Artificial intelligence is increasingly useful as a tool in online marketing and search engine optimization. It’s seen widespread usage in keyword research and proved invaluable from a content marketing standpoint. Some AI platforms can even offer functionality such as related keywords, recommended word counts, and semantic analysis summaries. But it goes deeper than that.
Google’s search engine – really, every search engine – is, at its core, AI. Increasingly-advanced algorithms designed to trawl and analyze content in order to determine the best fit for a particular user. This algorithm evolves in tandem with the algorithms SEO specialists are increasingly using to examine and tweak their own content.
What this means is simple.
“Content for content’s sake won’t rank,” explains Tony Adam, Founder & CEO of digital marketing agency Visible Factors. “You need to cater more specifically to user intent, and not just one intent, but as many as you can imagine…the ideal strategy is to develop marketing efforts that put the user back in the spotlight.”
Google’s own AI pushed this evolution forward, but AI platforms can be instrumental in helping your organization adapt to it. With the right analytics platform, you can provide advertisers, marketers, and content creators alike with invaluable insights into not just your audience, but also your products and brand. Throughout this process, the most important thing to remember is that in order to be one hundred percent effective, machine learning requires a human touch.
No method is entirely error-free. AI doesn’t mean you no longer have to rely on the insights of marketing professionals, nor does it mean you can do away with editors and proofreading. Rather, it allows you to augment what you’re already doing, creating compelling, data-backed content for your readers that also aligns with Google’s algorithms.
AI also allows you to breathe new life into old strategies, automating tasks like keyword research and technical SEO. It can also be applied practically in the content creation process, optimizing and tweaking elements that might otherwise go untouched. Again, though, be careful.
Although machine learning has advanced a great deal in recent years, it’s still not on the same level as human intelligence. A spun article – one generated entirely by algorithms – is still fairly noticeable. It should be looked at more as a means of supporting your marketing team’s efforts rather than a way you can replace them entirely.
Over time, whatever AI platform you decide to use will gradually adapt to your business, and learn how to most effectively optimize for your brand. But again, you still need to teach it. As for what the evolution of AI means for the immediate future?
As search engines become more intuitive, the quality and relevancy of the content they retrieve will increase. Content marketing teams, meanwhile, will be able to dedicate more towards ensuring that level of quality, and less towards mundane tasks like data logging and analysis of metrics. AI can generate and parse all of this data in real-time, at a scale impossible for the human mind to achieve.
You don’t need a degree to understand the benefits of AI. At its core, it’s not just about improving the intelligence and capabilities of machines – it’s about leveraging those improvements for better business outcomes, greater efficiency, and more compelling insights. Even now, it’s a valuable resource in the arsenal of every marketing professional.
That value will only increase as we move forward into the future.
