What was once a sci-fi concept is now everywhere. Most of us use artificial intelligence, AI, in our daily lives. You might encounter it in the form of a chatbot on websites, your Alexa device, or innovative features in your Tesla. And of course, you’ve probably used ChatGPT or similar generative AI content tools.
As ChatGPT and similar tools make it easier than ever to produce an entire piece of content without writing any of it yourself, businesses must consider an important question: is AI content bad for SEO? Or can you let ChatGPT do the heavy lifting of your marketing content?
At GreenHaven Interactive, SEO is what we do. We stay ahead of the latest trends and advancements to continuously offer our clients the best marketing services, and that includes AI. Let’s explore AI content and its possibilities for your marketing.
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Using AI to Create Content
Effective marketing and SEO requires content. Almost every page on your website needs written content. Beyond that, blogging and social media posts boost your SEO and help you connect with your audience. However, consistent blogging and content creation takes time, not to mention writing skills.
That makes generative AI like ChatGPT an attractive option for busy organizations, especially if they don’t have a dedicated writer or marketing specialist. With a simple prompt, ChatGPT can write your entire blog post, web page, social media post, or email. You can name the length, key points, and style, and ChatGPT does the rest. A blog post that might take you two hours to write suddenly comes together in two minutes. But will that fast, easy content harm your SEO?
Does Google Penalize AI Content?
The good news is, no, Google does not penalize AI content. Google has made it clear they don’t currently evaluate content by whether it’s AI-generated.
That doesn’t mean you can have ChatGPT do all the work without consequences, though. AI content may not be inherently penalized, but some of the common tendencies of generative AI might be.
E-E-A-T and AI Content
The important thing to keep in mind is Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, which stand for Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Google evaluates sites by this criteria. It boosts sites that show expertise and authority and penalizes those that don’t.
That means AI content is only effective if it can pass the E-E-A-T standard. One downfall of AI-generated content is that sometimes, AI tools hallucinate incorrect information. If made-up “facts” find their way into your content from AI, that’s a mark against your site’s trustworthiness. ChatGPT is also prone to producing unoriginal content that lacks human emotion, which also compromises E-E-A-T.
Pros and Cons of AI Content
AI content doesn’t automatically help or harm SEO; it all depends on how you use it. The trick is to use it in such a way that takes advantage of its strengths and avoids its weaknesses.
Pros
The obvious benefit of using generative AI for content is that it’s fast and convenient. It can save you significant time. If no one on your team is particularly good at writing, it can also improve the quality of your content. The simplicity and speed of AI content can be the difference between consistent content marketing and simply being unable to fit it into your organization’s workload.
Cons
As AI content becomes more common, it also becomes easier to recognize. Google won’t penalize your AI content, but your customers might. Many readers won’t stay on a page that sounds like it was written by an AI bot.
Aside from simply sounding artificial, AI content can have specific issues. As we discussed earlier, it’s not always accurate. One of the most important aspects of quality content that will boost SEO is for it to be helpful and relevant, and AI may not be up to the task of creating original, useful content.
How to Use AI Effectively for Content
AI can be advantageous for almost any business’s marketing efforts. It can help you write an entire piece of content from scratch, or it can help you with the prep work like finding keywords and building an outline.
When using AI to create content, your best bet is to carefully review and edit it. Make sure all the facts, numbers, and sources it gives are accurate. Try to personalize it and apply your organization’s unique voice. Find AI content’s common patterns and phrases and consider revising those areas so it’s less noticeably artificial. Overall, make sure the content demonstrates Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness.
Learn More About AI and Content Creation at GreenHaven Interactive
Even with AI, content marketing takes time and know-how for it to be effective. GreenHaven Interactive can help your business shine with personalized content marketing, from blogs and social media to website content. If you don’t have time to create optimal content or aren’t seeing the results you’d like, we can help. Find your digital marketing solution today!
