How Might AI Impact On SEO Strategy In The Years Ahead?

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is something that, like the internet 30 years ago, promises to be transformative, but nobody can be quite sure how and whether this will be for good or ill.

If AI follows the pattern of other innovations, it may be that firms simply have to find ways of adapting to it, in the same way, for instance, that media had to adopt an online presence instead of just print or broadcast content.

This means that if you are thinking about how your firm can navigate the online world now and seeking SEO services to help you get to grips with this area, you might be wondering how AI might impact it.

At present, the jury is out, but many experts in the field of SEO, IT and marketing have their ideas.

Speaking to Search Engine Land, marketing & SEO consultant at Data Science 101 Britney Muller, and amplification team lead at Weights and Biases Dave Davies, insisted AI will not take away the jobs of SEO operatives or content producers, but it will change them.

Ms Muller was insistent that AI will not replace SEO, although some changes will be needed depending on how the likes of Google adopt the technology.

She remarked: “AI is not the be-all and end-all. In fact, I think the shine will start to wear off as we continue to see the limitations of large language models.”

Both experts suggested links may not play as big a role in SEO in the future and it was also suggested that technical SEO could become a more important factor, at least to begin with.

Other possibilities included the potential for AI to help with research, which could save time in content production, while customisation will need to be more precisely fine-tuned.

Other ideas for how AI will impact SEO were put forward by Tech Radar, which highlighted the pace at which such systems are developing. It declared: “The capabilities of AI systems are improving exponentially by the day. In a month, let alone a year, these algorithms will be vastly more sophisticated.”

That might make it sound very tricky for firms to keep up, but perhaps one can take heart from the fact that this is a challenge even for search engines: The article noted Google “has flip-flopped as to whether or not it would penalise AI-generated content.”

In such circumstances, it may be wise to avoid the likes of ChatGPT, at least for now. One reason is that the human touch is more likely to produce unique content rather than something more generic, which could give a skilled SEO content producer the edge.

ChatGPT may come with other issues too. A study at the University of East Anglia has indicated that it comes with an inbuilt left-leaning political bias. While that may suit some if their content is geared in this direction, it is unsuited to anything right-leaning or apolitical.

Moreover, it shows that, for now at least, AI is not independent of human ideology or opinion. The machine is not yet fully thinking for itself, which is why humans should continue writing. AI needs to be the servant, not the master.