Search engine optimisation (SEO) has always involved AI to some degree.
For instance, it’s robots that crawl websites to match users with relevant search engine results. Likewise, when using SEO software, AI makes it possible to scrape data about keywords and even your competitors.
But now that AI is continuing to develop at a lightning pace, it’s inevitable that digital marketing techniques including SEO will also change.
So here is what to expect as a website owner wanting to improve your SEO in the age of AI.
Better Search Personalisation
Let’s start with one of the many positives of AI, in that data can be used to further tailor products and services to the right audience.
In recent years, you may have already noticed that Google uses your location to give you better search results. This means that even when typing in short-tail keywords without adding a location, local SEO searches can still be performed.
As time moves on, expect AI to improve search personalisation further still. The only challenge here is ensuring data privacy since we all know our phones listen to us as it is.
Automated Content Creation
A common saying in SEO circles is that ‘content is king’.
That sentiment will remain, but AI is expected to take things up a notch.
Namely, the ability to generate content will become quicker and easier, requiring far fewer tools and expertise. It is expected that content such as AI images, videos, spoken articles and SEO-friendly written text will all benefit from AI advances.
Though of course, quality is the main concern of any content creation. So while it may be possible to write articles on tools such as ChatGPT, it’s essential any content is both original and tailored to the audience.
Therefore, AI will be used to speed up laborious parts of content creation.
Enhanced Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural language processing (NLP) considers how we as humans speak from the perspective of computers.
With every passing day, new websites are created, and so are millions of pieces of content. This means that AI has an increasing amount of NLP data to study, to best understand how we humans communicate when we search for things online.
In SEO, a common problem is the way searches may be typed in, i.e. ‘car repair today Nottingham’ often doesn’t make sense grammatically. This means that when such phrases are used in content to pick up on search traffic the content readability dips.
As AI and NLP progress, it may be easier for SEO specialists to avoid having to resort to spammy-sounding phrases, because AI will recognise what the user is trying to say in a more natural way.
Improved Website User Experience
Many people are unaware that the design of a website, along with how easy that website is to navigate goes hand in hand with any SEO strategy.
In a nutshell, if your website isn’t easy to navigate, is slow to load or has any other issues – lots of quick user exits tell search engines your website isn’t a helpful search result. So by keeping on top of your website functionality and responsiveness, your on-page SEO efforts have the best chance of working.
So how is AI going to help with this mission? Well, tools such as HotJar have already made it possible to heatmap your website, so you can get a better understanding of where users lose interest on the page.
But now that data is easier to share and present, it’s also going to become easier to find faults with your website. All of this means AI will be able to point out faults or problems you didn’t even know existed, helping you to improve both your SEO and conversions as a result.
No Matter What AI Brings – Always Remember This Golden Rule
If AI can be used to improve search performance, and even the ability to perform SEO research then this is always a great thing.
But ultimately, your audience is human. So whatever tools you happen to use to implement any SEO strategy, the wants and needs of your customers must always be prioritised.
Many SEO tools such as Surfer SEO already have AI elements built into them which gamify SEO. But if that content loses readability, are those points really a win after all?
So the bottom line is to remember that AI can never be a full replacement for an SEO specialist, especially when it comes to weighing up the balance between the need to please both search engine robots and your human audience.
Imaginaire – SEO Services For Businesses
Is your SEO strategy making the best use of AI?
Whether you have an existing website or are starting from scratch every business needs an SEO strategy that works.
Imaginaire is a digital marketing agency in Nottingham, and we help businesses across the UK succeed at SEO and more. View our SEO page to learn about the types of SEO we offer, such as e-commerce SEO and local SEO.
Or, to chat with us further about SEO or any of our other digital marketing services please drop us a message or give us a call on 0115 697 1367.