We can be honest here, we all saw this coming. It started with Hal from A Space Odyssey then The Terminator came on the scene, followed by iRobot, and (probably the most relatable to us right now) Samantha from Her showed up.
We now have AI chatbots who can begin to understand our writing styles and our interests, are able to conduct complex reasoning, and have access to all the information on the internet – and we can ask them anything.
While the answers might not always be 100% correct, AI is earnest in its attempt to bring us the information we want, and with (as many people have found so far) surprisingly endearing responses.
While discovering you’ve grown quite fond of your ai chatbot is becoming not uncommon, it’s important to consider the business implications of this new tool that was catapulted into the SEO world in 2022.
AI began transforming the digital marketing and SEO landscape as soon as it set foot on the scene. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can help generate content faster while search engines use AI models like BERT and MUM to better understand user intent and deliver relevant results. Voice assistants (this is where Her comes in) and visual search tools like Google Lens mean that optimising for conversational and image-based queries is becoming more important.
To remain competitive, businesses must embrace AI, understand how it works, and how to use it to market their brands; this is where The Digital Maze Comes in.
It’s fair to say that our team is obsessed with emerging technologies and learning how to use them in our strategies. We’ve spent the last few years learning the ropes and refining our skills so that we can understand how to use these new AI tools to bring your business all the traffic, conversions, and clients you’re looking for.
In this article, we’ll explore the impact that AI has had on the SEO industry, some of the challenges that we face in this new AI era, and how we can help you navigate those challenges.
It’s no secret that AI has absolutely overwhelmed the marketing landscape over the last few years. Many SEOs, creatives, PPC managers, social media managers, and marketers in general have said something to the effect of their jobs being replaced by AI. We now know that this is unlikely to happen – as long as we appease the AI overlords learn to adapt and use these tools (as well as our very capable human brains) to develop our SEO strategies. Some of the things we’ve had to begin considering in the recent years are:
Search algorithms are understanding our intent
AI tools have been collecting conversational information over the last two years, giving their algorithms a good idea of how different words and phrases are used. In turn, search algorithms are using this data to better understand context, user intent, and the nuances of natural language.
Google’s BERT (while still a young AI), has made it possible for search engines to understand complex queries and prioritise relevance over keyword matches, which has led to more accurate results for the user.
Actionable Insight: Start with a keyword, but don’t stop there! Optimise your content for keyword entities, related synonyms, and other information associated with the topic you’re covering. Provide relevant helpful information and make it easy to read (and crawl) with the proper formatting.
Content is easier to develop
Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Jasper can allow you to quickly brainstorm ideas, develop outlines, draft content, and even build a full content strategy. If you have the right prompt, then anything is possible here. It’s extremely important not to understate the importance of human–centred work here. While an AI chatbot can help, emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and informative content written by a human with years of experience in their field will always outperform purely AI-written content.
Actionable insight: Develop a prompt template you can use for your content strategies, and never upload purely AI-written content to a website.
Conversational queries are on the rise
Voice search has been steadily on the rise over the last few years with voice assistants like Siri and Alexa coming on the scene. Optimising for voice search means optimising for conversational queries and natural phrases – otherwise known as longtail keywords.
Actionable Insight: Tools like AskSocrates and AnswerThePublic can provide natural longtail queries related to keywords. Answering FAQs, and optimising for local SEO can additionally help websites rank for voice searches.
Optimising visual assets provides additional traffic avenues
Similar to voice search, there’s a rise in visual and video searches due to tools like Google Lens and AI-driven image recognition. Optimising images and videos has always been important for a website to be accessible (an SEO ranking factor), but now we’re seeing that optimising images, videos, and multimedia content on a website will bring traffic from these new AI sources as well.
Actionable Insight: Optimise image alt text, titles, and descriptions while also making sure that videos are additionally optimised for alt text, have informative descriptions, and can provide closed captions.
Hyper–personalised results for your area
AI has been causing big changes in the local SEO field as well. Hyper-personalised search results are delivered based on user intent and location, making it exceptionally important for small businesses to optimise their websites for their unique community offerings (i.e. "late night cafe in Derby" or "All girls fantasy fiction book club in Sheffield").
Actionable Insight: Determine your business's local USPs and create webpages or optimise your search profile with this information. Alternatively, research what is popular in your local area and begin offering it (and most importantly optimise your website for it).
The rise of new technologies that influence SEO strategies will of course come with its challenges.
Search will continue to grow increasingly complex as AI models begin to influence the algorithms. This will make it more difficult to predict ranking factors while maintaining consistent SEO performance.
Solution: Keep up to date with current AI tools and search algorithm updates through the SEO community.
AI chatbots make it easy for anyone to create content, making it harder to stand out among competitors.
Solution: Never rely fully on AI content. Always use human creativity as the foundation of your content.
Google search pages provide more information instantaneously, meaning users often don’t need to click through to websites to learn more. SERP (Search Engine Results Page) Features include Featured Snippets (the paragraph that appears at the top of search results when you ask a question) and Local Packs (the list of businesses their opening hours and locations that appear when you search for terms that have local intent). And now we even have AI Overviews, which pull data from a series of high authority websites to provide an overview of the search query. All of these features do not require users to click through to a website to get the information they need - though they do provide an opportunity to build brand awareness.
Solution: Use these features to build brand awareness and show expertise in your field. Write content that is helpful and that clearly and concisely answers users’ questions.
As we saw above, AI doesn’t always provide the most accurate information, which means that if you don’t double-check, you could be providing inaccurate info to customers and clients. On top of this, search engines will penalise websites that provide false information, which means lower rankings for your website.
Solution: Always fact-check the information that you want to publish on your website.
When you rely too much on AI to do your keyword research, develop strategies or write your content, your content is likely to be generic, impersonal, and lack the human touch. This has been mentioned throughout this article but deserves its own section because the solution is:
Solution: Always use your human creativity first, and use AI as an extension of that creativity.
The trick to keeping your business ahead of the competition is to use AI tools. The only caveat is that you have to use them well, meaning you should use them as a tool alongside your own expertise – not as an easy win.
The first step toward this is to focus on human-centred content as a main pillar of your content strategy. The human touch is something that AI cannot replicate – and that comes in the form of humour, storytelling, and providing authentically helpful information for the user. This has always been a cornerstone of SEO content and will continue to be throughout the AI age.
Find the AI tools that will help your workflow – don’t just use the most generic ones – and leverage those for your marketing strategies. At TDM, we use advanced AI tools to help manage our workflows, analyse reporting data and build our strategies – always with a human touch.
Always prioritise UX and accessibility. This will become more of a cornerstone on the internet as AI continues to grow. Users who need accessible technologies will be able to better navigate the web, opening up an entire new audience to create content and products for. Alongside this, optimising for accessibility means optimising visual content with descriptive text, which in turn helps search algorithms and AI chatbots understand when your content is relevant to suggest.
Possibly the most important point is to understand the ethical usage of AI. Don’t take an AI’s work and claim it as your own – transparency is always key. Ethical usage of AI chatbots is not only the right thing to do, but it will help your business rank authentically while targeting users who have the correct intent – ultimately increasing your bottom line.
What is a marketer without their fun tools? This list covers some of the most useful tools that marketers can use today:
| Tool Name | Category | Description |
| ChatGPT | Content Generation | Generates human-like text for blogs, social media posts, and customer interactions. |
| Jasper | Content Creation | AI-powered platform for creating marketing copy, blog articles, and ad scripts. |
| SurferSEO | SEO Optimization | Analyzes top-performing pages to help optimize content for keywords and search rankings. |
| Grammarly | Writing Enhancement | Improves grammar, clarity, and tone for marketing content and communications. |
| Clearscope | SEO Content Optimization | Helps optimize content with keywords, readability, and competitive analysis. |
| HubSpot AI | Marketing Automation | Provides AI tools for CRM, email marketing, and lead nurturing. |
| Canva Magic Write | Graphic Design | AI-powered copywriting tool integrated into Canva for marketing visuals. |
| Lumen5 | Video Creation | Converts text into video content with AI-generated visuals and animations. |
| Adzooma | PPC Management | Simplifies ad management for Google, Facebook, and Microsoft Ads with AI insights. |
| Phrasee | Email Marketing | AI-driven tool for creating email subject lines and campaign copy to maximize engagement. |
| Brandwatch | Social Listening | Monitors brand mentions and audience sentiment across digital platforms. |
| Hootsuite Insights | Social Media Analytics | Tracks social media trends, engagement, and sentiment using AI analysis. |
| Crayon | Competitive Analysis | AI-powered platform for monitoring competitor activity and strategy insights. |
| Optmyzr | PPC Optimization | AI-driven platform for automating and optimizing Google Ads campaigns. |
| SEMrush | SEO & Marketing Tools | All-in-one platform for keyword research, competitive analysis, and SEO strategy. |
| Hotjar | UX and Heatmaps | Tracks user behaviour on websites with heatmaps and AI insights for improvements. |
| Synthesia | Video Marketing | AI tool for creating personalized and professional video content using avatars. |
| MarketMuse | Content Strategy | AI-based platform for content planning and optimization to improve rankings. |
| Wordtune | Writing Assistant | AI-driven tool for rewriting and improving the clarity of marketing content. |
It’s absolutely vital to adapt to the evolving SEO landscape that is being consistently shaped by AI and new search algorithms. That’s why we’re here!
Our account managers excel in not only the human touch but also know how to navigate this new AI landscape in ethical and authentic ways.
We can provide:
Explore our services today to see if we’re the right fit for you.
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