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AI has always been a part of search engine optimization (SEO). Google uses AI to inform its algorithms. Marketers use AI to analyze, optimize, and create their content. Today, as AI rapidly improves, it’s a bigger part of SEO than ever. Here’s what you need to know about using AI for your business’s SEO.
AI SEO, or artificial intelligence search engine optimization, is the use of AI to improve web page ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). AI can support SEO strategies with technologies such as machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and large language models (LLMs).
When SEO tools leverage AI to create new outputs such as text or images, the tools are referred to as generative AI—which can be a useful starting point for creating new SEO content.
AI has a variety of applications in SEO. For example, search engine algorithms use a version of AI to determine search engine rankings. Generative AI tools can help summarize research, suggest edits, and draft copy.
You can use AI for several SEO purposes:
Search engines such as Google and Bing use machine learning AI to determine page rankings. Every time someone performs a search, algorithms analyze a vast number of factors to determine which websites are shown and in what order. The ranking factors in Google’s algorithm include the relevance, quality, and usability of a page’s content.
Marketers can’t directly influence these algorithms, but by understanding how they work, they can create better-informed SEO strategies.
AI tools can analyze a website’s content and compare it to top-ranked sites. They can then use this information to provide recommendations on how to improve your website’s performance.
Some tools, like Surfer SEO, focus on content opportunities, such as phrases to include in copy or content ideas to write about. Other tools, like Screpy, use AI to recommend technical upgrades to your site, such as improvements to help your website load faster.
In SEO, keyword research is the practice of identifying search terms your website could rank for and then prioritizing them for your site based on their search volume, difficulty to rank, and fit for your business. Typically, this is a manual process that involves looking up keywords one by one (or in bulk searches) in a keyword tool like Ahrefs.
AI can simplify this task. For example, ask a generative AI tool like ChatGPT to “recommend the best SEO-relevant keywords for my website and tell me why you think they’re best.”
Of course, an AI tool will never know your business as well as you do, so be sure to vet the AI’s recommendations to see if they make sense for your target audience and your brand.
Part of SEO’s job is to write helpful, comprehensive content that answers your target audience’s questions. The best content for SEO is well-researched and written by a subject matter expert. But even a subject matter expert won’t know everything about a topic.
Generative AI tools can help speed up an expert’s research by taking in prompts like “summarize the latest research on what caused the US financial crisis” and condensing many research papers down to a few bullet points or paragraphs.
However, when using AI for research, it’s important to understand its limitations. Most models are trained up to a certain cut-off date, meaning they won’t know about topics beyond that date. AI tools can also “hallucinate,” meaning they can misrepresent a fact or statement or make things up entirely. Just like if you were working with a real research assistant, you can ask AI tools to cite their sources and verify them.
Content generation has become one of the most popular use cases for generative AI tools like ChatGPT because they can write hundreds of words in a matter of seconds, drastically reducing the time writers need to create a first draft of an article, product description, meta title/meta description, or website copy.
That said, be aware of Google’s policy on AI-generated content. Google does not ban AI-generated or AI-assisted content, instead favoring “high quality content, however it’s produced.” But it considers content created entirely by AI with the intention to “manipulate ranking in search results” to be a violation of its spam policies. This can result in a loss of organic traffic for your site. In general, it’s usually best to avoid writing SEO content entirely with AI, and instead use AI tools for research and first drafts.
Additionally, mass-market generative AI tools are trained on public internet content, so if you have a new or niche brand, the tool likely won’t have a strong understanding of your industry or product. New, more focused generative AI tools, such as Shopify Magic, can help remedy this shortcoming and create product descriptions, images, and emails that fit your store.
AI SEO tools are best understood by their overall use cases:
ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is one of the most accessible AI tools on the market. It positions itself as a place to find creative answers and inspiration. With its simple text entry interface, it works like a powerful virtual assistant.
Copilot is Microsoft’s latest iteration of its general-purpose AI assistant, originally branded Bing AI. It has similar functionality to ChatGPT, and in the future, Microsoft has said it will integrate directly into Microsoft tools like Word and Excel for advanced functionality.
Shopify Magic
Shopify Magic makes it easier to start, run, and grow your business. Our groundbreaking commerce-focused AI empowers entrepreneurs like you to be more creative, productive, and successful than ever before.
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Shopify Magic is the AI assistant for Shopify stores. It is built by Shopify and integrated directly into the Shopify interface. It provides support for product image background editing, product description drafting, FAQ generation, email planning, and live chat.
Jasper, launched in 2021, was one of the first tools to offer AI-based copywriting. Today, Jasper offers a variety of marketing-specific AI generation tools, including blog writing, headline copy, SEO strategy, and more. Although it has affordable entry points, its focus is on large, enterprise businesses.
Ink is an AI-based content marketing tool. It offers AI-generated content with a focus on precise SEO optimization and guardrails against having content perceived as violating Google’s spam rules.
Surfer SEO uses natural language processing (NLP) to make content optimization recommendations. The company uses a proprietary Surfer Score to evaluate your content and provides a roadmap to improving your score. Recently, it has expanded its offering to include AI-supported writing and keyword research.
Alli AI offers a suite of AI-based SEO features with a focus on bulk on-page optimization. It can write content and deploy technical edits, such as automatically implementing canonical tags across the site.
Yes, there is a wide range of AI use cases in SEO, including content creation, research, and optimization.
Google does not explicitly block content generated with AI. However, it aims to block content that is entirely generated by AI with the express purpose of ranking in Google, a small but important distinction.
There are a variety of tools for writing SEO content with AI, including ChatGPT, Jasper, and Shopify Magic.
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