In recent years, artificial intelligence has begun to revolutionize the world of digital marketing and SEO. One of the most groundbreaking developments has been the rise of generative AI – intelligent algorithms and models capable of creating original content that rivals what humans can produce.
While still an emerging technology, generative AI is already being adopted by forward-thinking brands and marketers to supercharge their SEO efforts. From generating high-quality blog posts and articles at scale, to optimizing web copy for target keywords, to crafting compelling meta descriptions and alt text – the potential applications for generative AI in SEO are truly game-changing.
However, not everyone in the SEO community is embracing this AI revolution with open arms. For some, the increasing capabilities of AI represent an uncomfortable and disruptive truth. Will AI eventually make human SEO professionals obsolete? How will generative AI impact tried-and-true SEO best practices and strategies? Is an over-reliance on AI-generated content actually a risky SEO approach?
In this in-depth blog post, we‘ll take a closer look at the major ways generative AI is being leveraged for SEO today, and make some predictions about where things may be headed in the future. We‘ll examine both the exciting opportunities and the potential pitfalls that the rise of AI brings for SEO. Finally, we‘ll share some tips and best practices for smartly integrating AI tools into your SEO processes.
But first, let‘s make sure we‘re all on the same page about what exactly generative AI is and how it works.
What Is Generative AI?
Put simply, generative AI refers to artificial intelligence systems and algorithms that can generate new, original content – as opposed to just analyzing existing data. Common types of AI-generated content include text, images, videos, music, and more.
The most prominent generative AI models today leverage an approach known as deep learning, modeled after how the human brain works. By training on vast datasets (often pulled from sources across the internet), these models can learn patterns, relationships and rules. They can then apply that training to create content that mimics what they were trained on – sometimes in astonishingly convincing and "human-like" ways.
Some of the best-known generative AI models include:
- GPT-3 and GPT-4 from OpenAI, which can generate highly fluent, contextual text
- DALL-E, also from OpenAI, which generates images from text prompts
- Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which are similar AI image generators
- Google‘s MusicLM, which generates original music in various genres
While these foundational generative AI models are extremely powerful, they aren‘t typically used for SEO purposes directly. Instead, SEO tools will leverage the same deep learning architectures and approaches and train them on SEO-specific datasets – think successful online content, search queries, keyword data, and so on.
The end result are AI algorithms that can understand SEO guidelines, search intent, and ranking factors, and leverage that knowledge to generate optimized content to drive organic traffic. Some of the top SEO platforms that have integrated generative AI capabilities include Jasper, Frase, Surfer, Clearscope, and more.
Now that we‘ve covered the basics of what generative AI is, let‘s dive into some of the key ways it‘s being used for SEO.
How Generative AI Is Being Used for SEO
1. Generating High-Quality, Optimized Content at Scale
Consistently publishing relevant, valuable content is the backbone of any winning SEO strategy. But creating that content takes significant time and resources that not every brand has. This is where generative AI can be a major asset.
Using AI writing tools trained for SEO, brands can automatically generate blog articles, product descriptions, landing page copy, and other content that is both high-quality and search engine optimized. The AI considers SEO factors like keyword density, readability, tone of voice, linking structure, and more to produce content that has the best chance of ranking.
While of course the raw AI-generated content will still need to be reviewed and likely edited by a human for accuracy, brand voice alignment, and overall quality control – the time savings versus writing from scratch can be immense. One human writer can now oversee the creation of a much larger volume of optimized content than was previously possible.
2. Discovering & Optimizing for Semantic Keywords
Speaking of keywords, generative AI tools can help with the process of keyword research and optimization as well. Using natural language processing (NLP), these tools can analyze top-ranking content for a primary keyword and identify related secondary keywords and semantically relevant phrases to include.
This allows content to be optimized more comprehensively for semantic search – going beyond just one target keyword to cover the topic in-depth and align with user search intent.
Additionally, by processing huge amounts of search and keyword data, AI can be used to uncover keyword opportunities that humans may otherwise overlook – giving brands a competitive advantage.
3. Crafting Click-Worthy Titles & Meta Descriptions
The title tag and meta description are two of the most important on-page SEO elements – they‘re what entice searchers to click through to your content from the search results. Generative AI excels at creating compelling, curiosity-inducing titles and descriptions based on the content at hand.
By optimizing these key elements, AI can help drive more organic traffic to your site. And by training AI models on data about what titles and descriptions have performed well in the past, they can craft copy that has an even better chance of achieving coveted SERP click-through rates.
4. Answering Search Queries Directly with AI
For many search queries today, Google tries to provide a direct answer at the top of the SERP, pulling from trusted sources. Generative AI offers the opportunity for brands to have their content selected for these coveted "position zero" spots.
How? By using AI to analyze search queries and intent, and then generate succinct, accurate answers to common questions searchers have on a given topic. By proactively providing content in a question-and-answer format, brands increase the chances that Google will choose their content as a highlighted snippet.
This application of generative AI has major implications for voice search and virtual assistants as well. By having AI create and curate content that directly answers searcher questions, brands can improve their visibility on devices like smart speakers.
The Benefits of Using Generative AI for SEO
As we‘ve seen from the examples above, there are numerous ways that generative AI is already being leveraged for SEO – with surely more to come as the technology continues to evolve. But what are the key potential benefits of making AI a part of your SEO strategy?
1. Saving Time & Scaling Content Creation
Perhaps the most immediately apparent advantage is the time savings and scalability that AI content generation offers over creating content manually. With AI, one SEO professional can now oversee the creation of a significantly higher volume of optimized content assets – allowing even lean teams to compete in crowded SERPs.
2. Improving Content Quality & Relevance
While the quality of AI-generated content can sometimes be hit-or-miss, when used correctly, generative AI can actually help improve the overall quality and search relevance of a brand's content. By analyzing successful competitor content, search intent, and more, AI can guide content creation to be more comprehensive and aligned with what searchers are looking for.
3. Achieving Better Rankings & Organic Traffic
Ultimately, the main goal of SEO is to improve rankings and drive more organic search traffic to a website. And indeed, early adopters are reporting these benefits from leveraging AI for SEO.
For example, Hearst used Fractl‘s generative AI tool for a number of SEO briefs, and reported a 75% increase in the number of keywords they ranked for as a result. Similarly, JPL used AI-generated content for a series of blog posts and saw a 15% increase in organic traffic.
Of course, it‘s important to note that AI is not a magic bullet for SEO success. Ranking factors like backlinks, user engagement signals, and technical performance still matter a great deal. But when part of a holistic SEO strategy, AI can absolutely support better SERP visibility and traffic.
Risks & Limitations of AI for SEO
While the potential benefits of generative AI for SEO are exciting, it‘s essential that brands also consider some of the risks and limitations involved with an AI-first approach.
AI Content Can Be Inaccurate or Low-Quality
A common criticism of AI content generation is that without human oversight, AI can sometimes produce text that is factually incorrect, repetitive, or nonsensical. AI models are ultimately only as good as the data they‘re trained on. And the reality is that generative AI today sometimes "hallucinates" information or loses coherence, especially when generating long-form content.
For this reason, it‘s absolutely critical that any AI-generated SEO content is carefully reviewed and edited by humans before publishing. Some argue this human involvement negates the time-savings benefit of AI – but in practice, editing will still be much faster than writing from scratch.
Additionally, as generative AI models continue to advance, the quality and reliability of the raw content they produce will improve as well. So while human oversight is essential today, in the future, AI-generated content will likely be much more publish-ready out of the box.
Duplicate Content & Spam Risks
Another potential pitfall of using generative AI for SEO is the risk of creating duplicate or overly similar content. Since many AI writing tools are trained on the same public online datasets, it‘s possible that different tools or even different users of the same tool could end up generating very similar content.
And that‘s to say nothing of bad actors who may try to use AI to mass-produce low-quality, spammy content in an attempt to game the search algorithms. Indeed, Google‘s Search Advocate John Mueller has stated that the search engine will likely view mass-produced AI content as spam.
To avoid these issues, it‘s important to use AI writing tools as a starting point, not an ending point. Any AI-generated SEO content should go through rounds of human editing to add uniqueness, originality, and brand flair – not just for quality‘s sake, but to ensure it doesn‘t read as duplicate or auto-generated content to Google.
AI Cannot Replace Human Creativity & Insight
Finally, it‘s crucial to understand that while highly capable, today‘s generative AI models still cannot match human creativity and critical thinking abilities. They can closely mimic the patterns and conventions of online writing, but they cannot come up with truly original ideas and insights – or think strategically about how a piece of content fits into overarching brand and SEO goals.
For this reason, viewing AI as a tool to enhance and streamline SEO content creation – not as a full-on replacement for human writers and SEO professionals – is key. When leveraged wisely, AI and humans can work together, combining the efficiency of AI with the originality and strategic savvy of people.
Tips for Implementing Generative AI in Your SEO Strategy
If you‘re convinced of the potential of generative AI to level-up your SEO, here are a few tips and best practices to keep in mind as you get started:
- Get buy-in from leadership on the value of investing in AI SEO tools and training.
- Vet AI vendors carefully, looking for ones that specialize in SEO use cases and have proven results.
- Start small by augmenting existing content creation processes with AI, rather than replacing them entirely from day one.
- Always have humans review and edit any AI-generated content before publishing for quality control.
- Track SEO results closely to measure impact and ROI of using generative AI tools.
- Stay on top of the latest developments in AI and SEO to identify new opportunities to leverage the technology as it evolves.
The Future of Generative AI & SEO
While generative AI is already making waves in the world of SEO, it‘s clear that this is still just the beginning. As AI language models grow more sophisticated and SEO tools integrate more advanced AI capabilities, the impact on SEO strategies and tactics will only grow.
Some potential future developments we may see at the intersection of AI and SEO include:
- AI-powered content optimization that can adapt to shifting search behaviors in real-time
- Hyper-personalized content that is dynamically generated to match individual searcher intent and context
- Richer multimedia experiences enabled by AI content generation across text, images, video, and more
- Tighter integration of generative AI capabilities into leading SEO and content marketing platforms
- Expanded applications of AI for technical SEO, link building, local SEO and more
But perhaps most intriguing – and for many SEOs, concerning – is the possibility that AI-generated content becomes so sophisticated that Google and other search engines begin to view it as indistinguishable from human-written content, and reward it accordingly in the search results.
We‘re not at that point yet, but we may not be as far off as many think. Google has already begun using its own AI models to directly generate content for certain search features. And Bing has announced the integration of OpenAI‘s GPT technology into its search engine.
So while the SEO community has long warned that publishing AI-generated content at scale is against Google‘s guidelines, it‘s not inconceivable that those guidelines could change or become harder to enforce as AI content generation becomes more mainstream and higher-quality.
In short, while still an emerging technology, generative AI is already reshaping many facets of SEO as we know it – and will likely only become a bigger disruptive force in the years to come. Forward-thinking brands and SEO professionals should embrace this AI revolution, while also thoughtfully balancing AI‘s efficiency with the quality control and human touch needed for SEO success.
