How to Use AI for SEO Success in 2023: 5 Expert Tips
Is the constant shift in SEO and technology keeping you up at night? Feeling left behind?
No worries, AI and SEO can help you sleep better.
People use search engines to find information. Whether it’s the most delicious donuts in town or how to improve their credit score, they want relevant, fast answers.
As a marketer or business owner, you want to make sure YOUR answers show up first on Google and other search engines.
You can improve your ranking with the right SEO strategy. But when you add artificial intelligence to the mix, it’s like adding a turbocharger to your engine, propelling you even faster.
It’s 2023, and AI-driven SEO will be key to your online success. This post will unlock that door for you with these 5 expert tips. So keep reading.
Understanding AI for SEO.
Using AI for your SEO strategy starts with understanding how search engines like Google use it.
Websites rank better with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. Trends and patterns can be identified by AI SEO using data from search engine algorithms.
One of Google’s algorithms, Rankbrain, uses data about how users interact with search results to figure out what to show.
Rankbrain surfaces more relevant content by looking at user behavior, so your website ranks higher.
It’s like a detective piecing together evidence to uncover the mystery of what works best for search engine rankings.
You see, Google uses AI and so should you.
AI and SEO: Why it’s critical.
Search engines are for people. It’s all about giving people the most appropriate answer.
Studies show that the first organic search result on the first page gets at least 30% of clicks, and the top three search results get between 50-60% of clicks.
If your content is optimized for SEO, search engines will understand it better and provide it to your users faster. Ultimately, the most helpful and relevant content will rank the highest.
By combining artificial intelligence and SEO (which I’ll show you in this post), you can deliver relevant content quickly and efficiently.
Here are a few of the benefits you’ll reap:
- Search engine data will give you valuable insights to improve your SEO.
- Keep track of your competition and be one step ahead of them.
- You’ll be able to automate time-consuming tasks like keyword monitoring, backlink analysis, and content creation so you can focus on growing your business.
- Personalized, relevant content increases conversions and customer satisfaction.
- Your online presence stays strong by staying on top of trending topics and algorithms.
The bottom line is, you’ll be a machine when it comes to optimizing your content. This will be great for Google and other search engines, but also for your audience.
5 Tips on How to Use AI for SEO
Great! Now you understand how these two powerful pillars can unlock massive potential for your website traffic and online presence.
Now it’s time to shift gears and give you 5 tips to get started with AI and SEO so you can successfully start increasing your organic traffic.
1. Keyword research
When you use AI to help you with keyword research, you’ve already won half the battle. The right AI tool can help you find new growth opportunities and here’s how:
Profitable keywords
AI help can identify search trends and suggest profitable keywords based on your audience’s searches.
If you don’t know what profitable keywords are, they’re basically keywords with transactional intent.
So if someone searches for “best lawn mowers for small backyards”, it’s more than likely that they’re looking to buy a lawn mower.
This obviously works in your favor if you’re selling or promoting a product that people search for.
You can use an AI tool like Surfer SEO to find keyword clusters for any keyword you type in. It’ll show you the keyword’s search intent, whether it’s informational or transactional.
It’ll also display keyword search volume and difficulty.
Analyze Competitors’ Keywords
Using AI to analyze competitors’ keywords is like having a “spy” in your camp.
The spy will collect information about the keywords your competition ranks for, their top-performing pages, keyword difficulty, and other insights to help you devise a plan to outrank them.
There are tools like Ahrefs and Spyfu that can help automate this process to save you time so you can focus on executing your strategy.
Uncovering Content Gaps
Don’t let fierce competition think you’re out of the game. With AI, you can uncover content gaps in your niche.
The fact is, while your competition may rank higher, they aren’t covering everything.
You can use AI to identify keyword topics your competitors aren’t writing about, and then use that knowledge to create more comprehensive content.
2. AI for Content Creation
Living in a content-driven world means having a content strategy, and AI can help you assemble the pieces to save time.
“61.4% of marketers have used AI in their marketing activities, with content production being the most popular use at 44.4%.”
Not only can AI identify relevant, trending topics, and give you the right suggestions to use in your content process for any keyword, but it can also come up with many content ideas for you.
AI can generate personalized headlines, blog outlines, website copy, and more. You can even use AI tools for article writing to help you create blog posts.
The insights you’ll gain will make your content more purposeful and help solve specific problems, making you a trustworthy hero – without having to wear a cape.
3. AI SEO and Content Optimization
AI can prepare your content for search engines and not only just with on-page factors like keyword placement, title tags, meta descriptions, or images.
It can also help you with:
- Latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords – helps search engines better understand your content and its relevancy to the overall topic. Surfer SEO is an AI-powered tool that helped me with this process.
- Internal Linking Strategy – AI can also analyze your web pages and figure out which pages should be linked to each other to make it easier for users to find what they need.
- Grammar – Don’t forget about grammar when publishing content. Tools like Grammarly will keep your content looking trustworthy and professional. I use their free Chrome extension to make sure my spelling is on point.
It’s not just about creating content and calling it a day. You have to polish it to ensure a positive user experience.
Use AI to cut your time in half so you’re not stuck spinning your wheels optimizing content.
4. AI for Voice Search Optimization
Call it being lazy, or call it being busy, either way, the fact remains that people are turning to voice search for quick answers.
In fact, 71% of people would rather use voice search than physically type a search online, and 27% of the global online population uses voice search on mobile devices.
But did you know that voice search can also be optimized for search engines? And you don’t need a loud voice to get the highest ranking, at least not physically anyway.
People tend to sound more natural when doing a voice search versus typing something into Google.
So this means that optimizing for voice involves making your web content more conversational and less robotic sounding.
And who can help you do this? That’s right, artificial intelligence. (Ironically)
Natural language processing (NLP) is what AI uses to understand human language and it’s getting better and better at it.
An AI tool like WordTune can help you craft your content in a more conversational style.
But it’s not just about optimizing for a conversational tone. It’s also about knowing which questions to answer and voice searches are typically questions people ask.
One helpful tool that analyzes questions and topics from all over the web is “Answer the Public”. It’ll give you insights into any keyword so you can create relevant content around it.
Check out my other post on how to use Answer the Public for traffic growth for a comprehensive overview.
5. AI SEO for User Experience
To keep a lasting impression on your viewers and stay in Google’s good graces, you have to think about your website’s overall structure. Why? It’s all about your user’s experience.
Google’s Web Core Vitals make it clear what it wants. These metrics measure:
- Page speed – The time it takes for your web pages to load is a big factor.
- Navigation – Make sure your users can move around your website without friction.
- Responsiveness – How well your website displays on other devices. (Desktop, mobile, and tablet).
You can use a free AI-powered Chrome extension like Google’s Lighthouse that will audit your pages and run tests on speed, performance, and overall quality to give you suggestions on what fixes you need to make.
If you want to take things a step further, you can try a paid AI-powered tool called MarketBrew AI.
It allows you to create your own search engine model and test it with MarketBrew’s genetic algorithms (a search engine simulation). This will identify what changes you need to make.
Final thoughts on AI for SEO
Artificial intelligence and search engine optimization are evolving industries.
When you combine these two worlds together, you get a powerful digital marketing ally that can revolutionize your online traffic growth.
My goal in this post was to help you understand AI SEO and how to apply these 5 powerful tips to have a killer strategy.
Just remember to also focus on how to provide the most effective user experience for your audience and give as much value as you can.
Good luck!
What do you think about AI and SEO? Have you applied it in any way? I’d love to know in the comment section!
Very insightful and well written article Chris. I’ve been hearing a lot about AI content creation lately and have been following it just a bit. But I’ve asked the question before of others with really no real good answers received. How can AI be of benefit to content creators that write from personal experience on a given topic such as myself? My niche is really focused in the Model Railroad hobby, and just don’t see Ai being able to create the same quality content because obviously it has never done any of the things I have. That leads me to believe that with the advent of AI and so many people starting to use it, that in time every blog, every post, every article would have the same resemblance. So, Google and the search engines would fall back on quality truly original content again. I get that people want to improve their business, but at what expense? Basically, anyone could write a review or blog on products with absolutely no practical knowledge using AI, and thus mislead consumers. I feel like society as a whole leaning on technology to satisfy their every need will ultimately have detrimental effects.
James.
Hi James!
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I truly understand where you’re coming from as these were the same questions and concerns I’ve had myself.
AI doesn’t have any human experience, so it cant give inside perspectives in the same way we can. That’s why it’s important for content creators to strike a balance between the benefit of using AI and preserving personal experiences and uniqueness.
AI can help with topic ideas, identifying relevant keywords, or optimizing content for search engines. You can leverage these tools to streamline workflows and speed up the process.
The problem is when people let these tools generate an entire article and then copy, paste, and publish without revisions or editing. In that case, as you said, anyone could do it, even if they have no real experience or expertise.
In your niche of Model railroad hobby, you bring a wealth of knowledge and experience. AI-generated content can’t give the same in-depth perspective as you can.
It’s best to use these AI tools as a supplement to your own uniqueness and creativity.
There will be people using these tools just to try and manipulate search engines and not provide any real value.
But Google will reward those that demonstrate experience, expertise, authority, and trust no matter how it’s produced. (https://developers.google.com/…)
If your content can solve people’s problems and resonate with your audience then that’s what matters most.
Ultimately, it’s about using AI as a tool to enhance your content creation process while maintaining your individuality and delivering value to your readers.
Hope this helps!
As a digital marketer myself, I find the prospect of using AI in SEO quite exciting. In my experience, AI-powered tools have helped me streamline my keyword research, analyze competitors’ strategies, and optimize content performance. However, I also wonder about the potential downsides of relying too heavily on AI in SEO. Will it eliminate creativity and human intuition in optimizing content? How can we ensure that AI algorithms are not biased or unethical in their decision-making processes? Overall, I think the five expert tips for using AI in SEO success provide a great framework for incorporating these technologies into our strategies while balancing human expertise and ethical considerations.
Hello Akumendoh,
Thanks for leaving your thoughtful input. It’s exciting to see how AI is shaping the SEO landscape in 2023 and beyond. As you said, these tools can help streamline tasks. These tools have also helped me tremendously with content strategy and on-page SEO.
As content creators, we have to be responsible when using these AI tools and remember they serve as assistants rather than a replacement for our own individuality and uniqueness.
Google wants (EEAT) factors and I think that’s what needs to be at the forefront of our minds when creating content. In order for our content to be of high quality, it has to provide value to our viewers.
Unfortunately with these AI tools available, there will be some bad actors out there that will create content for the pure sake of trying to manipulate search engine rankings instead of providing real value.
But Google is getting better at knowing the difference between authentic content and low-quality content.
That’s going to allow us as thought leaders and real industry experts to stand out more and have a competitive edge.