AI has lots of great use cases, but can you use it to create SEO content? This article explores how to use AI here, whether it can compete with human teams, and what mistakes to avoid.
Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene like a suspiciously polite wrecking ball in 2022, content creation has been one of the most hyped use cases for generative AI.
But how much of this is simply good PR? Can you really create a full-length blog post with AI tools? How much human intervention is needed? And can AI-generated content really compete with human-led work?
Let’s find out.
What do you use generative AI for? 58% of companies use it for content creation — putting together blog articles, social media posts, emails, and much more.
AI tools can save a lot of time here by automating tasks like research, idea generation, proofreading, image creation, and even the writing itself. And once the creative part is done, it can help with things like SEO optimization and tracking too.
That comes with some pretty juicy benefits.
Here are a few reasons why so many creatives are rushing headfirst into the loving arms of generative AI:
AI does a pretty great job of automating some of the most time-consuming parts of content creation like topic ideation, creating outlines, and ideating first drafts. This can shave a TON of time off the creative process, which helps you put out more content and spend more time on human work like adding flair to your work and engaging with your followers.
Generative AI tools aren’t all free, but there’s no denying they come pretty darn cheap.
For example, ChatGPT will set you back a cool $20 per month for the pro version. Same for Claude, and Midjourney will only run you $10. That’s three excellent content creation tools for the price of, like, two large Domino’s pizzas. Not bad.
There’s only so far you can get when you’re creating all your content by hand, or relying on a small team of humans to help you. When you throw AI tools into the mix, a handful of people can produce exponentially more great content, which helps your business scale much faster.
We’ve talked a lot about the process of creating content, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO. What about all the other stuff like finding the right keywords, analyzing your competitors, and tracking the performance of your content?
Well, as luck would have it, AI can play a useful role here too. Let’s check out some of the main use cases for AI in SEO.
Finding the keywords that your customers are searching for is one of the most important parts of SEO, but it’s also hard, boring, and time-consuming. What if I told you that there was a technology that could make this process quicker and more effective? I think you see where this is going…
AI tools like this one can help massively with keyword research. Just type in a short description of what you do and who you’re trying to target, and it’ll spit out a list of relevant keywords. This is just the start, of course, but it’s a pretty solid start.
Making sure your content is perfectly calibrated to rank as high as possible in Google’s search results used to be an arduous, drudgerous process. The kind of job that took hours of work and needed multiple skillsets all working in harmony.
But now? Now you can just plug your finished blog post into a tool like Frase and it will show you how it compares to similar posts and suggest ways to improve it by adding certain keywords, changing formatting, and including images.
Technical SEO is the dull and uncharismatic — but very smart and useful — cousin of regular SEO. As the name probably suggests, it demands more of a technical touch, involving tasks like optimizing images, compressing files, and even writing code.
This has traditionally been a difficult and complicated endeavour… but (again, you can see where this is going) in the age of AI it’s a whole lot simpler. Tools like Alli AI take care of technical SEO tasks without the need for an army of developers.
We’ve covered the many wonderful benefits of using AI for content creation and SEO, so now it’s time to talk about some of the challenges involved.
While generative AI is an excellent tool for marketers, it still has quite a few shortcomings that you need to be aware of when using it for content creation.
Much like your old high school history teacher, Google is not a fan of plagiarised content. If you regularly upload content that repeats or copies the work of others without crediting them, your SEO will suffer.
The bad news here is that tools like ChatGPT can sometimes be a little… free and easy with the concept of plagiarism. Make sure to run your AI-assisted content through plagiarism checking tools like Grammarly before you hit publish.
What’s even worse than copying someone else’s work? Well, just completely making up lies with no basis in reality is at least a contender here. Unfortunately, this is something of a bad habit with gen AI tools like ChatGPT.
A good rule of thumb is to be skeptical every time your AI tool asserts a fact or, especially, a statistic. Always double-check references to make sure they actually reflect reality, and never blindly trust your robots even when they provide links.
ChatGPT and its brethren can produce excellent content, but they can’t do it alone. Unless you want bland, derivative content that stinks of AI, you’ll need to intervene to some degree.
Taking some time to comb through your AI’s first draft and rework the phrasing and sentence structure can work wonders and transform it from generic AI waffle to a genuinely insightful and entertaining piece of content.
It’s a common adage in the world of AI — these tools are only as good as the prompts you give them. And it’s basically true: if you feed ChatGPT with basic, low-effort prompts it will reward you with basic, low-effort content.
If, however, you take the time to learn some advanced prompting skills, your AI assistant will produce much more engaging, original, and human-like content that requires less editing and reworking from you.
It’s hard to find sensible opinions on AI these days. Sometimes, it seems like everyone is either terrified of it or deeply invested in claiming that it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
The reality is somewhere in the boring middle, at least when it comes to creating SEO content. AI is a fantastic tool that can save you a ton of time on some of the most tedious tasks imaginable — but it’s still a work in progress and delivers its best results with a hefty dose of human oversight.
Yes, you can use AI for many different parts of the content creation process. It’s especially good for topic ideation, creating rough outlines, keyword research, and analysis. But don’t rely on it too heavily; you still need a human in the loop.
Not necessarily. Google has said it will not penalize content that was written with AI (for now). However, Google will still prioritize high-quality, high-effort content that actually solves problems for its readers. So don’t use this as an excuse to churn out low-quality, unedited ChatGPT writing — Google will punish you for it.
There are tons of AI tools for content creation today. Some of the most famous are ChatGPT and Claude for writing. There are also tools like www.airpops.com and www.machined.ai that are specifically designed for content creation.
Yes, there are detection tools that are designed to work out if content has been written by AI. That said, they vary quite widely in accuracy. If you take the time to carefully edit and tweak your content so it doesn’t sound so robotic, it won’t be easily identified.
