Learn how to use generative AI for content production without SEO issues.

Generative AI is increasingly widely used in content production as the AI hype fades.

In theory, this opens up massive content marketing opportunities. However, SEO pitfalls are evident.

This paper discusses how we are predisposed to make such mistakes, how Google has handled this, and how to securely use generative AI in SEO and content marketing.

Pitfalls and problems

Generative AI techniques make writing expert articles on any topic seem easy. This lets websites and people claim undue expertise and write many articles about everything.

This is the easiest content-generating route, and it appears like a great SEO strategy.

I’ve had marketing meetings with AI specialists suggesting this tactic. One consultant suggested, “automate and dominate.” My job was to temper such zeal and prevent SEO blunders.

This hinders consumers from seeking the finest information and search engines promoting it.

SEO history lesson

To understand the future of SEO, we must examine its legacy.

Google was easy to control with links and content around 1999–2000.

Eventually, Google addressed the issues of low-quality links and mass-produced content via Panda and Penguin algorithm changes.

Today, generative AI solutions are often seen as a way to quickly generate content and increase organic search traffic.

The battle-tested Google of 2023 varies from the old Google.

Recent revisions have confirmed that the search algorithm already prioritizes high-quality, human-first content.

It appears that Google is ahead of the curve since some sites have experienced a 70% decline in organic traffic after helpful content upgrades.

This site was fine. Though not spammy, it did nothing unusual. It was repeatable content from multiple sources.

It appears that rankings were lost to more authoritative or relevant sites.

Such sites that rely on organic traffic but publish generic content that can be found elsewhere face an existential danger.

Only reasonable integration of generative AI, not full automation, can sustain your SEO marketing approach.

What does Google want?

We must evaluate Google’s goals and aim for them to determine your content strategy.

Google clearly outlines its expectations for generating helpful, credible, people-first information in its documentation.

For a comprehensive read, go to the Search Quality Rater Guidelines (176 pages, time-consuming).

Thankfully, E-E-A-T simply defines the philosophy for us.

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, but the key points are as follows:

• Experience: Personal experience should be clearly demonstrated in content.
• Expertise: Content should be based on an individual’s proven expertise.
• Authority: The author and website should be an authority on the topic.
• Trust: The author and website should be trustworthy.

The key here is to factor this into your SEO goals.

• Have content that is based on your real human expertise and experience.
• Ensure you have the technical aspects of your UX, website design, and SEO in a good place.

An AI analogy

The issue with SEO and generative AI resembles a scene from my favorite film, Good Will Hunting.

Like ChatGPT, Will, the protagonist, is a genius who can absorb, memorize, and recall information like no other.

Will knows everything, but only from books. He lacks experience. Never has he lived, loved, or lost someone close. None of his knowledge has been fully experienced.

AI content tools resemble this. They know everything and have tremendous book smarts, but they’ll never have experience.

You may develop something unique by combining your experience and expertise with AI’s rapid output and range of information.

A strategy to safely use AI in your content production

AI is best viewed as an intelligent assistant rather than a comprehensive solution.

Most people pick the path of least resistance, which means their material won’t meet Google’s standards. Unfortunately, you will generate nothing that Google cannot answer with their Search Generative Experience (lose-lose).

Your skills and experience combined with generative AI can create material that is greater than its parts and likely more meaningful than what a generative AI can automate and produce alone.

A SWOT study of your competition can reveal SEO chances, as many sites are not doing as well as they could.

Benefits go beyond content creation. If you use SEO, PPC, or other traffic generation methods, your engagement and conversion rates will increase.

Tasks where generative AI can be helpful

This is not to say that generative AI is not truly helpful.

There are several tasks in the content ideation and creation process where generative AI tools like ChatGPT can radically help you speed up and improve your output.

1. Ideation

ChatGPT makes ideation easy, and a topic idea prompt yields multiple results.

How about “Can you suggest some article topics around generative AI and SEO?”

About 20 articles in 10 categories were produced in 30 seconds. Each might be examined using your own knowledge and experience.

2. Research and information gathering

AI can quickly process large volumes of data or summarize scientific findings. This might help you write well-researched articles quickly.

ChatGPT lets you verify facts and provide sources to assure accuracy.

While double-checking before publishing is important, you will speed up your workflow and cover more territory.

3. Content drafting

With a topic and a rough outline, generative AI can quickly create drafts for you to polish and refine. You can also create variants in different tones, styles, or from different perspectives to pick the very best approach.

4. Editing and proofing

AI can check your grammar, review content readability, and suggest improvements in flow and structure.

5. SEO

AI can help simplify the optimization of an article by suggesting keywords and optimizing the article and metadata.

6. E-E-A-T

AI solutions like ChatGPT may also assess your content for E-E-A-T criteria and recommend adjustments to guarantee you hit all these modern SEO content points.

Tipp: You can get weird responses here, so I propose tackling each aspect of the E-E-A-T criterion independently.

7. A/B testing

AI makes it easy to create multiple versions of content headlines, calls-to-action or even an entire content piece and then use these to split tests for engagement.

How to review your content

Google provides E-E-A-T guidelines and questions for content assessment at Search Central.

Google’s content assessment questions are comprehensive. This is almost insanely overdone for the average content writer or marketing team, tying you up.

To make this more actionable, I designed a simple set of 10 questions that encompass author, content, website, and E-E-A-T to assist you in ensuring Google will surface your content in search results.

Author

• Is it clear who authored the content?
• Is there detailed author information available?

Content 

• Is the content original, useful, and substantive?
• Is the content different or substantially better than other pieces out there?
• Does the content provide a new viewpoint or way to view the topic?

Website

• Is the publishing website credible with a good reputation?

Experience

• Does the author have first-hand experience on this topic?

Expertise

• Does the author have demonstrable expertise on the subject?

Authority

• Is the author (and or website) a known expert and source for this subject?

Trust

• Is the page accurate and the facts reliable?

ChatGPT can help you answer these questions, learn about the author, review the material, compare it to competitors, and more.

You need to be creative, ask these tools questions, and review their answers.

AI in SEO: Intelligent assistance

With generative AI and SEO, the path-of-least-resistance trap is evident.

SEO history shows that low-value tactics may win some tiny, temporary battles but not the bigger, long-term ones.

Use AI as an intelligent assistant rather than a means to an end to automate and conquer.

Automatic content will never meet Google’s stricter standards. Worse, your content will be irrelevant because Google’s Search Generative Experience can answer everything.

Your skills and experience combined with generative AI can create material larger than its parts and likely more than what a generative AI can produce alone.

Using SEO, PPC, or other traffic generation methods can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates, beyond just content development.