How AI tools can simplify SEO
When ChatGTP was released on November 30, 2022, there was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm among search engine optimizers. AI had long been predicted to be an important topic, but few could have imagined what it would mean in concrete terms.
The first voices were quickly raised: SEO managers would no longer be needed in the future because AI would take care of everything anyway.
In the meantime, the picture has changed considerably. The more frequently the AI tool was used, the more quickly its potential and limitations became clear.
Where AI tools can help
Topic research
SEO projects often include topic research in order to identify future topic areas or different content formats. It is helpful to first get an overview of possible content around a topic. ChatGPT and other AI tools can help very well with precisely this step.
To get an initial overview of a topic, a prompt could look like this:
"I'm planning to develop a comprehensive guide for a financial advisory firm.develop. This should contain a large number of detailed and expert contributions on theon the subject of investments and finance. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive guide to every conceivabletopic in the field of investments. NowI need your help to gather specific topic ideas. Please list allrelevant topics, with no exceptions. Please organize the topic ideas into thefollowing categories".After the first proposal for this prompt and a short feedback, ChatGPT issued this list of possible topics for the "conversion-related topics" cluster.
This list is not yet a complete topic cluster, but it provides a very good basis for further research. After that, however, the SEO manager should definitely do their own research and look for possible topics within their own industry.
Keyword cleanup
During keyword research, you will come across a large number of brand keywords with different brand names from the various market participants.
Without AI, this means that you have to manually sort out all keywords that contain other brands. This is exactly where an AI like ChatGTP can take over a lot of the work.
One option is to provide a list of keywords and ask the AI to mark all keywords that contain these brand names (and others). With the right prompt, you will then receive a new Excel list in which most of the hard work has already been done and you only have to do a little more work yourself or exclude other competitors.
Tip: It is advisable not to have the AI model delete all brand keywords directly. Instead, it may make sense to only mark the keywords initially. This gives you the opportunity to review the selection of AI yourself and ensure that it meets your own requirements.
Content Creation
With the help of AI tools, you can create content that both suits your target group and is rewarded with rankings by Google. However, as always, the quality of the content depends on your own preparatory work and the creation process.
Step 1: Rough structure
The first step is to define the rough structure of the content. This involves providing the AI with all relevant information such as key topics and keywords. The AI should then create a first draft of the content with headings and key points. In most cases, this draft will then need to be adapted slightly, as individual sections may need to be added or others deleted.
Step 2: Creating the content
Once you are satisfied with the structure, the AI can be fed with various information about the target group, the tone of voice and the objectives of the content, which can then be used as a basis for creating better content. The more information provided, the better the result. It is particularly important to define the tonality and target group approach. This step can also involve several feedback loops until the result is satisfactory.
Step 3: Structure the content
Finally, you can structure your text with the help of AI. This creates content that appeals to the target group and is also understandable.
A possible prompt for this would be:
You will receive suggestions for bulleted lists, lists and images that you can use to enrich the content you have already written. You can implement these suggestions or give feedback at one point or another if you are unhappy with the result.
Current Limits of AI
AI models have no search volume
You often see images of ChatGPT outputs asking for keywords on a topic. However, language learning models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have no search volume, i.e. data on how often a keyword is searched for per month. So what data does the model use to decide which keyword is the most important? Usually according to the frequency in its training data. Although this often does not lead to completely wrong results, it also does not lead to keyword clusters that advance an SEO strategy.
AI models can help with keyword analysis, but the data basis should come from other sources, as LLMs were not created for keyword analysis and do not deliver satisfactory results.
Lack of expertise in complex niches
Of course, text creation is an obvious area of application, but caution is advised here.
It is important to understand that models such as ChatGPT are less about correctness and more about generating texts. Artificial language models do not work with facts but with probabilities and therefore do not output the correct but the most probable.
Caution is required here, especially when dealing with complex topics, as is often the case in B2B companies, as so-called "hallucinations" can occur. This is the term used when a language model outputs something that is not true, but still sounds very plausible. If such content is published without being checked, this can damage the company's reputation and perceived expertise - both factors that Google Search also takes into account.
For this reason, the AI should be provided with more information on such topics, e.g. through detailed prompts or the uploading of relevant files such as manuals, topic clusters or similar.
DOES AI make everything easier?
As this article shows, AI tools can make a real difference in search engine optimization. However, not without someone on the other side who has a deep understanding of search engine optimization to check and process the output results.
SEO is not possible at the touch of a button, even with artificial intelligence, and texts that arise from the prompt "Create a text on topic XY" are just as high quality as the prompt itself. It is therefore important to find a good workflow for integrating AI into SEO.
Are you looking for an SEO agency or a partner who can show you how to use AI in your company? Then 711media is the right place for you, because our experts deal intensively with the topics of SEO and AI and will be happy to advise you on both topics or how you can use them together profitably.