As SEOs, we’re constantly trying to stay on top of the latest trends, algorithm updates, strategies, and tools that will help get us in front of our audience. It’s a moving target, constantly evolving, and always vulnerable to disruption. Like it or not… disruption has arrived in the form of AI. ChatGPT, Bing’s new search experience, and Google Bard are quickly becoming an integral part of how people engage with the web.
Though controversial amongst marketing professionals, AI isn’t going anywhere. Learning to use it will make us well-rounded and more efficient SEOs. Here are three ways to use AI tools to boost your SEO strategy.
Research Keyword Themes
Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. Understanding what your audience is looking for and how they are looking for it allows you to tailor your content to match your audience. It can also be painstakingly tedious and time-consuming. AI saves time by helping quickly brainstorm keyword lists.
Enter a keyword or even a general topic, and tools like ChatGPT can create an extensive list of semantically related keywords. It can also analyze search volume, competition, and, perhaps most importantly, intent. After finding keywords that match your needs, take it one step further and have ChatGPT narrow those down into long-tail keyword topics.
Brainstorm Content
I’m not saying you should let AI tools write entire blog posts for you. As powerful as AI tools can be, it’s still missing the ability to add a genuine and unique perspective. Search engines focus on EEAT and first-hand experience as important ranking factors, so real human input is more valuable than ever.
Where AI can be beneficial, however, is in creating content ideas and outlines. To be considered an authority on any topic, you need a wide range of content that addresses all aspects your audience is interested in. By starting with one refined topic idea, ChatGPT or Bard can help you create a series of topic ideas that are related and relevant to your audience. It can also create an outline of topics to consider addressing in each post. Using AI to streamline planning a content calendar will let you focus on creating amazing content.
Optimize for Search Engines.
Once you’ve created your blog post or content, optimizing your page titles and meta descriptions is an essential final step. While the page title and meta description might not be the most critical factors in ranking, they can significantly increase your CTR. Tools like ChatGPT and Bard can quickly write various versions of title tags and meta descriptions that are likely to be clicked on.
How AI is Different from Other Tools
This all might sound similar to processes you’re already using to create your SEO strategy. Plenty of keyword research tools, schema markup generators, and content ideation platforms exist. So, why is AI so different? There are a few reasons that AI really stands out here.
It’s centralized.
Instead of using various tools, you can do all this research and planning in one place, during one conversation with ChatGPT or Bard. Instead of jumping from tool to tool, AI tools can process large amounts of data from multiple sources quickly and efficiently.
It’s conversational.
The way people search for information is getting more complex and conversational. People aren’t entering queries that have one or two keywords. They are asking direct questions as though they were having a conversation. The Large Language Models used to train ChatGPT and Bard are conversational by nature, providing these tools with a deep understanding of the way people naturally talk and how topics are semantically related.
It’s fast.
There is no denying the speed ChatGPT and Bard can quickly and accurately sort through information. Keyword research, content topic research, meta descriptions, and even asking for ways to improve the user experience of a webpage is processed with near immediacy. This leaves you more time to spend implementing.
Like it or not… AI has arrived. It’s still developing and is far from perfect. You shouldn’t be handing the reins over anytime soon, but it is worth exploring the impact that adding these tools to your arsenal can have.
Photo: ©Milkos