It’s a topic that worries many in the SEO industry right now. And with increasing discussions and panic in the media about how artificial intelligence will lead to job losses, it’s no wonder.
“Will AI replace SEO professionals?”
No, I don’t think it does. But there is palpable fear in the industry, and understandably so.
There are people who nervously consider lateral moves to more stable professions. But what is even a stable profession when AI seems to be encroaching on them?
Why is there so much anxiety in the SEO community right now? We’ve faced the “SEO is dead” trumpets before and lived to tell the tale. So why does it feel different this time?
Why generative AI feels threatened
AI isn’t just a threat from a “what if it goes rogue and takes over the world” perspective. Although I’m sure there are people losing sleep over it.
Generative AI is touted as a miracle tool that saves time and reduces labor. It can come up with strategies and automate processes. In addition, he has no labor rights.
The risk of AI eroding our careers is not entirely hypothetical.
Everyone will have seen ChatGPT used judiciously (if we’re lucky) in our workplaces to streamline once heavy administration tasks. Engineers are writing code with it. Data scientists are finding trends.
The worry is that it’s only a small step between streamlining processes and eliminating human intervention entirely.
Use of AI in SEO
I have no doubt that you have been trying to use AI within your workflows. It will have helped you write meta titles or allowed you to complete a complex Python script.
AI has an important place in SEO.
We should look for ways to speed up and automate our work whenever possible. This frees up the time we need to find more strategic growth opportunities.
Dig Deeper: 10 Ways to Leverage Generative AI for Advanced SEO
Limitations of AI in the workplace
At first glance, it seems that AI could solve many business problems. It can significantly reduce the workload of employees and in turn reduce the associated costs.
However, severe limitations still make it a tool rather than a replacement in search marketing.
Existing information only
One of the biggest limitations of generative AI in digital marketing is that it can only rely on information it already has access to. He can create, but only from existing ideas.
Marketing efforts must keep pace with changes in human behavior and appetite. Marketers are far more likely to understand the impact of trends on their marketing efforts than artificial intelligence.
Lack of experience
AI has phenomenal theoretical knowledge. You have instant access to documentation and can identify and use relevant information. He is intelligent.
However, one could argue that it does no wise
There is a difference between the usefulness of a graduate student who has just spent the last three years learning their specialization and a seasoned professional who has been dealing with the reality of a subject for a decade.
Do you remember when you started as an SEO?
You’ll likely read beginner’s guides, attend lectures, and practice interviews.
When it came down to it, however, your first attempt at auditing a website probably generated a lot of superfluous information.
Yes, you may have been technically right about everything you highlighted, but without the context of knowing how stakeholders think or how workloads are prioritized, it probably didn’t move the needle much.
As a beginner, you may not have realized which actions would have the most impact.
Dig Deeper: How to demonstrate EEAT in AI-generated content
Based on direct entries only
AI is only as good as the directions it is given. There still needs to be some human input for AI to generate something worthwhile.
As frustrating as meetings can be, this time to discuss ideas and plans with colleagues can be an invaluable source of guidance.
For example, a smile, eye roll, or enthusiastic nod can convey acceptance or disagreement with a strategy. A human could pick this up and adjust their communication style or plan completely.
Similarly, economic or legislative news can cause an SEO to reconsider their roadmap. Unless the AI had been instructed to change the plan, he wouldn’t know.
Contextual understanding
Another limiting aspect of AI is that it is not aware of the larger context into which its output is fed. While AI could be programmed to take data from multiple sources, it may never be enough to give it the full context of a situation that a human would.
For example, AI should have access to current news, economic conditions and brand sentiment to understand whether a PR story will land well and at the right time.
Dig Deeper: How to integrate generative AI into your SEO
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Why SEO needs humans
No matter how much AI can be used as part of an SEO’s workflow, it cannot completely replace a human.
Many aspects of our roles require us to compromise, prioritize and pivot in response to sometimes subtle input.
SEO strategy requires buy-in
For most SEOs, the most time-consuming part of our roles is not planning or implementing SEO initiatives, but getting buy-in.
An AI system can devise a solution to a technical SEO problem. Still, you won’t be able to get into the right conversations with the engineers to make sure it’s done right. It will be impossible to argue with the team leader why the ticket should be prioritized over others in the queue.
SEO has other priorities to consider
SEOs must learn to commit to implementing their solutions.
There may be other demands on resources within a company, meaning the technically correct SEO solution is not the most pragmatic.
It’s still unrealistic to expect AI to understand a company’s internal politics well enough to pick the battles to fight.
SEO solutions are unique to the website
SEO strategy is often created in an environment of unique constraints. Every website and every vertical you operate in will be different.
The AI will need to fully understand these factors in order to develop an effective strategy.
Each company will have unique internal challenges, such as a lack of a CMS or subject matter expertise. It will be difficult for the AI to understand how this might affect the viability of its recommendations.
Building leads requires an understanding of SEO
For AI to generate useful recommendations, it needs to be asked by someone who understands SEO.
For example, I recently had a discussion with an engineer who was trying to solve an indexing problem. The engineer had turned to ChatGPT for a solution before reaching the SEO team.
Unfortunately, no matter what they told ChatGPT about the problem they were trying to solve, ChatGPT kept giving the same advice, a solution I had to advise against.
Reading ChatGPT’s answer, I could see why he made these suggestions, but he didn’t know the nuances of the website we were working on, which made this solution untenable.
The engineer also didn’t understand enough details and couldn’t ask the AI to come up with a different solution. If the engineer had implemented the solution as provided by the AI, it would not have solved the problem.
Dig Deeper: Advanced AI Engineering Strategies for SEO
The value of SEO in an AI world
There are risks that not everyone shares the opinion that AI cannot completely replace an experienced SEO. Replacing human workers with AI is likely an attractive prospect for employers, with cost savings being the primary reason.
However, this is a false economy. As we saw earlier, it will still take someone within the company to know enough about how search engines work and how people search to be able to craft the directions.
We need to continue to talk about AI and its benefits to our SEO efforts, but we also need to be aware of its limitations.
These are important discussions to have with those responsible for the budget. Demonstrate how to effectively use AI for SEO to save time and money.
Use AI to free up time to focus on finding growth opportunities and sharing that with your stakeholders.
Dig Deeper: How AI will affect the future of search
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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