Table of Contents
What is Artificial Intelligence in SEO?
While most of us are familiar with the term, Artificial Intelligence, (AI) not many of us really know how AI works differently in various fields. In the domain of search engines, AI has all but re-written the rules. Because of AI, users receive custom search results based on their past queries, location, type of device used, and other data points. The ability to customize search results is due in large part to AI.
How Does AI Work in Search?
Search engines services today are far too complex for a human-supervised machine to cope with. Every search engine on the web is AI-powered in this day and age. There are far too many searches happening simultaneously across the world to keep up without AI.
AI and its subset of machine learning (ML) involve teaching machines to learn. Scientists give the machines data and then the machines, after time, are able to process the data on their own by abiding by the rules set out by the scientists. This means that AI is used to understand queries and user intent plus filter and rank content, giving users results that help them with their queries.
One of the main ways that search engines use AI is to rank web pages and other content in search results pages. Pages are ranked by a process that gives the machines rules that prioritize different factors in determining how a search result page will function.
One of the ways that Google is able to understand what users are seeking in their queries is through a technology called Natural Language Processing or NLP. And even more recently Google is using a language model called BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) that enables its search engines to understand complete sentences. Therefore, BERT can understand more of the context of a search and how words relate to each other.
Customizable Search Engine Optimization
AI amalgamates data from search engines to create customized search results based on a variety of factors. For example, if through a geographic location, a search engine knows that you’re in Houston, Texas, and you’re searching for BBQ restaurants, it will offer suggestions for BBQ restaurants within a certain mile radius of your given location. This is just one example of how AI shows up in search queries. If you’ve searched BBQ in the past, based on the results you clicked into, AI can help the search engine further refine results based on these past searches to narrow down the results.
In another example, Google may know, through your past searches for airline tickets, that you’re interested in a holiday in Europe this summer. Based on this information, when you google France, Google will likely know that you want to go to France, vs thinking maybe you’re doing a history report on France. It will populate the search results with information about travel in France, where to stay— hotels in Paris. All this is thanks to AI.
Not only is AI able to customize search results, but it is also effective in meeting user intent as visible in increases in sales. 30% of AI adopters cited a 6-10% increase in revenue after implementing the technology.
AI is helping search engines to ‘understand’ how to cater to user intent.
How Can AI Boost Your SEO Rankings?
The rise of AI is giving digital marketers the ability to work with accuracy and speed. This involves understanding keywords that users will employ to search for products or services in your area of expertise.
With AI to help organize keyword research and automate workflow, personalized content that satisfies the user intent is more and more accessible. This can result in increased traffic and site growth.
And when it comes to content creation, it is no longer just about creating poor quality content that is full of keywords and therefore ranks. It’s about creating content that users will find helpful. AI can expedite the process.
3 Ways AI Improves Content for SEO
AI can help with content creation that is not only generated more quickly, but also more accurately through personalization. As an example of the widespread use of AI in content creation, major news outlets use robot reporters to help expedite stories and generate content. The following are a few ways to use AI to improve content that fulfills user intent and ranks well in SEO.
1.Natural Language Generation: AI isn’t ready to write long-form articles just yet; but it can be leveraged to write shorter form content such as tweets or social media posts using natural language generation technology. NLG works by using algorithms to translate data into human language. NLG is able to automatically generate a narrative to describe data sets incredibly quickly. As an example, NLG is a terrific means of writing short descriptions for products.
2.Personalized Content: AI can quickly help generate personalized content including email campaigns that not only leverage the users’ name, but can adjust the content of the newsletter to the reader. AI can also control the subject line and body copy, making a mass email more personalized. This has been proven to increase engagement.
3.Keyword Research and Metrics: AI tools can help your keyword research and topic creation for content such as blogs. AI can comb through keyword searches showing volume, results, competition, demand, and more metrics. Using these tools will enable businesses to understand which keywords will be most effective for generating traffic and give feedback as to what their readers are actually interested in. With these insights, they can create more accurate and better content.
If you’re curious about how AI might help your SEO processes, Pixel506 can help get you started on the path to better SEO through the push of technology.
About Pixel506
If you're looking for a nearshore SEO partner with AI experience, user experience software development service, or a technical staff augmentation service, Pixel506 can help. We are located in Costa Rica but also have Pixelians (team members) based in Peru, Nicaragua, and Colombia. We help businesses gain a competitive advantage and exceed business goals through software development, design, user experience strategies, data, and innovative solutions. Founded in 2009, we have over a decade of experience helping big, medium, and small companies succeed in the digital world. Contact us today to see how we can help―we look forward to getting to know you and your business over a digital cup of coffee.
Key Takeaways:
- AI is used to provide data regarding queries and user intent, enabling it to filter and rank content.
- AI allows search engines, which have access to certain data, to customize search results based on quick analysis of data.
- With AI to help analyze keyword research and automate workflow, the ability to create personalized content that satisfies the user intent is more and more accessible.
- There are many ways that AI can help with content creation that is not only generated more quickly, but that can also be personalized.
If you’re curious about how AI might help your SEO processes, Pixel506 can help get you started on the path to better SEO through the push of technology.