Will 2023 be the year AI takes over SEO?

Jan 20, 2023 by
Will 2023 be the year AI takes over SEO?

For many whose only knowledge of artificial intelligence comes from speculative science fiction, the idea of a working world living comfortably side-by-side with AI might seem a little foreign.

But the truth is that so many of us are using AI in our daily lives without even realising it. If you’ve even tried to contact a company by social media you’ve probably spoken to an AI chatbot and if you work in marketing and have used Google Analytics, the algorithms used to drive that platform are AI algorithms through and through.

When it comes to SEO, AI has been an integral part of the process for a while now and in 2023 it’s going to become an even more fundamental component. But will it be taking over the whole show and rendering our work irrelevant? Of course not.

We’re not quite there yet

Thanks to powerful platforms such as Dall E and Midjourney, AI image generation has made a lot of noise in recent months. But while those incredibly smart platforms can generate surprisingly convincing though decidedly uncanny images, when it comes to the written word, AI is still miles behind even the most wet-behind-the-ears of SEO interns.

The truth is we’re not there yet. We might be in a decade or so, but for now, the actual meat and potatoes of SEO – the content itself – is still going to be largely down to us humans. What AI will be used for, however, is to help improve how we work and sharpen the edges, as it were.

Using AI to improve your content

While AI has already been used in analytics for a while now, 2023 could be the year that it’s used to generate content faster that’s more relevant and more rankable. For example, AI can be used to generate new ideas for content based on ideas you’ve already written about. This could be incredibly powerful for businesses with blogs that are screaming out for new content but feel they’ve already mined every available avenue.

AI can also be used to research topics by collecting data that can be used to create content that’s more comprehensive and authoritative. It can even be used to promote content more effectively and to those that will respond to it.

Most profoundly, however, it can be used to optimise content, taking over the more tedious aspects of SEO like adding in keywords, improving readability and more. You could also use the aforementioned AI image generation platforms to create unique image content, which is always going to be a great SEO boon.

The future of AI in SEO

While AI in 2023 is going to be used to help us make better decisions and optimise our content, in the near future it could also be used to identify link-building opportunities and create automatic material based around personal needs. Machine learning can already be used to help us understand search queries and intent and it’s only going to get smarter in the coming years.

The real Rubicon, however, remains written AI content creation. Because once that’s been crossed there are quite a few of us that are going to have to seriously consider professional retraining. Here’s hoping we get at least another decade, right?

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