Is artificial intelligence a threat to SEO experts? is one of the most debated topics of the last period. Of course, with productive artificial intelligence, search engine results have started to show changes with internet user experiences, so what does this mean for professionals in the digital marketing world?
With the expansion of productive artificial intelligence and its inclusion in most SEO workflow processes, we are widely observing a panic-stricken state of following current developments in the technology sector. Will artificial intelligence take over all our jobs?
In January, Google laid off hundreds of workers after focusing its investments on developing artificial intelligence. Google is not alone in this matter, many brands have similar actions. So is this an everyday situation? or is it the beginning of a snowball effect, an avalanche?
I would also recommend that you take a look at Fikret Başkaya’s article titled “Will the “artificial intelligence” of robots carry you to heaven on earth?”, which I will occasionally reference on this subject. You can read it in the 209th issue of Kaldıraç Magazine in December 2018.
Trending SEO Studies with Artificial Intelligence
Before artificial intelligence became so widespread in our lives, we were generally doing our SEO work more manually and we might need to spend a good amount of time to complete some workflows. For example, even optimizing a service page could take several hours. If, like me, you have ADHD, spending that much time successfully in front of the screen without interruptions and maintaining focus can mean a tiring working day.
Creating a content strategy, observing the competition of the site, user search experiences, tracking rankings, all these flows, which are completed in a very practical way with artificial intelligence today, could also mean weekly overtime. Well, then, we can say that we have actually made progress in terms of efficiency with artificial intelligence in the current position. By the way, I would like to make a small note here that this article is not going to be completely hopeful, nor is it going to be as superficial as it has been so far. I am just making a soft introduction so that my ideas can be better understood.
Creating SEO Compatible Content with Artificial Intelligence
This place is actually somewhat important, on top of the discussions and inferences on this topic, I sometimes think that the purpose and functioning of SEO is not understood correctly by professionals. Unfortunately, SEO discussions in Turkey are full of shallow success stories that revolve around simple advantages and disadvantages rather than paving the way. I find very few people who are interested in the dialectical development of this profession, or who are involved in discussions at these points. Therefore, it is not among the areas that have developed sufficiently and has not yet found its worth. This is not our topic yet.
Artificial intelligence is nowadays very good at identifying content topics and even preparing content. However, it can also develop content for user search queries while adhering to EEAT principles, but without removing human oversight. With AI tools, SEO experts can easily identify the main backbone of a piece of content – subheadings, content summaries, links and points of emphasis – and create a good editorial statement. It is not yet possible to create a sentence structure that requires creativity or is more compatible with human language. Have you tried to produce content in a conversational or conversational tone with Artificial Intelligence? Or let’s think like this, you want to be an SEO expert, do you encounter more empathetic experiences when listening to advice from me, or through an AI? I’d like you to keep this example in mind, because I’ll be referring to it when I discuss the dialectic of user experience and SEO.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
What is Artificial Intelligence? I have already talked about the internal dynamics of the market that I think my colleagues do not understand, but I would like to talk about a subject that the society does not understand and does not act in accordance with their existing knowledge. What is artificial intelligence? Let’s quote Fikret Başkaya, “Robots are machines that can imitate some of the characteristics of humans.” In his introductory paragraph, he draws attention to the following point: In the age of capitalism, production develops in a competitive environment, each enterprise naturally has to use the most advanced production techniques, otherwise it cannot get a sufficient share of surplus-value and will be out of the race. These technologies are not produced so that people can work less, produce more easily and live comfortably.
In this way, of course, why robots take our jobs away from us, because they are a blessing in disguise. Of course, they can be excellent workers if they turn into cheap labor, devoid of every impulse such as fatigue and rest. So, can we automate everything in the SEO industry? I am not in favor of producing content on other sectors and making an expert personality. Let’s talk on behalf of Digital Marketing, does artificial intelligence work wonders? Of course, every technology development is an opportunity to show the extremes of human intelligence.
The future of SEO
With the increased use of artificial intelligence powering Google Productive Search experiences, SEO could potentially be more involved in the industry than ever before. First of all, we are in a rapidly digitalizing era, which industrial readings consider as the information age. We have now stepped into an era where every sector has to produce digital solutions. Search engines are using artificial intelligence more and more to improve their algorithms, and SEO experts need to adapt their strategies, of course. In a digital climate that predicts and follows trends and creates new optimization opportunities, those who read the process well will surely survive.
For example, the fact that SEO experts only use artificial intelligence to monitor and analyze the impact of algorithm updates, or use intermediary programs to shorten their working hours, is actually not another virtue other than the flow of the new era. While Google is evolving towards being able to better analyze the data processed on the web with AI, if the SEO industry prefers to be lazy by leaving the content to the robot’s pen in a plain expression, the efficiency we mentioned at the beginning of the article will not work correctly. Maybe we will touch on the point of “efficiency” again later, I would like to underline that I think that in today’s capitalist society, if what is efficient here is to consider the individual’s life as reducing the obligation to work, it will mean that digital marketing will not survive in the internal dynamics of the market. For this reason, I have shared Fikret Başkaya’s article as a reference. I recommend the article to all my colleagues, I have no doubt that when we develop our equipment only on industrial relations, we will come to the point where we will not be able to interpret consumer behavior correctly.
Human insights and consumer society
Despite advances in artificial intelligence, human insights are the key determinant of society. Understanding the needs of the target audience, engaging messages, marketing strategies built with strategic thinking are critical areas in SEO. Here we are essentially returning to my thesis that my colleagues do not understand the EEAT criteria correctly. The dialectical story of the emergence of SEO expertise as a profession takes place with the development of the internet and the creation of search engines and the subsequent transformation of these points where all consumer behaviors and searches reach these points into a large pool of potential customers. This is actually the basic human facts that Philip Kotler mentioned in Marketing 4.0, which we have not abandoned in the transition of traditional marketing principles to digital marketing.
Is the content on websites authentic content that attracts the target audience, persuades them, builds trust and provides information about the product? When you check it from the user’s point of view, can it accurately describe the service you provide? While doing all this, does it appeal to an organic user or does it only consist of your technical calculations, does it make meaningful integrated sentences consisting of keywords? Believe me, it is not important where you benefit from when creating an article, site content that passes these tests. However, while accessing this data, those who benefit from today’s technologies will achieve more “efficient” results. The important thing is to grasp the right blend and the needs of the period.
To summarize, if today you cannot imagine someone who is not computer literate, who lacks basic internet skills, or if you find it difficult for these people to play successful roles in society, artificial intelligence will enter the equation tomorrow. As long as industrial conditions do not change, the equation is the same, there is no need to dream utopian dreams. In the past, humanity used to live in caves, now we solve our housing needs with houses. The cave may not have had a marketing appeal and ownership, but now it does. You have to earn money for shelter, that’s the story of capitalist society.
Let’s learn to work with robots, we can keep up with current developments without losing touch with our daily lives. Remember that every work machine is an artificial intelligence, what we see today are work machines that mimic human thoughts through machine learning. At the point where the population that we call workers turns into people who process digital production tools at a desk, of course, modern-day work machines would also change shape. What did you think?