038: Will AI replace SEO

In this episode, Jules tackles a question often asked by business owners: Is AI killing off SEO? Jules dives into how SEO remains essential despite AI's rise and shares strategies for standing out in the evolving digital landscape.

Jules explains that while AI might impact the future of SEO, the fundamentals remain crucial. Search engines, whether AI-driven or traditional, still rely on well-structured, quality content that demonstrates expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Jules offers practical tips on creating content that remains relevant and stands out by incorporating personal insights, experiences, and opinions – something AI cannot replicate.

Key Takeaways:

• AI’s Impact on SEO: Learn why SEO is still essential, even as AI changes the way information is delivered.
• The Importance of Authority: Discover how backlinks, domain age, and structured content can boost your site’s authority and help search engines trust your website.
• Creating Unique Content: Jules highlights how to differentiate yourself from AI by creating content that shares your personal expertise, opinions, and experiences—elements AI can’t replicate.
• Emerging Trends: Explore how using tools like ChatGPT and Google Trends can help you identify hot topics and emerging trends in your industry.

If you want to future-proof your website and keep SEO alive, this episode is a must-listen!

Resources Mentioned:

• Download the Free Beginner's QuickStart Guide to SEO for essential tips on improving your website’s performance.
• Explore Episode 032: 032: Repurpose Your Content: How to Maximise Its Impact and Boost SEO.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for more insights into SEO, digital marketing, and optimising your website for long-term success!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to AI and SEO
• 1:17 The Role of SEO in the Age of AI
• 2:57 Building Authority and Trustworthiness
• 3:39 Creating Quality Content
• 4:24 Leveraging Personal Experience and Opinions
• 6:27 Exploring Emerging Trends in Your Industry
• 7:58 Creating Unique Content with Personal Spin
• 9:13 Standing Out Against AI with Personal Insights
• 11:03 Quality Over Quantity in Content Creation
• 11:54 Maximizing Existing Content with AI
• 12:26 Enjoying the Content Creation Process
• 12:52 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Transcript

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction to AI and SEO

Hi, So I thought I'd dive into a little topic this morning. I'm  a question that came up in a Facebook group that I'm in,  as to whether AI is killing off SEO and whether SEO will become irrelevant in the future because of AI.

And it's a topic that,  obviously for myself, somebody who helps businesses. With SEO, among other things, it's something that you're a bit like, okay, is that, is that true? And you know, you can kind of think about it. And I was, I actually was dreaming about this last night. I was thinking about it before I went to bed, ridiculously, as you do.

And I had a dream about it, about the fact that, well, even if  people are using AI to deliver answers, it still is critical that  whatever's reading the information on your website can understand it.

The Role of SEO in the Age of AI

And that's the foundation of SEO, is that the information on your website is set up in a way that  search engines, whether that is AI that's reading the info, or whether it is Google or any other search engine,  needs to be able to understand the information.

And it might be, we may get to a point where actually the AI will be generating that information itself. But there are ways that you can stand out and there are ways that you can protect yourself with the content that you're creating right now to protect yourself a bit more from what could happen in the future.

And who knows what could happen in the future? You know, there's so much. So much has changed even in the last 10, 15, 20 years that we can't even really dream what's gonna happen in the future to be honest with you, but we can kind of understand Okay, what are we doing that right now? Because we can't control that.

We can't control what's happening in the future And we can't control the tech that's out of our control. But what we can control is what we put out there right now and we can just do our best job to get our businesses out there right now.  So from a content creation point of view, I think it would just be that we would, we would change how we  think about what information we're creating.

So,  if you think about the job that someone, something, someone, something like Google has to do. So, Google's job is to go out there and crawl through all of the information on the internet and decide which piece is the best. the best result for that particular question. Imagine having that job trying to decide what is the best one out of everything out there, all of that information on the internet.

Building Authority and Trustworthiness

And that's why building up your authority on your site, your domain authority. So getting trusted links into your site from other, other places on the internet. So building up your backlinks and  setting up your website structure so that your pages link together and having your domain be a slightly older domain, newer domains are always going to have a lower domain authority than older ones.

Having those things helps Google to understand that you are An expert in that you're trustworthy. That would help with the sort of trust part of Google's. Google wants to know that your site is entertaining. you're an expert, you're authoritative, authoritative,  authoritative and trustworthy.  So how do you get that information?

Creating Quality Content

And that is to build up quality content on your site. And one of the things that you can do to help with that expert status is firstly making sure that you do have some. Content around the kind of pillars of what you do. So if you've never written a blog post You've never released a podcast making sure that you've got some episodes or you've got some blogs.

These are the foundations of why you're an expert on the topic so you could explore the topic of what you're doing. What your expertise is  having that in one of your cornerstone pieces of content. So, one of the main pieces of content of your website that then does link out to smaller articles, but the way that you can help yourself stand out against the AI algorithm.

Leveraging Personal Experience and Opinions

It is actually putting your own thoughts in there as well. So making it more of an opinion piece rather than fact based where  AI can generate that itself. It can, you know, if somebody asked the topic about how long does menopause last or something along those lines, you could have an article around that on your website, but  having your own experience or the experience of your clients  or your own opinions on.

that particular topic is the way that you can really stand out and particularly if that is if you've got a whole podcast episode talking about your own experience and you don't have to go into personal details if you don't want to but if you can build up your Authority around that that's something that I can't actually take away from you So it's something that  A robot can't form an opinion right now.

Even if it can generate the words to form an opinion, that's not what they're doing right now.  It's not what people resonate with as well. So I think that's where if you've got podcasts where you have guests on the show, that can be really helpful, but using the right sort of guests as well.   

So having people on where  It is more conversational or it's, or if you're trying to sell your own services or your own products, having guests on where it still shows you as the expert is really, really good to do.  So, I would definitely be thinking about that. Thinking about what topics are important in your industry.

Utilising AI for Content Ideas

And you can actually use AI to help you generate some ideas for this as well. So use chapter GPT or Google Gemini and ask what are the main topics I need to be talking about. To make me an authority in my industry and to help me stand out against AI. Cause you can ask Chat GPT. It's not like you're  trying to get spying on the inside.

You know, it will give you some answers on the ways that you can actually protect yourself from your content becoming obsolete because of AI.  So I definitely would recommend doing that. And also then dive into that a little bit further by asking What are some hot topics around?

Exploring Emerging Trends in Your Industry

My industry and especially what a hobbit, topics right now I can't, I need to put my teeth in today.

  What a hot topics right now around My industry and you can use Google Trends as well So you could go to Google Trends and have a look and see what topics are trending or use another search volume Tool Google Trends is quite good Just to see if there are emerging topics and even if there aren't even if you fit you're looking or if you're doing any keyword research And you're thinking actually no one's searching for this And you have that real strong feeling like this is going to be something people are going to be talking about.

Like with podcast SEO, there's not that much content out there around podcast SEO, but I know that it's something that is more of an emerging trend of people just trying to stand out in the podcast player apps. So that's why that's part of my To do list over the next few weeks to create some more content around podcast SEO.

So yeah, do that and have a look at what is, is emerging. But , even if there's nobody searching for it, if you've got that feeling that actually, I know I need to create some content around this, then  go for it, go for it, get it out there and be one of the first to put content out there.

Because that is helpful as well. If you can get, get be the only. Source of that topic and that so that's the only option for Google to if someone's someone asks a particular question and yours is the only option out there or you know one are very few, Then. That will then draw people into your site and that then helps to increase that page authority on that particular page.

So it's definitely worth doing that.

Creating Unique Content with Personal Spin

But when you're creating that content, think about how I can put my own personal spin on this? And again, you could use ChatGPT to help you, to help you not then write your personal spin, but to at least prompt you with questions. of how, what can I do to make this my own personal opinion?

And then what you could also do. So once you've created that article or created that podcast, so say you create a podcast around your particular topic and your experience on it or  10, Top myths about menopause or something along those lines something that you know There's probably a million articles out there of 10 top myths about menopause But something where you can find that gap in the market and find something where yet I can put my opinion on that what you could then do is create an inverse article around that so you could create the  Say if you were doing 10  Top myths around menopause, you could then create another article, which is then a slightly different spin on it, of ten top truths about menopause, or something along those lines.

It's worth thinking about it that way. So what can you do to put your own  personal thoughts and opinions and values into every piece of content that you're creating?

Standing Out Against AI with Personal Insights

The things that,  are likely to have a drop off , with AI sort of taking, taking over maybe a little bit from Google is going to be things where it's fact based, article, you know, those kind of things where, where somebody could, like, years ago,  we used to have to go to a weather app to find out what the weather was, or go to a, maybe a cooking app to, or not app, a website,  to find out what the temperature, , is between Fahrenheit and centigrade.

And now I just ask Alexa that. So those are the kind of things that I think actually, could this be answered in one simple question?  And if it can, how can I then, because there's nothing to say that you can't still have that information there on your website, especially if it's something that's an important thing for people to understand about your topic, because that helps you to increase your authority on it. But

think about how you can then add to that article to make it more personal as well.  Thinking about as well, like common  myths and common misconceptions, things that  everyone believes is true  about your topic, and you have a different opinion on that.   And obviously keep it to your real opinions.

You don't want to put stuff out there that's  controversial.  Just for the sake of it, because, well, you might want to, but, you know, I, most people don't want to do that. They want to keep it to things that  you do actually believe. So,  thinking about that, thinking about how you can bust myths and put a different spin on things.

And that is probably the main way that we can all stand out against AI.  I hope that's helpful. It's a topic that I really want to dive in deeper with. So I would love to know if you have any questions that come up after this.

Quality Over Quantity in Content Creation

One of the things I would say is just reiterating,  about not just churning out content for content's sake.

It's one of those things that there is this myth that you've got to just keep churning stuff out and you can use AI to just keep generating blog posts and just write them, just put them out there and it's the volume that matters.  And it really doesn't. I think from  a, um, from the point of view of wanting to be an authority and from the point of view of wanting to actually contribute something to the world that is going to be helpful for people and not just  increasing the noise, not just,  you know, releasing stuff for the sake of it.

Thinking about what is going to actually be helpful to your audience and putting what you do into that as well. So if you enjoy creating content, then  take pleasure in that and enjoy it and use that content as much as you can.

Maximising Existing Content with AI

So if you've got articles that you've already written, what can you do to go back and add your opinion to them, make them more?

relevant, update them, make the most of what's already there. It's always easier starting from when you've got something already rather than  creating  from a blank page. And you can put that into chat, GBT, and then ask the questions. Can I make this into an opinion piece, or can I make an opinion piece off the back of this blog post and see what happens?

It's definitely a great way to  kind of just rebel against the thing of just creating content for content's sake.

Enjoying the Content Creation Process

I think it should be something that we enjoy doing if we enjoy, if we enjoy creating content.  A lot of people don't enjoy creating content. But also think about if you are creating content, what, how do you enjoy creating content?

So do you, do you enjoy writing articles? Do you enjoy recording audio? Do you enjoy recording videos? How can you  do the bit that you enjoy and then use AI to help you to make the most of it and to, you know, repurpose it as much as you can really.

So I hope that's helpful. and I will see you soon.

Bye.