Artificial Intelligence in SEO - Striking a Balance

Artificial intelligence in SEO is just one of many ways that AI is driving managers to rethink work processes. Find out how striking the right balance between exploiting AI opportunities while maintaining the human touch is the key to B2B content marketing SEO.

There’s no point in creating B2B marketing content that nobody reads. By the same token, nobody is going to read online content they can’t find.

So, from the dawn of the Internet, content creators have been profoundly concerned about making their work searchable. The arrival of search engines like Yahoo, Alta Vista, Lycos and Google was a mixed blessing.

If search engines found and recommended your content it could, at least potentially, go viral. If they didn’t find it, or didn’t rank it very highly, your marketing content would languish in obscurity.

Specialized Field Called SEO Emerges

As content creators discussed this challenge, they started sharing tactics they found successful. Eventually a specialized field called search engine optimization (SEO) emerged.

This set off a kind of arms race between search engines and SEO experts. Search engines would become aware of new SEO tactics and close loopholes in their algorithms.

SEO practitioners would then come up with more subtle or sophisticated tactics. In response, the search engines would further tighten up their algorithms and ranking methods and so on.

AI Has Elevated the SEO ‘Arms Race'

As in so many dimensions of information technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has elevated that arms race to a new level. Companies like Google are applying AI to their search engine algorithms to better understand user search queries and deliver even more accurate and relevant results.

Beyond that, search engine providers have deployed AI to better evaluate the quality of online content their web crawlers come across. This is great news for end users, but it has content creators concerned.

Meanwhile, content creators are developing or acquiring AI-based tools to automate the tasks required to optimize their copy for search rankings. So, the strategic competition on both sides continues to escalate, but with new and better tools.

Adapting to the New Technological Rivalry Phase

So, how do B2B content marketers adapt to this new phase in the technological rivalry?? One key principle has always applied to SEO, and it’s become more relevant than ever.

The best way to ensure that search engines find and rank your online marketing resources is to create excellent content. SEO tactics, gimmicks, tips and tricks come and go, but they only succeed in the very short term.

Having said that, AI applications can help your team save time and pay more attention to detail in optimizing copy for SEO. Here are some specific stages in the content creation process where AI can ensure that search engines will rank your articles competitively.

Keyword Research One of the Best AI Applications

Keyword research is one of the best ways to apply AI to a content creation project or campaign. AI applications like ClickUp, Semrush, Google Keyword Planner or simply ChatGPT (I don’t write for any of these brands, and nobody is paying me to say any of this) can complete research that might take your team hours to pour through in the blink of an eye.

Writing to a keyword, search term, or common phrase is one SEO tactic that works consistently, regardless of technology. That’s because it helps writers meet readers’ content needs.

As long as you and your team keep a few caveats in mind, a well-designed AI tool can also support content optimization. First, using AI to generate the final draft of an article is a very bad idea.

Avoiding AI’s Stilted Style and Hackneyed Phrasing

About a year ago, some people were getting away with publishing AI-generated content straight from the app. “However, in the ever-evolving landscape of online content creation and search engine optimization,” everyone recognizes the stilted style and hackneyed phrasing of AI-generated content at a glance. (Including that phrase in quotes.)

Just as artificial intelligence remains more artificial than intelligent, natural language processing reads as more processed than natural. Even so, AI can take on many of the finicky, detail-oriented aspects of content optimization.

For example, there’s no reason a quality AI application couldn’t save your team time by churning out your heading, title and alt (image) tags. Your chatbot might also be able to churn out the first draft of meta descriptions as long as a staff member looks them over.

AI Lends Itself to Structured Data

AI can also lend itself to structured data, or schema, markup tasks. This can save your team time coming up with and inserting contextual data like product information, reviews or branding details.

To ensure the content will load promptly and perform properly on mobile devices, AI tools can take on a range of routine, mundane tasks. These include image optimization, simplifying CSS or JavaScript files, cache management, and inserting mobile-friendly navigation tools.

Probably the most suitable AI application for B2B content creators is monitoring and reporting. AI applications can keep an eye on rankings, organic traffic and engagement without ever becoming bored or distracted, and then submit consistent, objective reports interpreting the results.

Striking a Balance

To stay competitive, your brand needs to strike a balance between finding appropriate use cases for AI applications while preserving content quality with a human touch. The constant technological rivalry will continue between content creators and search engines.

Even so, the best way to make sure your target audience finds your B2B online marketing resources will always be to craft excellent content.

Learn more:

How AI Will Impact SEO

The impact of AI on content SEO