give.
However, AI SEO tools are terrific for helping you do things like:
- Research relevant keywords.
- Identify opportunities to fill content gaps.
- Brainstorm fresh content ideas.
- Format your content for success.
- Find the right content production talent to help you reach your goals.
AI is also terrific for automating specific aspects of your content production routine, like email outreach, post-scheduling, audience segmentation, and more.
Content Personalization
Although consumers are looking for products and services that might be useful for them, they’re searching for all-around great experiences.
They want to buy from brands they connect with and believe in. They reach for their wallets when one of those brands successfully sells them a picture of how great their lives will be if they buy.
Personalization is essential to how today’s brands accomplish this, and adding AI to your strategy can help. Factors like natural language processing and deep learning make AI SEO tools great at enhancing content to tailor it to a target audience better. It does this by:
- Helping marketers customize their ads to fit different audiences.
- Coming up with personalized product recommendations.
- Streamlining customer service for brands.
Chatbots
Speaking of customer service, chatbots are another way AI has been helping businesses of all sizes and types take care of their clientele. Robotic, frustrating responses are a thing of the past, thanks to how far AI has come.
That makes a chatbot an excellent fit for any company’s customer service efforts. The bots can quickly field customer concerns and automate certain functions. Customers with concerns that require a human touch can then be referred to a human customer care team for further processing.
Most consumers prefer this approach to customer care, but it’s an excellent way for businesses to save money, as they’ll no longer need as large a customer service team.
Data Analysis
As with many other aspects of SEO, data analysis is another task that used to require a lot of time, care, and manual human effort. Therefore, there were strict limits to how quickly a company could scale its SEO efforts or achieve ideal results.
AI SEO has also changed the game there, particularly by streamlining the process of managing data. AI tools take mere minutes (if not seconds) to gather relevant data, analyze it, and decide what should be done with it.
That said, AI SEO is great for the following:
- Optimizing existing content for SEO.
- Handling website audits.
- Locating and managing problems with duplicate content.
AI SEO tools also take the issue of human error out of the picture altogether.
Why Does the Use of AI in Content Marketing Not Replace Human Work?
With the world still marveling over ChatGPT as Google announces its answer to the world of advanced chatbots, many people are concerned about the AI paradox. They’re worried that advanced AI will soon make human workers obsolete, although this could never happen. Here’s why.
Empathy
Although AI programs can seem human-like in many ways, they lack genuine human empathy. A bot can draw from data and raw information when completing tasks but can’t draw from lived experiences and feelings like a human being can.
AI can’t empathize with another human being during a customer care interaction or infuse genuine emotion into its marketing content. Empathy, emotion, and the ability to make a human connection are critical to establishing trust and getting results with content marketing.
Cultural Sensitivity
You can teach an AI program to recognize specific terms, words, and stereotypes potentially offensive to people. However, its lack of empathy means AI will never truly understand cultural sensitivity and why it’s essential.
Digital-age connectivity means content potentially reaches people from all walks of life and from all over the world. Therefore, the ability to be inclusive and sensitive to everyone who might be consuming that content is a must. When brands fail at this, the consequences can be severe and long-lasting.
Creativity and Originality
AI SEO programs and chatbots can process and recall incredible amounts of data and information. But they’re limited because they need help to think creatively or develop original ideas.
Businesses will always need human beings to think outside the box, handle unforeseen situations, and be creative. AI is only capable of doing what it was programmed to do. This means it can only present solutions suggested by already absorbed data.
Conclusion
Ultimately, while AI is truly unique and an undeniable asset to modern businesses, there are significant limitations to what AI can do. Human experts and other workers are the keys to handling everything else. That means the way of the future involves both, and intelligent marketers will make decisions accordingly.
WriterAccess complements your growing AI SEO toolbox because it brings the best of both worlds to the table. It leverages cutting-edge AI technology to match companies with top content writers from an extensive network of experts for solutions you’ll love.
Try WriterAccess for free when you sign up for a free two-week trial today! You’re sure to wind up glad you did.
