How AI is Disrupting SEO and Digital Advertising

As digital marketers, we’re immersed in an area where artificial intelligence (AI) is the driving force behind digital advertising innovation. With its astonishing pace of growth, AI continues to revolutionize how brands engage with consumers, predict trends, and optimize campaigns.

While some may worry about AI ‘taking over the world,’ ignoring its existence and sticking with the old routines will leave companies in the dust. The marketing industry continues to evolve its approaches to incorporating AI and SEO, especially since the tool has shown a remarkable ability to enhance efficiency and performance.

How is AI used in SEO?

Imagine having a tireless assistant who can analyze mountains of data, identify keyword trends, and suggest content improvements — that’s the magic of AI in SEO. Here’s how this tech is transforming the SEO game.

• Keyword research on steroids. Gone are the days of pouring over endless keyword lists. AI tools can analyze search trends, identify long-tail keywords (more specific, niche keywords), and even predict user intent, ensuring your content targets the right audience with the right information.
• Laser-focused content optimization. AI analyzes existing high-performing content to understand what resonates with users. It can then suggest improvements to your content, like optimizing titles, headings, and meta descriptions for better search engine visibility.
• Uncovering content gaps. AI crawls your website and identifies topics your competitors are ranking for — but you’re not — helping you fill content gaps and reach a wider audience.
• Predictive analytics for smarter strategies. AI can analyze user behavior data and predict how your content will perform, allowing you to tailor your content strategy and optimize for future search engine algorithms.

Will AI take over SEO?

Not quite. While AI excels at automation and data analysis, SEO will always rely heavily on creativity and human expertise for:

• Understanding user intent. AI can identify keywords, but it can’t fully grasp the nuances of user intent. You still need your human touch to craft content that resonates with audiences, conveys empathy and understanding about their pain points, and answers their specific questions.
• Strategic content planning. Sure, AI can suggest topics — but you need to decide which topics align with your overall marketing goals and brand message. AI doesn’t live in your brain (thank goodness!), so it can’t make those intuitive leaps between two seemingly unconnected ideas. We humans, however, benefit from those “Aha!” moments that can lead to pretty amazing campaigns and content.
• High-quality content creation. AI simply cannot replace the power of well-written, engaging content. Our human expertise in storytelling, humor, and unique brand voice remains irreplaceable.

There’s no need to feel threatened by AI. It’s a tool to augment your SEO efforts, not replace your strategic thinking and creativity.

Is AI-generated content SEO-friendly?

The short answer? Yes. But here’s the caveat: AI excels in creating factual, informative content. It can churn out well-structured articles jam-packed with relevant keywords — a great boon for marketing departments tasked with writing regular basic blog posts or product descriptions.

However (and it’s a big one!), AI sometimes confuses its facts (often called “hallucinations”, and it doesn’t always follow the brief. Think of it as a really smart kindergartener you’ve asked to do a job. You can send said kindergartener off to do her thing, knowing you’ll double-check when she finishes her chore. Or you can supervise more closely. Maybe you hold the bag of dog food open while she scoops out the kibble (and then show her where the dustpan and brush live after she’s spilled half the bag — and teach her how to use those cleaning tools).

AI’s like that, too. “Setting it loose” to do its thing unsupervised can lead to unintended (and negative) results. We’ve all seen the articles decrying the law firm that used AI to write briefs, citing the law cases it invented.

AI also simply can’t keep up with creative storytelling, humor, or in-depth analysis that resonates with readers. Relying solely on AI to generate content without human input and editing won’t consistently produce high-quality, SEO-friendly material.

Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo constantly update their algorithms to detect and penalize low-quality or spammy content (including AI-generated content that lacks human oversight and editing). However, Google is simultaneously hard-launching (perhaps a little too soon) its own AI Overview in search results. Hopefully not too many folks put glue on their pizza or tried to eat rocks because AI suggested it.

Want a workaround? Use AI as an assistive tool, leveraging its research, ideation, and drafting capabilities. Employ it to create product descriptions or data-driven reports. Then, bring in human experts to review, edit, and refine the content to ensure quality, accuracy, and relevance.

How generative AI affects SEO

Generative AI (GenAI) can create entirely new content, such as text, audio, or images, and it significantly impacts SEO in several ways. First, if you’re struggling with topics, GenAI can help you brainstorm new content ideas based on the information you feed it about your target audience and industry trends. GenAI also shines by:

• Generating faster content creation. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and DALL-E have the potential to pump out content at breakneck speed. While automating content creation tasks and producing more content in a shorter time sounds wonderful, it could also make it more challenging for human-created content to stand out and rank well as search engines grapple with filtering out the low-quality AI-generated material.
• Going global and multimedia. GenAI speaks multiple languages and can create content in various formats, opening the doors for global content marketing and expansion into new frontiers in multimedia SEO. But remember, successful messaging needs quality and cultural relevance across languages and media types to resonate with your target audiences.
• Enabling real-time personalization. Imagine content that morphs and adapts to each user’s unique interests and search queries — that’s one benefit of using GenAI. This tool could revolutionize our approaches to keyword targeting and content optimization.

A word to the wise: as GenAI tools become more user-friendly and ubiquitous, the risk of bad actors churning out low-quality, duplicate, or even malicious content increases. This probability will create a real headache for search engines trying to filter out the junk. We must stay vigilant and develop strategies to ensure our high-quality, human-edited content provides genuine value and cuts through the AI-generated clutter.

How is AI used in digital advertising?

Which of the following is an example of AI use in digital advertising?

1. Dynamic ad creative optimization (DCO) based on user data.
2. Automated bidding and ad placement in programmatic platforms.
3. Chatbots programmed to answer questions and provide recommendations.

All of the above.

The correct answer is D! These strategies rely on AI technologies like machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and data analysis. AI can analyze mountains of user data, including demographics, interests, and online behavior, to inform hyper-targeted campaigns to reach the target audience most likely interested in a company’s product or service.

Bidding on ad placements is a complicated dance, but AI steps in as a strategic partner, analyzing campaign performance and user behavior in real time. Then, it automatically adjusts your bids for optimal performance and to maximize your ROI.

Want to personalize ad content based on a user’s browsing history, location, and time of day? AI can do that, too, to generate highly relevant, engaging ad experiences more likely to convert. Think of it as crafting ads that speak directly to each user’s needs (and wants), making them feel like you’re reading their mind (in a good way!).

AI improves chatbots’ ability to understand natural language, personalize recommendations with machine learning, maintain context in conversations, and analyze user sentiment. With AI, chatbots have more natural interactions, offer more appropriate suggestions, provide better customer service — and know when to escalate complex issues to a human agent.

AI won’t replace digital marketing

AI is revolutionizing digital marketing. It won’t steal your job as long as you’re willing to work with it rather than ignore it. The technology excels at number-crunching, task automation, and insight generation. The human touch remains irreplaceable in crafting strategy, building brands, and understanding human complexities. AI is also going to automate enough tasks that you can expect to be asked to embrace ways to drive efficiency.

Yes, digital marketing will keep getting smarter, and ongoing advancements in AI, particularly in NLP and sentiment analysis, will propel ad strategies beyond what we’ve seen so far. Stay future-proof by learning about emerging technologies and evolving ethical practices in AI. Position yourself to thrive in the digital marketing landscape by embracing the AI revolution. Want to chat with our team about where to lean into AI and where to get our help? Just reach out.