How to Use AI for SEO Content: A Guide for Marketing Agencies

Content marketing is an effective tool for driving traffic and improving your E-A-T signals. For many professional digital marketers, optimizing their content according to SEO trends is a challenge. Some make the mistake of not applying these principles at all. But for marketing agencies and managers, its importance is clear and it’s often made a top priority.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly making its way into every industry. It’s helping businesses of all sizes take their marketing to the next level. For those writers and marketers who struggle to implement SEO strategies effectively, AI is the light at the end of the tunnel.

In this blog post, we provide a step by step guide on how to use AI to write effective SEO content to help you rank on search engines. Let’s take a closer look at how AI makes a remarkable addition to any marketing team.

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence refers to the capability of machines to carry out tasks typically performed by humans. These machines used advanced technologies such as deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to assess, comprehend, and respond to human language and speech, creating relevant responses.

The evolution of AI is awe-inspiring. It can now handle and analyze massive datasets much quicker than a human could. It uses these insights to mimic human-like reactions and judgment. The proliferation of chatbots has surged noticeably, and future trends suggest we can expect even greater adoption and integration of AI solutions.

How does AI write SEO content?

When generating content, marketers will typically focus on the core concept and try to provide value for readers. The goal of content marketing is to answer the reader’s questions through well-researched, engaging content. It pays close attention to the UI behind searches. Once the framework is in place and the content is written, SEO needs to be considered. This is where writers will evaluate their content and apply relevant SEO tactics where appropriate. Search engine optimization needs to be factored into each piece of content if agencies are to achieve their goals.

That’s the “human way” of generating SEO content.

But what about AI?

AI writes SEO content by following a multi-step process created by developers in the form of algorithms. These are designed to optimize content for search engines while ensuring it’s engaging and valuable for readers. Essentially, it generates content that’s already optimized for search engines. It also happens to do this in a matter of seconds. If marketers prefer to generate their own content and use AI to optimize it instead, that’s an option too.

Our point is – if you need help achieving high-quality SEO content and reaching your goals regarding conversion rates, engagement, and organic traffic in general, then it’s time to consider AI automation!

9 Steps to Generate SEO Content with AI

A step-by-step guide for marketing agencies on how to use AI to generate SEO content starts with an understanding of the entire content creation lifecycle. We need to realize how AI can enhance each step.

1. Set Clear Objectives

Agencies need to establish what they aim to achieve with their AI-generated SEO content. This clarity will help make sure that everyone on the team is on the same page and working towards common goals.

Are you looking to increase organic traffic, boost conversions, improve brand awareness, or target a specific audience?

Clear goals will guide the AI in creating content that meets your objectives. A good way to measure success is by defining your content marketing KPIs. This will act as a benchmark for all future outcomes to be measured against. If you don’t have clear goals in place before implementing a strategy, how will you know if your marketing and SEO is effective?

2. Choose an SEO Tool

There are so many options available when it comes to SEO tools. Today, marketers can easily find one to suit their specific needs. A few popular ones are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Keywords Everywhere.

There are a few factors to consider when choosing an SEO tool:

Accuracy of data
User interface and ease of use
Price and budget
Integration capabilities with other tools
Scalability
Customer support and resources
Reviews and reputation
Customization and flexibility
Compliance and ethical considerations
Speed and performance
Features and functionality
Keyword research capabilities
Competitor analysis
Technical SEO auditing
Backlink analysis
Rank tracking
Content optimization suggestions
Third party integrations
On-page SEO analysis
Reporting and insights

3. Keyword Research

All content writers know that to create content that resonates with your audience, you need to know what your audience is looking for.

What questions are they asking search engines?

What kind of content are they hoping to find?

Is it blog posts, guides, how-to’s, or just short and straight forward answers posted on Quora?

Marketers need to dive deep into the intent of a user’s request if they’re going to provide the answer. It’s important to understand what they’re asking for, including the keywords most often used. Google has now given searchers a window into this information by including a “people also asked” section on their results pages.

Pro tip: Content writers should use these sections to their advantage when choosing the right keywords. Targeting the long-tail keywords in these searches could reveal a window of opportunity. It’s also important to tackle keywords that have a medium search volume but lower keyword difficulty or competition. This will give you a better chance at satisfying search queries and ranking higher on SERPs.

Too many marketers don’t use AI-powered tools to conduct comprehensive keyword research. These tools can identify high-volume search terms, long-tail keywords, and semantically related topics that your content should target to attract the right audience.

4. Generate Content Topics

Once you’ve found the keywords you want to target, you can focus on topic research and generation.

Many marketers choose to use the method of pillar pages and topic clusters to develop their content topics. This will help you target various questions that your audience may ask around a certain topic. This further enhances your credibility within your market and will show you’re a thought leader in your industry. Where this would typically take hours of research and attention to customer buying behavior, AI saves marketers countless headaches. With AI’s access to vast amounts of data from different sources, it saves time and gets the job done faster.

Some AI tools can create detailed content outlines based on your keywords. This includes suggested headings, questions to answer, and related topics to cover. It’s an effective way of ensuring that you create comprehensive content that meets user intent.

5. Write the Content

Did you know that on average, a 1500 word blog post takes anywhere between 4 and 8 hours to write? Depending on your industry and topic of choice, it often requires extensive research and attention to detail. SEO practices all need to be implemented if this blog post is going to reach the desired audience and lead to conversions and engagement.

AI writers are becoming an increasingly popular method for generating high quality content in a fraction of the time. These tools can generate coherent and informative text based on a few short prompts. However, the output will likely still need to be edited by a human to make sure it fits the brand’s voice and style. Consistency in this area is crucial for effective marketing.

If marketers prefer to write their own content, they can still use AI tools to conduct plagiarism checks and to assess readability and grammar. Paraphrasing is important for all written content, but it can be performed by a machine to save valuable time and money. This way, these resources become available to focus on strategic growth in other areas.

6. Optimize for SEO

Again, this applies whether marketers prefer to write their own content or use an AI writer. Some AI writers generate content according to SEO principles, while others require specific prompting to put them into practice. If you are one of those writers who’d rather write content from scratch, there’s the option to ask the AI tool to edit your content to optimize for search engines.

While many people believe they’re implementing SEO effectively throughout their marketing, it’s often not the case. From meta descriptions to alt text for images, SEO requires a holistic approach if it’s going to have the desired effect. Luckily for content creators, AI does it all.

7. Add Visuals and Multimedia

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to describe what your content is about and the type of images you want to include? Consider the impact of this versus spending time scrolling through sites like Unsplash and Pixabay to find suitable visuals. Well, with AI technology, it’s never been easier to find pictures to go with your blog posts and videos.

It’s a proven fact that visuals elevate your content in the eyes of your viewers, since 90% of what our brains take in is visual. Long story short – pictures pack a punch!

With the help of AI, marketers have help selecting and optimizing images, videos, infographics, and other multimedia elements. These all help enhance the appeal of your content and keep users engaged. By taking advantage of alt text and meta tags generated by AI, the entire process of adding visuals to your content is streamlined.

8. Publish and Promote Content

Where AI was typically used to automate repetitive tasks, people are quickly realizing its potential to revolutionize the content creation process. Now, marketers are turning to advanced AI tools like ContentBot to help them create custom workflows for every day operations. In many ways, this helps agencies save huge amounts of time and money. From idea generation to publishing and promoting, the entire content management process can be automated with the help of these workflow automation tools.

Let’s focus more specifically on content publishing and promotion. One of the most valuable benefits of AI’s help is that it can identify the best times for content publishing and promotion. Thanks to AI-driven insights, marketers can figure out when their audience is most likely to engage with content and where. Scheduling posts for social media and selecting the recipients’ optimal open time for emails are some of the best ways to use this technology. Targeted marketing has never been easier!

9. Monitor Performance

These days, it’s not enough to publish content and assume it’ll perform well. Remember those KPIs we mentioned earlier? This is the stage of generating SEO content where you need to measure your results against the goals you first put in place.

Did you achieve the goals you set out before launching your campaign?

What content performed better than you anticipated?

Which pieces of content performed poorly and need to be reviewed?

We can now use AI-powered analytics tools to track the performance of content. This is still a time-consuming step when it comes to content creation, but it’s also one of the most important. Make sure to monitor metrics such as traffic, engagement, conversion rates, and keyword rankings.

Wrapping up: Is AI the future of SEO?

AI is quickly becoming a significant factor in SEO. While it’s difficult to predict exactly how the technological advancements will make an impact, we are noticing certain trends and developments. These suggest that AI will play a crucial role in how search engine optimization is conducted moving forward. Here’s why AI could be seen as the future of SEO:

Search Engine Algorithms – Search engines like Google use AI as part of their algorithms (e.g., Google’s RankBrain). This helps gain a better understanding of search queries, user intent, and to deliver more relevant search results. As AI technology evolves, it’ll continue to influence how search results are ranked and displayed.

Personalization – AI technologies enhance the personalization of content and user experience. It allows users to analyze user behavior and can tailor search results and website experiences to individual users. This in turn improves engagement and conversion rates.

Voice Search and NLP – Voice search is becoming more popular and NLP is advancing in leaps and bounds. It helps improve AI’s ability to understand and process human language. This will become critical for SEO strategies that aim to use and target voice search and conversational queries.

Predictive Analysis – AI’s ability to analyze large sets of data and predict trends can offer new insights for SEO strategies. This includes identifying upcoming topics of interest or shifts in user behavior before they become mainstream.

UX and Engagement – Search engines are placing greater emphasis on UX as a ranking factor. AI can analyze user interaction with websites to identify patterns that affect UX and engagement.

Dynamic SEO – AI systems can make real-time adjustments to SEO strategies based on ongoing analysis. Keeping an eye on performance data, market changes, and algorithm updates is important for keeping SEO tactics agile and responsive.

It’s important to note that while AI is enhancing many elements, it won’t replace the need for human insight, creativity, ethical considerations, and strategic thinking in SEO. SEO professionals will still be needed to guide the AI, interpret data with context, and ensure that AI-generated content maintains brand voice and quality. The relationship between AI technology and human expertise will be vital in shaping the future of SEO.

The benefits of using AI for SEO

Large Scale Data Analysis – AI can analyze vast amounts of data quickly, providing insights that might take humans much longer to find. This includes market trends, user behavior, and competitive analysis. With easier access to this valuable information, marketers can upscale content production.
Enhanced Keyword Research – AI can identify keyword opportunities by understanding search patterns, related terms, and the context within search queries. This goes beyond traditional keyword research tools.
Content Optimization – AI tools can help optimize content for search engines by suggesting optimal keyword placements, readability improvements, and content structure enhancements.
Personalization – AI enables a higher degree of content personalization. It helps users tailor website experiences to individual users. AI-driven personalization can improve engagement and conversion rates tenfold.
Automation of Routine Tasks – SEO involves many repetitive tasks such as site audits, backlink analysis, and reporting. AI automates these processes, saving time and reducing the potential for human error.
Predictive Analytics – AI can predict shifts in user behavior and market trends, allowing businesses to proactively adjust their SEO strategies.
Improved User Experience – AI can help understand user interactions with a website and optimize the user experience, which is a critical factor for SEO rankings.
Voice Search Optimization – With the rise of voice assistants, AI’s understanding of natural language processing is crucial for optimizing content for voice search queries.
Real-Time Decision-Making – AI can make on-the-fly adjustments to SEO strategies based on real-time data, which is essential in a landscape where search algorithms and user behaviors are constantly evolving.
Content Generation – AI can assist in creating initial content drafts, generating ideas, or even producing complete articles, making the content creation process more efficient.
Link Building – AI can identify potential link-building opportunities by analyzing patterns and recognizing high-quality prospects for backlinks.
Adjusting to Algorithm Changes – Search engines frequently update their algorithms; AI can quickly analyze these changes to help businesses adapt their SEO strategies accordingly.

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Lauren Meyer

Lauren is a Content Marketer who values research and providing value for her readers. When she's not working on a blog post or marketing campaign, you'll find her outside with her dogs or curled up with a good book.