The future of blogging: How to most effectively use AI in SEO
Blogging has taken world by storm decades ago. With a "free" source of traffic for businesses and creators alike, it's a desirable investment to make for sure.
In 2022, large language models entered the game. AI has shifted from a toy to actually being useful in the SEO workflow of many experts meanwhile.
But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Relying too much on AI could make blogs feel similar and dull. Plus, if the AI gets it wrong, its your credibility thats on the line. So how does one most effectively use AI in SEO?
Mixing AI horse power with human experience and expertise is key for an effective SEO strategy. AI tools can reliably handle SEO subtasks for you, but the trick is to strike a good balance of what to let AI take care of and where human work is desirable.
The Evolution of AI in Blogging
The blogging game has changed a lot. Back in the day, 'one-click-whole-blogpost' AI tools promised a blogging revolution. You'd click a button, and poof, a new blog post appeared. I tried them as well. But there was a catch.
These early AI writers were more like toys - enthusiastic but messy. They'd churn out content, sure, even ranking some of the articles. But it was often riddled with errors, hallucination and lacked a human touch.
Not great for SEO professionals that know the difference and know what's needed to rank.
Over time, AI got smarter, but more importantly the tools got smarter as well. Now, it's less about replacing humans and more about teaming up. Some of the more sophisticated tools like Rank-Hub can accelerate many subtasks of the SEO process without losing any quality.
In that sense, it's really important to view AI as a sidekick, not the superhero.
What tasks are optimal for AI to handle?
Like mentioned earlier, the key to using AI in SEO lies in striking the balance between which subtasks to let AI handle and which ones you'll do yourself.
Here are some of the subtasks that AI can take care of so you get 10x more done in the same time without losing quality or control:
Topic Research / Keyword Research
Since keyword research has been possible pre-AI, I am not going to explain too much in detail here. AI can help recommend the right keywords to do the actual research on, but the rest is similar to pre-AI.
In Rank-Hub, you can enter a topic like real estate and get a bunch of related topics together with difficulty and volume.
This way you can quickly explore all the different talking points inside your topic / niche.
Planning topic clusters
Topic clustering is a concept in which you break up a topic into many subtopics and write articles for each in order to increase your topical authority.
Rank-Hub's topic clustering feature digs into Google's own data by scraping a bunch of information from different search queries' SERP and an uses AI to create articles for your topic cluster that Google actually wants you to write about.
Creating articles that have huge interlinking potential and deal with the same overarching topic allows you to plan your next tens of articles in a matter of minutes and is an invaluable game changer. Doing this research on your own and compiling it into useful data would often take hours or days.
But remember, AI is your sidekick. Rank-Hub presents you the best options, it's still your choice which of those to accept or even modify them to your needs.
Outline Drafting based on Currently Ranking Articles
A few SEO tools now allow you to create an outline of your article by looking at how currently ranking articles are sectioned.
Providing you with a draft that should be tweak to your individual needs demonstrates how AI and human expertise work together to rank faster without putting your credibility on the line.
Actual AI Writing
The above outlines can be copied into your favorite CMS / handed to a writer on your team.
Alternatively, you can let AI write the article as well. In contrast to many other AI writers, Rank-Hub's writing capabilities work in sections that have pre-filled instructions on what the AI thinks it should write.
As a human with expertise, you can easily modify these instrutions to get the perfect article. This is how it looks like:
Obviously I am biased, but the results of Rank-Hub AI outperform probably every other AI writer you'll find in terms of quality, even if the pricing is a bit higher than most. At the end though, I'd rather have a few really solid articles I want to put my name on than having a bunch of haphazardly written pieces.
Analyzing your Google Search Console Data
Google search console is a treasure trove of data right from the Google itself. Ignore it and you'll waste a bunch of easy opportunities to get more traffic and build authority.
We've built an integration that lets you connect your search console once and Rank-Hub will pull your data and create custom tasks based on that data every week.
This way you always know what to work on next and never miss a low-hanging-fruit opportunity to rank.
The first step to get started is picking the right AI tool. We've built Rank-Hub to be just the tool for you if you want to leverage AI while keeping 100% control and quality of the result.
There are other alternatives as well, if you care more about quantity than quality. In that case Rank-Hub might be too expensive and other options are more suitable.
How to stand out with AI generated content
There are some very effective ways that can make your articles pop. All of them rely on adding elements that AI couldn't:
Adding Personal Stories
Articles that contain personal stories of your experience with the topic at hand will do better due to EEAT. It'll also differentiate your content from other sites using AI to generate content at the same time.
This is my absolute favorite post-edit because it can be easily after the main content has been generated already.
Customizing Brand Voice
If your brand is not a robot, you should make sure it doesn't sound like one in your articles. AI tends to write really clinical and elegant in a way that almost sounds robotic.
Depending on what type of tool you are using, you can easily change this tone of voice (Rank-Hub has a default "informal, engaging" tone of voice perfect for articles).
Formatting and Structure
Although Rank-Hub does a really good job making the formatting of your article pop with subheadings, lists and tables, you can still do some editing on your own to make it stand out more.
One of the best examples is paragraph length. Many AI tools tend to write paragraphs more fit for research papers than web articles. Make sure you don't add too many sentences per paragraph for brevity and comprehensiveness.
Add Non-Public Data / Original Research
While being the most difficult way to make your article stand out, it's also the most effective one.
Adding original research to your article is something AI can't do and it's something that has a high probability of attracting backlinks without you needing to do outreach.
Here are two great resources on why that is an how you can do it as well, it's really effective but out of scope for this article:
- Using Research in Your Content and SEO Strategy
- Why Does Original Research Work So Well For Building Links?
Conclusion
Wrapping up, it's clear that AI is a game-changer in the blogging world. But remember, it's not a solo act. The magic happens when AI smarts and human hearts work together as part of a collaborative process.
Think of AI as your super-efficient blogging buddy, saving you time on different steps of the process so you can produce more of that in the same time.
Human touch is irreplaceable. It's your stories from experience and expertise as an expert that make your content resonate.
That's why tools like Rank-Hub are essential. They bring the best of both worlds, blending Google's data-driven insights with you as a human being to craft content that sings.
Ready to level up your blog game? Give Rank-Hub a whirl. It's free to try, no credit card needed. Dive into the data, let the AI do the heavy lifting, and infuse your genius to create posts that pop.