It looks like ChatGPT is taking over. This has some digital marketers thinking the second coming is at hand and that AI is the answer to all their woes.

While AI can help reduce a workload, it is not a replacement for true SEO experts. Here are 5 ways not to use AI for SEO.

What Not to Do

Here are some ways you should not use AI for SEO.

• Use generative AI: AI tools can be used for real time content creation, but it does a very poor job. It will not perform well because AI driven models get things wrong and even though they can write original copy, the material itself will not correspond to original experience.
• Forget to edit: AI doesn’t make a lot of grammatical mistakes, but it gets facts very wrong, which can be dangerous if it’s used for content generation.
• Forget to fact check: Don’t use AI as a fact check, that’s like asking a liar if he’s telling the truth.
• Use it instead of a search engine (you still need to do your own research): AI outputs are extremely limited and curated compared to search engines. They’re actually not that good for research.
• Let it give you code and implement it without troubleshooting: AI is actually pretty good with code, but don’t make wholesale changes cause you can tank your website.

Why Not Use It?

Now let’s talk about the reasons that you shouldn’t use AI for these things.

• AI makes things up: AI doesn’t just report falsely, it also straight up makes things up. There was a whole case in a court of law about this.
• The writing is poor: While the writing might be grammatically correct, it’s not very original and as stated, it gets things wrong.
• It’s redundant and unoriginal: Thin copy has not performed well in search engines for a while, but that’s just what AI produces.
• AI lacks an experiential component: AI has never been in the field, so it will never be as good at writing generative copy as a real person with experience.
• It lacks the depth of search engines: Search engines are generally better at furnishing a wide range of information than answer engines are.

So How Can You Use AI for SEO?

With all of this being said, there are still some ways you can use AI for SEO.

• Basic research: If all you need is some basic information or a few ideas, you can use AI. Just don’t lean on it too heavily.
• Site structure optimization recommendations: Need some basic suggestions for improving page headers or things like that? AI can help.
• Keyword research and analysis: Not sure if one target keyword or the other is better? Let AI be your first consultant - just don’t forget to cross-reference.
• Competitor analysis: Which of your competitors is the most threatening? AI may be able to help clear the water.
• Basic content optimizations: You can use AI models to optimize your content at least on the surface level, as long as you don’t let the model write it entirely.
• Technical improvements: When it comes to basic improvements like catching broken links, AI is pretty quick and not too prone to error.
• Finding basic errors: Got a basic bug on your website or a botched integration? It’s not inconceivable that AI can help.

Working with an AI Optimization Provider

One of the things you can do to make sure you’re on the right footing is not to go at it entirely alone. There are agencies out there that specialize in leveraging AI for SEO, and many of them also offer AI optimization services.

Get in touch with one of these if you’re unsure about how to proceed and whether you hire them or not for official services, they can shed some more light on the things you should not do with AI.

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