Artificial intelligence has captivated us for years and years now, but since the past year, AI content production has taken the world by storm. These programs such as ChatGPT and Gemini (formerly known as Bard) have a great hold on marketing! A good portion of people are embracing this technology wholeheartedly for its benefits, and are taking advantage of the ability they are now given to churn out content way faster than a normal content writer would.
But, as with any new technology, we’re all begging the question, “Will it have any negative effects?” In the marketing industry, it’s best to take a closer look at how AI-generated content affects your website’s SEO health.
Here’s a quick run through of what your SEO means:
SEO stands for “search engine optimisation” and it is used to increase a website’s visibility among search engine rankings. The goal is to increase organic traffic to these websites and bring in more potential customers by optimising various elements such as certain keywords, meta tags, keywords and backlinks.
AI is extremely beneficial for writing marketing content. Whether it’s blogs, webpage content or meta descriptions, AI can speed up the writing process and produce ideas for inspiration or give you a fantastic headstart. It can enhance your writing quality and clean it up and you can optimise it for SEO, by including keywords! Sounds perfect, right?
Not really…there’s more to the equation.
Recently, Google has released a core algorithm update that states that any content of low quality or unoriginality will be penalised, resulting in a lower ranking on the search engine. So, while AI is an amazing and beneficial tool to have under your belt, here are some of the pitfalls that you’re going to need to watch out for:
- Unoriginal content: AI has its limitations and one of them is that it often creates duplicate and unoriginal content. If everyone is using the same program, there’s bound to be repeats, right? AI is different from our brains. AI pulls from a database and therefore, it will often repeat itself. Unoriginality can be detected by Google and can negatively affect your ranking as Google flags your content as AI.
- AI to detect AI: Google uses AI to crawl through the content which is way more advanced than the AI we use. It can easily detect if the content is AI-generated. Did you know Google uses AI to detect AI? Yes, Google uses AI to crawl through your content to detect whether it has been AI-generated or not! The AI they use is much superior compared to the ones released for general public to use.
- Quality surpasses quantity: You’ve most definitely heard of the saying, “quality over quantity,” right? This is crucial with AI-generated content. Google is looking for original content that actually brings value to their users. It’s important to heavily edit your content so the inspiration comes from AI but the originality comes from you. The quality of your content is key for SEO ranking.
- Misleading information: Since AI’s output relies on human input, it is constantly at risk of generating incorrect information. This can have a dire effect, especially in healthcare, where content is governed by guidelines such as AHPRA. Violating these
means putting your business or practice at serious risk so it’s crucial that you read over your content and double-check information.
- Engagement: Good, high-converting content needs to be speaking to the readers directly. A passive voice doesn’t do the trick. Typical AI-based content is usually either too stiff, in corporate style writing or is too casual for a professional business. It’s important to understand where the line is and write content that is genuine, with an active voice and is directly engaging with the reader. That’s how you drive people to your website and keep them there. By enjoying the content.
While AI can be a great tool, we cannot afford to take it as an end in itself when it comes to SEO for our clients. A good car is not sufficient to win the race, it also requires an equally proficient driver behind the wheel.
For more information on medical SEO and getting the most out of your content, get in touch with us.
