Since the invention of fire, no great invention has stopped at its basic purpose. The invention of photography didn’t stop at family portraits, the invention of film did not stop at documenting coronations, and the invention of radio did not stop at news programs. The same can be said for AI.
While the concept of AI is not exactly new, the latest capabilities of artificial intelligence are a major game changer. Naturally, it didn’t take long until AI for SEO became the talk of the town.
So, in order to not leave it at that, here’s how one of the most relevant branches of digital marketing can benefit from AI tools and technology, especially keyword analytics.
SEO Content Generation
By far, the most important use of keywords (and, by extension, the most important use of AI tools for SEO) is their incorporation into content. No matter what your KW is, it needs to be an organic fit in the content you’re producing.
The context needs to match, and the readability needs to be high. Other than that, there are a lot of formatting rules regarding technical SEO services. The bottom line is that you need to balance it all.
Yes, you need to use all the right keywords, but you also need to:
- Make sure the format is right
- Content is relevant to your audience
- Keyword density is satisfying
- Pay special attention to the quality of your content
Achieving all of this at the same time is far from simple.
The hardest part is that it’s a creative process, which means that you need inspiration. Let’s face it: unless you’re covering breaking news, everything that you’re writing about has already been written. So, you need to approach it from a fresh perspective, which always requires finesse.
With the help of SEO content generation, even if you don’t want it to generate all the content, you can easily get the inspiration that you need.
By being extra creative with the prompt, you can optimize your content for all the relevant technical SEO parameters. You can have it help you with long-tail keywords, organic contextualization, and more.
Optimizing Your Content
AI tools for SEO can help you analyze current live content and make suggestions that would help improve SEO results.
Right off the bat, you can just use AI tools to improve your keyword density or get an insight into the current density.
The thing is that your SEO writing has two aspects – the creative and the technical. The algorithm just dislikes passive voice (for no good reason), sentences shorter than 20 words (again, for no good reason), and segments longer than 300 words.
Sure, you could take their word for it that the sentences are easier to follow or something just as nonsensical, but the truth is simple. When these rules were introduced, the engine behind the algorithm was a lot simpler and had lower computing capabilities. It had a hard time dealing with complex sentence structures and multiple voices. So, it introduced this rule as a way of making its job easier.
The truth is that the English language is complex and beautiful. When you write naturally and organically, some of the sentences will be passive, and others will be longer than 20 words. While we personally aren’t that keen on bending backward to follow this archaic rule, if you do want to do it, it’s much easier with an AI tool for SEO.
This way, everything that’s “irregular” will be highlighted, and you can fix it.
You can even use a simple generative AI tool like ChatGPT for this task. All you have to do is write a segment, copy it into the prompt, and ask it to:
- Rephrase sentences that are too long
- Rephrase sentences that are in the passive voice
- Improve keyword distribution (according to the parameters you decide on)
This way, you’ll give your content an optimal boost with minimal effort.
Keyword Research
The first thing you need to understand about keyword research is that it’s a delicate process combining complex analytics and basic psychology. Simply put, you need to try to figure out what phrases your potential customers are using when looking for services/products that you provide.
This is where the use of AI for SEO can be invaluable.
First of all, due to its NLP (natural language progression) capabilities, a modern AI tool is capable of actually understanding these phrases. In other words, it doesn’t look at numbers just from the spectrum of use volume. It goes beyond that and could even be used to figure out the intent behind it. This type of predictive analytical work could actually revolutionize the search process.
Another thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that modern AI can understand and replicate spoken word. In other words, it can draw data from actual, live conversations on the topic.
Historically, the biggest bottleneck with extracting keywords from spoken content (like videos and podcasts, for instance) was the fact that this is an unstructured form of data. In other words, you would have to watch an hour-long video and note down every use of a phrase or a mention. Even then, you could risk mishearing it or making an error during data entry.
With the modern use of AI for SEO optimization, you have a much easier job of getting all the data you need.
The best part is that it doesn’t start there. You see, generative AI can help provide you with some creative ideas for:
- Hard terms
- Long-tail keywords
- Related keywords
- Local keywords
You need all of these variations in order to get the data you need.
Tracking Rank
When using AI for SEO, the key thing to remember is that keyword research has no value if you can’t apply it right. Sure, having the best keywords will make your job of ranking a lot easier. It will put you miles ahead of everyone else trying to rank for a similar niche. The problem is that this only applies if you actually know how to use these keywords (both on- and off-site).
So, how do you find out if you’ve used it right?
It’s simple – you track your rank.
Now, it’s important that we add one caveat here – sometimes, you won’t be able to tell what affected the increase/decrease in your rank.
This is also where the use of AI for SEO can be seen as indispensable.
AI-powered analytical tools have a simpler job of doing this. They’re crucial in figuring out the exact impact of your keywords on the results that you’re getting.
Why is this important? Well, imagine two scenarios:
- You have a keyword that’s actually decent, but the rest of your optimization efforts fall short. As a result, the page doesn’t rank as well as you expected, and you make an assumption that it’s the keyword’s fault. This makes you abandon KW with so much potential.
- Imagine having a keyword that’s actually sub-optimal, but so was the rest of your page. So, you tweak the format here and there, insert better images, optimize for mobile, work your magic on metadata, and, voila, your rank starts growing. This makes you overvalue the keyword in question, completely oblivious that you could have done even better with a stronger keyword.
By using AI for SEO the right way, you’ll have a higher chance of figuring out what’s what.
Sentiment and Intent Analysis
The biggest problem with intent and sentiment analysis is that it’s a complex factor with many layers, only some of which are derived from structured data. For instance, while doing keyword research, you might have seen a lot of keywords that are… well, not exactly grammatical.
The thing is that the research only shows you what people actually typed into the search engine, not what they were actually looking for. Well, guess what? While it’s a good idea to compete for these “non-grammatical” keywords, this is a strategy that can backfire.
First of all, if you intend to go with link-building, you’ll find that a lot of webmasters aren’t very keen on these types of keywords. Why? Well, because they hurt their own rank in the eyes of the search engine.
The most important part is that, as we’ve already said – Google is no longer what it was. It’s become far better at guesswork, suggestions, and presenting the audience with what they were looking for (instead of what they typed in the search box).
How? Well, mostly thanks to AI and NLP-based technologies.
In other words, by using the right analytical AI tool for SEO, you have a far better chance of actually figuring out their original search intent. This means that you can qualify for their intended keyword (not the one they used) and get discovered (and your rank elevated) anyhow.
The Use of AI for SEO is Becoming an Industry Standard
In theory, you could avoid the use of AI for SEO, but there’s really no good reason to do so. Not only are you getting outcompeted that way, but you’re also missing out on a chance to tap into the full potential of your SEO campaign. Sure, these tools will soon become even more accurate and sophisticated, but their adoption at this stage is already overdue.
