With the birth of AI, this is why quality content is more important than ever for your SEO

Artificial intelligence (AI) is integral to our everyday lives. It’s in our smartphones and satnavs, manages financial transactions, supports education and of course, helps marketers gather and analyse data about their target audiences.?

More recently, AI’s ability to create human-like writing has made it a handy tool for creating web content and assisting in search engine optimisation (SEO). However, there are limits to what technology can achieve, with some areas of digital marketing still requiring the human touch.?

Here, we’ll look at the differences between smart technology and authentic human intelligence, and how the minds of creatives are still valuable when it comes to creating original content that attracts real people.?

AI has its advantage

First off, AI is quicker than any human at reading, writing and compiling information. A mathematical problem that takes a human brain five minutes to solve takes AI a fraction of that time, computing at a rate that’s about 125,000 times faster. It’s at your beck and call at all hours and doesn't need coffee breaks, either.?

With AI content, you can ensure consistency and work efficiently. It’s cost-effective and, when managed correctly, can support SEO goals by satisfying Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines - referring to content that shows experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Finally, AI programmes can help you map out content ideas if you need to create a strategy for blog posts, for example. But it does require you managing the programme and inputting the right information to generate the best ideas.??

A professional SEO copywriting agency can use AI tools to quickly perform tasks such as scouring the web to generate keyword ideas and perform background research. Yet, despite its speed and accuracy, AI doesn’t have an IQ (intelligence quotient) that’s measurable like it is in humans, it is simply gathering information a regurgitating it - if that information is flawed, so too will be your content. Neither does it possess EQ (Emotional Quotient), meaning it won’t be able to handle those subtle cues and tap into emotions the way a human writer can.?

Nevertheless, AI-generated content is everywhere, often overwhelming consumers with information they may not always want or need, which is why it's more important than ever to stand out with something unique and well-researched. Here’s where human intuition and creative abilities are far superior to machine intelligence to write in an original and unique way.

The human touch?

You might have tried AI tools such as ChatGPT to write something and be amazed at how well it can compile information into an entire article or report free of grammatical errors. However, on closer inspection, the writing, at best, can only mimic human traits and lacks the real context or the poetic flow that a human writer can achieve.?

Humans have an innate understanding of cultural context, giving us the ability to tell jokes or tone our language down when the situation calls for it. AI tools on the other hand have no such intuition. Here are a few things to consider when investing in content strategy and development for your brand.?

Fact or Fiction?

AI applications write passages from information gathered online, but can’t necessarily determine the authenticity of the information retrieved. For example, you might ask the app to write a report for you that includes some statistics, which it can do very well and even make comparisons for you. However, the source of the information isn’t guaranteed to be reliable or unbiased. The source itself may have been written by a human with a bias. In this case, AI doesn’t know whether the statistics and sources it gets its information from are genuine. Using false information could backfire if it turns out to be libellous. Using human discernment to get the facts right is a much safer strategy. It also links in well to the expertise and trustworthiness of Google’s E-E-A- guidelines - by adding a human touch, you can showcase your personal expertise and create accurate content, building trust with your audience.?

Robotic emotions

Hollywood often paints a dark picture of imminent robot rebellions, but AI just doesn’t think like humans or have the emotional capacity to want to extinguish mankind and rule the world like a dictator would. Deep Learning, which is a subset of machine learning, can recognise subtle emotional cues in human speech as well as micro-expressions on a person's face. However, AI doesn’t understand or experience nuances of humour or irony on an emotional level. For humans though, emotions literally translate as feelings because we do actually feel them in our bodies. Butterflies in the tummy, tingling on the skin, adrenaline, pumping, increased heart rate and blood rushing to our faces to make us blush are all human traits a machine can never have. When it comes to creating content, an ability to transmit those emotions makes everything you write more interesting.? Even if you are selling a product B2B, humans are emotional first and rational second, by tapping into their emotions, you are much more likely to persuade.?

Originality

As we said earlier, AI only gathers information and puts it together in a way that it’s been programmed to do. It doesn’t create original content. It doesn’t have ideas of its own. At the very most, you might be able to force it to have an ‘opinion’ by telling it to assume a bias and disregard other information, but there’s nothing original or authentic about that. If you rely solely on AI to create web content, it won’t stand out as unique in any way, and so it won’t be any more appealing than that of your competitors. The power to tap into your experiences and create content that inspires is a uniquely human trait. It plays into the experience element of Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. Referring to your experiences makes your content entirely unique to you and therefore, of more value to both search engines and readers.

It’s a question of quality

At Contese Agency we give our clients quality web content written by professional human writers so that it’s authentic and engaging for readers while our SEO experts make sure the keyword strategy used with the content is favoured by search engines.?

Experience

The content must demonstrate that it was written by someone with first-hand experience. If we’re talking about products or services, the writer should have knowledge based on real human interactions.

Expertise

People searching for information online need to hear from experts with knowledge in that subject area. We can source facts and information which creates an informed, engaging argument.

Authoritativeness

This is a measure of the credibility of the source of the information used in content for a website. By maintaining high journalistic standards of research and copywriting, we help Google validate information through external links in the content linking to other reputable sources.?

Trustworthiness

The trustworthiness of web content is determined by various factors including the reliability, honesty, and accuracy of the content. Our content creation process prevents information from being labelled as misleading or outdated.?

While conforming to E-E-A-T guidelines is crucial to ensure web content is search engine friendly, creative storytelling is equally important to ensure it is useful and engaging to human readers, and that’s what we do best at Contese Agency. Our creative writers are wordsmiths, experienced in telling emotive stories that nurture consumer engagement, backed by our chief editor who has more than 20 years of journalism experience.

When it comes to creating the appropriate content for your brand, there are definitely benefits to using AI. However, the human touch will still provide you with an advantage, guaranteeing well-crafted content that inspires and captivates. With a vast amount of content being published online daily, investing in creating something distinctive will help you differentiate yourself.

If you would like to learn more about the effectiveness of quality content marketing, creative copywriting, and SEO services, and how Contese can assist your brand. Visit contese.co