AI is the world’s biggest trending topic at the moment, but how is it relevant to SEO services? Marketers, digital agencies and businesses of all sizes ponder the uses of AI for SEO and consider whether it’s a good or bad thing. Like all aspects of artificial intelligence, it tends to straddle bother categories and bring a lot of potential benefits and drawbacks to the table. 

Every business owner and marketing professional will know the benefits of SEO – it remains the number one traffic source, contributing to over 63% of all US web traffic referrals. The question is whether or not AI will make SEO better or worse, so let’s see how this landscaping is currently changing and what the future could hold. 

How AI Is Changing SEO Services

Nobody can deny that SEO today is different from SEO even a few years ago. AI is a big driving force behind some of the most substantial changes, which we’ve listed below: 

  • Algorithms are now driven by artificial intelligence
  • AI tools provide endless SEO capabilities
  • AI overviews are changing how users interact with search engines
  • AI platforms are slowly taking more search traffic from traditional search engines

Perhaps the biggest change to SEO comes in the shape of AI overviews or AI platforms. When a user searches for something in Google, the AI overview is the first thing they see, providing a summary related to their search. It presents an alternative way to use search engines because people will simply scan the AI overview instead of clicking on links. Then, you have platforms like ChatGPT that take traffic away from search engines – many people now load up ChatGPT to ask a question instead of Googling it. 

The Pros & Cons Of AI For SEO

What do all of these changes mean for SEO services right now, and possibly in the future? As you read through the points above, you have already started to identify a few ways where AI for SEO can be both good and bad. 

Pros

  • Gain Access To Faster SEO Processes: Using AI for SEO will help you speed up the process of optimizing a website for searches. Harness the power of AI tools to automate tasks that used to take days/weeks – like AI SEO audits, keyword research, etc. 
  • Create More Optimized Content: AI-powered writing tools can help you create content that ranks better than ever before. It uses machine learning to teach you how to organize copy and produce work that meets the user’s search intent, potentially driving more clicks. 
  • New Ways To Rank: The shift to AI-focused searches means there are new ways for you to rank and drive traffic. If you can optimize your content to appear in an AI overview, then there’s a stronger chance of generating organic traffic. 

Cons

  • More Users May Choose AI Search Platforms: Google still has way more traffic than ChatGPT, though the rate at which the latter continues to grow could be worrying. There may be a future where AI search platforms become the dominant force, rendering traditional SEO useless. 
  • AI Overviews Can Reduce Organic Traffic: This is a problem that’s happening right now, with 60% of searches ending without users clicking through to another website because they simply read the AI overview instead. 
  • Possibly An Overreliance On AI Tools: While AI tools provide many ways to enhance the SEO process for business owners and marketers, there’s a worry that you could become overreliant, particularly on tools that may not be 100% accurate. 

The Future Of AI In The SEO Landscape

As you can see, AI for SEO can be beneficial and problematic – but where does it fit in the future? It’s hard to know for sure, though it certainly feels like there’ll be a shift in how marketers and businesses approach search engine optimization. There will be a greater focus on optimizing content for AI search tools so you can get your pages listed as sources within an AI overview. 

Similarly, companies need to focus on creating content that’s good enough and has the right intent for a platform like ChatGPT to reference when users ask it questions. This enables traffic to come from AI searches, as well as organic ones. Speaking of which, it’s almost impossible to avoid using modern AI SEO tools, and you should embrace them. Whether it’s a simple keyword research tool or software that helps you conduct full-scale audits, AI has the power to make SEO a lot easier for the average person. 

The bottom line is that AI and SEO are going to have a symbiotic relationship from now on. You can’t avoid artificial intelligence when discussing search optimization, though that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The most successful marketers and online businesses will be the ones that can harness the power of AI to bring forth the benefits of SEO.