By: Sophie Allen Oct 25/2024
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How to Integrate AI into Your SEO Practice
Over the past year, AI has become a hot topic of discussion which you’ve likely been a part of and formed an opinion on. Regardless of that opinion, AI is here to stay and continues to rapidly expand across various technologies and industries. When it comes to digital marketing, AI has had a profound impact on the industry, with new tools and integrations at our disposal to improve efficiency. While there are mixed feelings about what this means for the future of digital marketing, there are ways to integrate it into your SEO practice to become more efficient and level up your work to serve clients even better. We’ll break down some of the top ways to use AI in SEO while still keeping the unique human touch that you bring to your work, and include the top tools to use, here.
AI-Powered SEO Tools
Getting started integrating AI into your SEO practice is as simple as utilizing Grammarly to check your writing for spelling errors and proper grammar. When using tools like Grammarly, it’s important to review each suggestion carefully, as it may offer recommendations that lack contextual accuracy. SEO tools we’ve been using for years are all weaving AI into their product so, whether you want to actively start working with AI or are more hesitant to adopt some AI practices, you’ll likely be using them either way. Take SEMrush’s keyword research tool, for example, with AI-suggested keyword opportunities and the Content Strategy Builder. These tools are small ways to kick off integrating AI into your SEO practice while still maintaining control of the work you’re producing.
On another note, the SEO tools you use most frequently can integrate with AI to automate tasks, provide deeper insights, and make data-driven recommendations. Let’s take a closer look at how AI is being integrated into widely used SEO tools and the specific benefits these enhancements bring. Here are our top three SEO tools and three ways AI can be of use to each of them:
Google Search Console
Automated Performance Analysis:
- Analyze Search Console data to identify patterns and trends in search queries, clicks, impressions, and CTR.
- Highlight underperforming keywords and pages and offer suggestions for optimization.
Anomaly Detection:
- Detect unusual changes in search performance such as drops in rankings or traffic.
- Alert you to potential issues like indexing problems or penalties.
Content Optimization:
- Suggest improvements to meta descriptions, titles, and content based on search intent and keyword performance data from Search Console.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Advanced Segmentation:
- Segment audiences effectively by identifying user behaviour patterns. Ex. uncovering hidden correlations between user demographics and purchasing behaviour.
Predictive Analytics:
- Built-in machine learning models predict outcomes like potential revenue from specific segments or the likelihood of user churn.
- Allows you to make proactive decisions to optimize campaigns.
Automated Insights:
- Provide real-time, automated insights into website performance.
- Highlight specific changes in user behaviour or traffic sources that require your attention.
Page Speed Insights
Automated Optimization Suggestions:
- Analyze specific components of your website that are slowing down page load times.
- Offer targeted recommendations to improve performance.
Predictive Impact Analysis:
- Predict how certain changes will impact overall page speed and user performance including reducing image sizes or optimizing code.
Continuous Monitoring and Alerts:
- Continuously monitor your site’s speed and alert you when performance dips below a certain threshold to help you maintain optimal load times.
Combining these top three most used SEO tools with AI capabilities allows you to save time for more strategic SEO activities while reducing the likelihood of human error and gaining deeper insights into your data. You’ll be free to take a more proactive and data-driven approach to SEO, ultimately improving your website’s performance and visibility in search engines.
We’ll discuss more AI tools for SEO within this blog to provide you with more places to start when looking for ways to add AI into your workflow.
SEO Automation
One of the best ways to start using AI in your SEO practice is to approach these tools with a mindset for maximizing efficiency. If an AI program can take care of some of the more repetitive tasks, help with brainstorming, flag anomalies in data, or assist with keyword research, it’s freeing up more of your time to focus on optimizations for your clients. This is especially true when it comes to optimizing websites with thousands of pages or managing a full roster of clients. Some tasks that can be automated and the programs to use include:
- Keyword Research. This includes keyword suggestions and an analysis of search intent, using tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Keyword Insights.
- Content Creation and Optimization. Perform content gap analyses and automatically optimize on-page SEO elements with Surfer SEO and Clearscope or generate content with Jasper, Writesonic, and Copy.ai.
- SEO Reporting and Analytics. AI tools like BrightEdge and MozPro can assist with generating detailed SEO reports that include keyword rankings, traffic insights, and competitor performance as well as offer predictions about future performance and anomaly detection.
- Link Building. SEMrush and Ahrefs can automate backlink analysis and discovery by scanning competitors’ backlink profiles and suggesting sites where you can potentially gain backlinks. You can also automate parts of the outreach process for link-building such as finding relevant sites, drafting email templates, and sending follow-up emails using Pitchbox and BuzzStream.
- Competitor Analysis. Use AI to monitor competitors’ SEO strategies, keyword rankings, content updates, and backlink profiles with tools like SpyFu and Crayon. These tools can alert you to any significant changes that may affect your rankings and provide actionable insights for staying ahead of the competition. You can also automatically track which SERP features like featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes your competitors are appearing in and suggest strategies to optimize your content for similar features.
- Local SEO. Automatically update and optimize your local business listings across directories and platforms with BrightLocal and Yext’s AI automation features. This helps ensure consistency in NAP (name, address, phone number) data to improve your local search ratings. You’ll also be able to discover more local citation opportunities and automate submissions to local directories.
- Content Personalization and UX Optimization. Optimizely uses AI to automate personalization efforts to improve user experience and SEO by tailoring content and calls-to-action based on individual preferences as well as automatically run A/B tests on different website elements like headlines, CTA buttons, and page layouts.
Predictive Analytics for SEO
AI can help SEOs with predictive analytics by enabling deeper insights, faster analysis, and more accurate forecasting. This allows SEOs to make smarter decisions, optimize for maximum results, and prepare for changes in search algorithms or user behaviour. Here are some ways AI can be of assistance:
Trend Prediction & Forecasting
Search Trend Analysis
AI tools can analyze historical search trends and user behaviour to forecast future keyword and topic search volumes. Tools like SEMrush can identify seasonal patterns, emerging trends, or shifts in user intent, enabling SEOs to stay ahead of the curve and target keywords before they peak.
Keyword Performance Forecasting
Integrating AI models with Google Trends data can assist with the analysis of keyword performance over time and predict their future performance in terms of ranking, traffic, and conversion rates. This helps you prioritize efforts on keywords that are likely to bring long-term value.
User Behaviour Predictions
Predictive User Intent
Using tools like PaveAI, AI can analyze vast amounts of user behaviour data such as clicks, time spent on pages, bounce rates, and conversions to predict how users will interact with our content. This enables you to tailor content and structure to meet the needs of future users.
Churn Prediction
Google Analytics 4 uses machine learning models to predict outcomes like user churn by analyzing on-site behaviour patterns and providing insights into what factors are likely to cause users to leave a site. This allows you to make changes proactively rather than reactively to retain users and prioritize our optimization efforts.
Content Success Prediction
Content Performance Forecasting
Frase’s AI tools help predict content success by analyzing the top-ranking content and providing suggestions on how to outrank competitors. These tools can also analyze trends, competitor content, and search intent to help you create high-performing content and optimize for conversions and user engagement.
CTR and Conversion Prediction
Predictive models such as MarketMuse can forecast how likely a specific page or piece of content is to receive clicks (CTR) and convert based on historical performance and competitive analysis. MarketMuse also digs into content gaps and search intent to help with your content optimization for better results.
Traffic and Rank Prediction
Rank and Traffic Forecasting
SEMrush provides ranking predictions based on competitive analysis, search volume trends, and backlink profiles to help you set realistic traffic goals. Additionally, programs like BrightEdge can predict ranking and traffic based on keyword strategy and content optimization.
SERP Feature Predictions
Some AI models can predict the appearance of SERP features like featured snippets and People Also Ask sections as well as predict whether or not your content has a chance to be featured in these spots. Using BrightEdge once more can provide insights on how to best optimize for SERP features and maximize visibility.
Voice Search Optimizations with AI
According to Invoca, millennials are the most active when it comes to using voice search and voice-enabled devices, with Gen Z following close behind. With that in mind, SEOs are optimizing more for voice search in hopes of achieving higher rankings in the Google SERPs. To keep pace with this change in user search behaviour, using tools like AnswerThePublic and Frase to help automate voice search optimization is key. From analyzing voice search trends and suggesting conversational keywords and phrases that are likely to be used by voice search users to implementing schema and structured data for voice search, these tools can save SEOs a lot of time when keeping up with search trends.
AI in Technical SEO
For those SEOs already familiar with the convenience of Screaming Frog, it should not come as a surprise to hear that the AI addition to the tool can automate website crawling, bringing you complete technical audits with any issues listed in order of severity and potential SEO impact. When it comes to automating the generation and implementation of schema markup, Sitebulb is a good option, while NitroPack and PageSpeedPro can automate page speed improvements such as image optimization, code minification, and lazy loading.
Working Together for Optimal Performance
As you’ve likely noticed throughout this article, one of the key advantages of AI in SEO is its ability to enhance efficiency. Let’s face it, how many of us have passed off the simpler, more repetitive tasks to an intern at some point in our career? If you could automate those tasks for an AI to do and give yourself more time to work on creative initiatives, wouldn’t you? Integrating AI into our SEO practice is not about replacing the human touch; rather, it’s about streamlining processes and freeing up time to focus on deeper data analysis, crafting high-quality content, and achieving better results for clients. There will always be a human hand crafting the strategy and creating the content, with assistance from AI tools to figuratively lend an extra set of hands and a second pair of eyes to our work. By allowing AI to automate our repetitive tasks, we can focus our time on creating successful client strategies and gain deeper insights into the data presented, allowing for more informed and effective optimizations.
If you’re looking for SEO services from a digital marketing agency that personalizes strategies to best serve your business needs, reach out to Snaptech Marketing.