In recent years, advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have drastically changed the way that many industries operate. SEO is no exception, as AI is revolutionizing the way companies and individuals optimize their websites for search engines. With this in mind, it’s important to ask the question:
What will the future of SEO look like in the age of AI?
In this blog post, we will explore how Artifical Intelligence has impacted the SEO landscape, and what the future may hold in the shape of AI SEO.
Read more: How AI Is Influencing SEO Professionals and TechniquesTable of Contents
- Quick look into the history of SEO
- What is AI?
- Present estate of SEO in the age of AI
- The role of AI in SEO
- Will AI replace SEO experts?
- The future of SEO
- Pros and Cons of AI in SEO
- Imagining AI SEO scenarios: Ricard Menor’s (SEOfreelance) expert opinion
Quick look into the history of SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been around since the 1990s and has evolved significantly since then. In its early days, SEO’s primary focus was optimizing content for certain keywords to improve the visibility of webpages in search engines. As search engine algorithms have become increasingly sophisticated, so has SEO, with content optimization and search engine ranking becoming key considerations for content marketers.
In the early 2000s – still far from AI SEO – keyword stuffing became a popular practice for boosting SEO rankings, but this was quickly identified as a ‘black hat’ technique by Google and other search engines, resulting in a penalty for those who tried it. Consequently, content marketers began to focus more heavily on creating quality content that provided value to their readers. Google Panda (aka Farmer) had a lot to do with this in 2010, since its primary mission was to identify thin content, ghost blogging, blog farms,
By the mid-2010s, websites were being optimized not only for keywords, but also for user experience (UX). This included optimizing page load speed, making sure pages had the appropriate meta tags, and ensuring pages were accessible for all users.
At that time also another concept began catching in the markets: Semantic. Semantic Web, semantic SEO, all was to be semantic. It was the golden age for GoodRelations ontology for Ecommerce, which builds most of the commerce related branches of modern Schema.org standard.
All these pieces of history seem to be past and forgotten, but it is not the case. All this data up to 2021 was fed into ChatGPT and AI SEO was born… Same as AI copywriting, and many AI assisted activities.
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What is AI?
Artificial intelligence is an area of computer science and cybernetics that deals with giving computers the ability to learn, understand and even adapt to the surrounding environment.
Artificial intelligence is basically a computer or machine that can think and learn, without being explicitly programmed. AI helps computers to complete tasks like driving cars, making medical diagnoses, or aiding search engines to deliver more relevant search results, this latter falls entirely in the AI SEO topic.
Present estate of SEO in the age of AI
Today, SEO is more complex than ever before. It involves creating optimized content for both search engines and users, ensuring that website pages are built correctly, and monitoring analytics data to track performance.
The future of SEO looks set to involve more sophisticated use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. This will help optimize content and website performance. With the integration of AI tools, content creators must remain abreast of the latest trends to stay competitive.
The changes in the upcoming years will be some of the most significant yet. By 2023, machine learning and AI, Google updates, and third-party cookie deprecation are likely to have had the biggest impact on SEO.
SEO is already using machine learning and AI in various aspects, such as content optimization, search engine rankings, and link building. This has led to an increase in competition for talent, and experienced SEO professionals are needed more than ever before.
If you want to stay ahead of the game in 2023, there are five essential tactics you should be following:
- good content,
- fast-loading page speed,
- links and backlinks,
- responsive design,
- voice search optimization.
Google will continue to refine and improve its algorithms with an emphasis on content quality and user experience.
As a result, SEO in 2023 will be more focused on quality than quantity.
The role of AI in SEO
Search engines are becoming increasingly sophisticated, able to distinguish between human readable text and machine readable code.
Furthermore, Machine Learning algorithms help personalize search results according to user location and interests. Google uses AI technology to fully understand user intent, refine their search algorithm, and provide more relevant results.
The process of content optimization has changed drastically in recent years, due to advancements in AI technology. Marketers are able to hone their content to fit the current Google ranking algorithm, and improve website performance.
With AI taking a larger part in SEO, marketers must now focus on creating relevant content that appeals to both humans and machines. Content must be tailored according to user intent, leveraging rich media such as video or images and structured data. . This can help increase Google ranking significantly.
AI can help automate certain tasks related to keyword research, content optimization and link building – tasks that can be very time consuming if done manually.
Ultimately, these technologies are making SEO more efficient and cost effective for businesses who want to achieve higher rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, WPO will always be most effective when webs are hosted in an equally optimized Hosting.
The case of ChatGPT in SEO
There’s been a lot of talking about how Chat GPT and other AI can help to improve the SEO of an article, web, etc.
What does it do? Well, among many other functionalities, it can:
- Create Metadata
- Find relevant Keywords
- Find a suitable Title and Subtitles
- Create Content around and idea
- Create Social Media Posts
Here is a sample of how a SEO Professional can use ChatGPT for the above. Source: Jessica R. at LinkedIn
The list is long and it certainly creates good results, no one can deny that. But, just as you wouldn’t let Google do a whole translation without checking the result, you should not assume that anything that comes out of ChatGPT is correct.
So, you still need to know SEO techniques thoroughly to evaluate the results of ChatGPT, or of any other SEO AI tool.
Ultimately, it is something that SEO professionals can use to improve their work. Because just as these tools evolve, so will the algorithms of the browsers, namely Google, the leading browser by far.
Will we see a change in the present almighty presence of Google due to AI?
No doubt, an alternative browser to Google, who currently has 92% of the search engine market, will be good for all. For instance Bing, who has just incorporated a chatbot based on the techonology used for ChatGPT in their browser, can become serious competition. For this reason, it will be good to see how Bing evolves after incorporating AI in their browser.
Will AI replace SEO experts?
Traditional SEO techniques such as keyword research and link building may no longer be as effective as they once were. SEO professionals will focus more on content optimization and data analysis.
This shift requires SEO professionals to expand their skill set and be proficient with new tools. This includes natural language processing and machine learning. To stay competitive, SEO professionals need to keep up-to-date with changes to search engine algorithms, and focus on developing more advanced tactics for content optimization.
If, as is suspected, the use of AI can cause Google to lose part of its market share, SEO experts will be needed more than ever to handle the different algorithms of each search engine.
It is likely that, as AI becomes more prevalent, SEO professionals will play a more integral role.
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The future of SEO
As AI continues to develop, so does its ability to improve the effectiveness of SEO strategies:
- AI can help content creators create more targeted, personalized content that can better satisfy customer needs. This content can be optimized for higher visibility on search engines and result in higher rankings in search results.
- AI-driven tools can also identify areas of improvement in website design and structure, allowing businesses to make necessary changes to enhance their visibility on search engines.
- Furthermore, AI can monitor the performance of a website and compare it to competitors’ websites, providing valuable insights . With AI-driven analytics, businesses will gain a better understanding of what content and strategies are working best, and make necessary adjustments accordingly.
- In the future, AI will become an even bigger part of SEO, as search engines look to provide users with the most relevant content available. Businesses will need to stay ahead of the curve and utilize AI-driven tools to maximize their SEO efforts. Staying competitive will be more essential than ever.
- You may hear (again) “SEO is dead”. It was buried many times before, but here we are, alive and kicking.
It will simple become AI SEO, and after a reasonable time for mankind to normalize AI support, we will talk again about “SEO”, plainly. Do you remember Semantic SEO? Voice Search SEO? Hype, hype, hype…
while some aspects of SEO may change, the role of search engine optimization will not disappear.
Rand Fishkin-MoZ
Pros and Cons of AI in SEO
As to every aspect in life, there are advantages and drawbacks. Let’s see what we should take into account:
- Pros of using AI tools:
- AI-driven tools can automate tedious processes like keyword research, website audits, link building, and content optimization. This can give businesses an edge over their competitors when it comes to Google rankings.
- It can be incredibly effective at optimizing websites for search engines. AI can identify high-value keywords, optimize content, analyze website architecture, and recommend improvements.
- Another pro is that AI allows for more accurate, data-driven decisions. AI can quickly process large amounts of data to provide insights on the most effective methods for improving search engine rankings.
- Despite the many advantages of AI-driven SEO, there are also some potential drawbacks.
- Some AI tools rely on user-generated content and/or third-party data sources, which may not always be reliable or accurate.
- Additionally, while AI provide valuable insights, it is the SEO professional or freelancer to decide that interpret them.
- AI tools feed on previous content created by humans. The internet will always have a need for natural content. In a scenario where only AI created content, it would no longer be reliable in the long run.
- There is a learning curve. To get the right results, the righ questions must be asked, and this capability is mainly in the hands of SEO professionals. Herebelow is an example of how not placing the right question, delivers unwanted results. The prompt “represent Search Engine Optimization”, without context, supplies the literal idea:
In conclusion, while there are both pros and cons associated with using AI in SEO, the consensus is that its potential benefits outweigh the risks.
Imagining AI SEO scenarios: Ricard Menor’s (SEOfreelance) expert opinion
Ricard Menor started working in the Optimization of Search Engines over 20 years ago. He’s seen many changes and new trends coming in place, and his opinion is a valuable one. Here’s what he thinks about AI SEO and future in SEO:
- Copywriting: “neuro-linguistic models will continue to progress behind the scenes, while the content publishing community will embrace massive AI content policies”.
- Google: “In 24-36 months Google will have acquired or developed its own reverse engineering model. That is to say that Google’s brain will be wise enough to discern text created by humans or machines”.
- “So far, Google is saying that the content must be more relevant than ever to users. whether humans or AI wrote it. But I believe that it will somehow matter, and we will have to pay attention to this fact”. He reminds us of what happened with Google’s Panda Algorithm in 2010.“
- Running cost of AI Tools: Best AI tools will not be free, and it may not be worth the cost for non-professionals. This will make us SEO professionals more relevant than before.”
- Content will grow in overall quality, today is probably better to invest time on ChatGPT and other AI tools than using old techniques like spinning texts, while scrapping other’s work falls progressively in the dark side.
However, copywritters and content SEOs will not lose their jobs: it is easier than never before to lose focus and be vague with your content. Extent does will not make it all alone.
“AI allows you to test your SEO techniques at a low cost. Make mistakes, but make them cheap and fast.
If your strategy fails, change it, and put it to the test again.”
Ricard Menor
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