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Any digital marketing strategy must include search engine optimisation (SEO) to make sure your content matches user search intent.

67% of companies already use AI for SEO and content marketing, according to a SemRush survey, and 78% of them are happy with the outcomes.

Time-consuming activities like keyword research, content production, and website optimisation are frequently a part of SEO. Thankfully, these procedures may be streamlined with AI-powered solutions, increasing their efficacy and efficiency.

Specifically, AI tools can assist you:

1. Develop your keyword strategy
2. Improve your content for on-page SEO
3. Improve your website for technical SEO
4. Find backlinks for off-page SEO
5. Fine-tune location details for local SEO

Before diving into the details, let’s first explore why SEO is a vital part of your marketing strategy and how AI is shaping its evolution.

What is SEO and why is it important?

The process of increasing website traffic through free, natural search results on sites like Google and Bing is known as search engine optimisation, or SEO.

Enhancing your website’s rating in search engine results pages (SERPs) is the aim of SEO since higher rankings translate into more visibility. The first organic search result has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 27.6%, whereas the second place has a much lower CTR of 15.8%, according to Backlinko.

Because of this, brands place a high premium on ranking, highlighting the necessity of incorporating SEO into digital marketing strategy and content preparation.

Pro Tip: Search engines are only one aspect of SEO; sites like Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok are also being used more and more. You can increase your reach by making your content more suitable for these sites.

“Google partnered with Reddit to access its database API and enhance search results,” stated Luke O’Leary, VP of Media Strategy & Operations at Neil Patel Digital, EMEA, in a DMI podcast. Google saw the benefit of immediately integrating this data as users were already adding “Reddit” to their searches in order to locate authentic, objective evaluations.

What is the impact of AI on SEO?

AI is fundamentally changing SEO, which presents marketers with both opportunities and challenges.

By 2030, the worldwide SEO market is expected to have grown from its 2022 valuation of $68.1 billion to $129.6 billion. These projections, however, might not have taken into consideration the emergence of generative AI, which could upend the market or perhaps render some conventional SEO strategies outdated.

According to Gartner, typical search traffic will drop by 25% by 2026. In our 2025 trends webinar, Luke O’Leary stated, “User behaviour is changing, with more people using alternative platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for searches instead of relying solely on Google.”

Search intent is becoming more and more important to search engines in order to provide users with the most pertinent results. Google’s AI Overviews is a great illustration of this. With this function, Google currently integrates generative AI into more than 20% of its search results.

SeoClarity’s research indicates that AI Overviews show up in 1.2% of transactional searches but over 96% of informational searches. This implies that blogs and other websites with informative content need to modify their SEO tactics to match AI-driven search results.

To further change how marketers approach content exposure, a search for “stats on social media” may now result in an AI Overview that summarises important data right within Google’s search results.

Google has added sponsored results to AI Overviews as part of its AI capabilities expansion. For example, Google showed how a search for “how do I get a grass stain out of jeans?” may result in an advertisement for stain removers next to AI-generated responses in its AI Overviews Ads announcement.

The following are the main ways AI is changing SEO:

✅ Algorithms Powered by AI
By employing machine learning to decipher user intent, AI-driven algorithms such as Google’s RankBrain improve search result accuracy and personalisation. Content needs to be conversational, user-focused, and extremely relevant in order to rank well.

✅ Content Development and Enhancement
Businesses can produce content more quickly thanks to AI solutions like ChatGPT, Claude, and Jasper. However, to guarantee originality, relevance, and correctness, human inspection is essential. The emphasis is still on quality even if Google has said that AI-generated content won’t have a direct effect on rankings. To optimise ranking potential, marketers should adhere to the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) criteria.

✅ Keyword Approach
Although AI values context and intent more than exact-match terms, keywords are still crucial. Brands should incorporate keywords into useful, educational content that meets user demands rather than depending just on them.

Marketers need to modify their tactics to conform to these changing search dynamics as AI continues to influence SEO.

How can you use AI for SEO?

SEO is still essential to any successful marketing plan, even with the changing environment and obstacles.

Understanding and putting into practice the appropriate SEO tactics is crucial to maximising its impact. According to Neil Patel Digital research, 52% of consumers become less interested when they assume content was created by artificial intelligence, and 50% of consumers can recognise AI-generated content.

This emphasises how crucial it is to keep your content strategy authentic and high-quality while making sure AI is used as a tool to improve rather than replace it.

1. Develop your keyword strategy

Keyword research is more than just manual brainstorming and conventional methods. Deeper insights into search intent, new topics, and content gaps on your website can all be found with AI.

You may improve content optimisation and your SEO strategy by utilising AI-powered technologies.

AI, for example, can assist in identifying high-impact keywords and forecasting trends, guaranteeing that the correct people see your material. While well-known SEO services like Ahrefs use AI to evaluate search intent, tools like ChatGPT use massive data analysis to recommend appropriate terms. This helps you customise content by enabling you to ascertain whether customers are trying to buy anything or obtain information.

Search engines favor well-structured content because it enhances user experience, making it easier for readers to follow the narrative flow.

AI-powered tools can suggest optimal content structures based on SERP analysis, increasing the likelihood of ranking higher in search results.

AI also improves on-page SEO by enhancing writing quality, assisting with content creation, and naturally integrating keywords. For example, tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can analyze drafts, suggest improvements, and correct grammar and spelling errors.

You can also leverage AI early in the content creation process by generating outlines, structuring content, and crafting titles and headings based on your content goals, target audience, and SEO best practices. Be sure to incorporate keywords naturally—avoiding obvious keyword stuffing—by prioritizing key terms and refining AI-generated content accordingly.

Expert insight: “Intellectual property (IP) data makes your content stand out. Analyze customer behavior, Google Trends, and sales data to generate insights. Turn this into thought leadership or data-driven content to add real value,” says Luke O’Leary.

Pro Tip: Always refine AI-generated content with follow-up instructions to ensure accuracy, relevance, and alignment with SEO best practices.

3. Improve your website for technical SEO

Technical SEO, which concentrates on making your website as user-friendly as possible, is an essential component of SEO. AI has the potential to be very important in this process.

For example, you can use an AI tool to analyse the SEO effectiveness of your website by giving it data, like traffic reports from an Excel spreadsheet. It can provide new information, identify problem areas, and recommend fixes.

AI can also assist in detecting declines in traffic and identifying possible reasons, such as changes to the Google algorithm or problems with the site that are affecting performance.

AI-powered solutions can also expedite large-scale website upgrades. For instance, AI can provide alt text for photos on a large scale if your website requires improved technical SEO. This procedure can be effectively automated with the use of tools like Screaming Frog’s AI features.

4. Find backlinks for off-page SEO

SEO includes off-page SEO tactics that establish authority and credibility in addition to website optimisation.

Getting quality backlinks from reliable websites is a crucial step in enhancing off-page SEO. These links help you rank higher by telling search engines that your material is reliable and valuable.

When coming up with link-building methods, AI technologies such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and others can be quite helpful. There are countless options!

To improve the visibility of your website, you could, for example, ask AI to find well-liked and pertinent podcasts where you could provide sponsorships or guest appearances. Use more focused follow-up prompts to narrow down your search if the results seem too general to receive recommendations that are specifically catered to you.

After you’ve created a list of possible podcasts, you can investigate further connection options to advance your backlink strategy.

Industry blogs, influencers, online publications, and news sources that fit your speciality and can be useful for outreach can be found with the aid of AI tools like ChatGPT. These relationships can help you build credibility and reach a wider audience.

Expert advice: Take into account utilising Linkee, an AI-driven application that compiles a list of backlink prospects prepared for outreach. In order to guarantee high-quality connections, manual verification is also possible. To further improve your SEO approach, you can also use tools like InLinks to fortify the internal linking structure of your website.

5. Fine-tune location details for local SEO

By creating optimised descriptions, managing customer feedback, and evaluating performance data to provide practical suggestions, AI may greatly improve your local SEO. Your company may increase its local search exposure by utilising AI techniques, making sure that your well-written content and effective review management make you stand out.

To assist businesses come up with an engaging and pertinent description for their Google Business Profile, Semrush provides a free AI-powered Google Business Profile Description Generator. This increases traffic from local search results, especially map queries, and makes your profile more relevant on Google.

A Google search for “Italian restaurants in central New York,” for instance, would return optimised, AI-enhanced listings that might improve the local visibility of your company.

Pro tip: Falcon AI provides accurate, data-driven local SEO strategies. With its insights, businesses can refine their approach to boost visibility and engagement in local searches.

By incorporating AI tools at every stage of your SEO strategy, you can ensure your content reaches the right audience and maximizes its impact.

What are the best AI-powered SEO tools?

These are a few of the best AI-powered SEO tools:

Strategy for keywords

• Clearscope
• MarketMuse
• Ahrefs
• Moz
• SurferSEO
• Semrush

Creation and optimisation of content

• ChatGPT
• Jasper
• Perplexity
• Google’s Notebook LM
• Yoast’s SEO Content Assistant
• TextOptimizer
• Frase
• SurferSEO

Technical search engine optimisation

• Screaming Frog
• Ahrefs
• SemRush
• Google search console

Local search engine optimisation

• Ahrefs
• Semrush
• Moz Local
• Falcon
• Whitespark
• BrightLocal

Understanding how AI can affect your efforts is essential if SEO is a major tactic for getting your content seen and raising your company’s rating. It’s worthwhile to try out some of these products because AI can help improve your SEO strategies.

Unquestionably, AI is influencing SEO going forward and changing how consumers look for and find content online.

Nonetheless, by using these five tactics, you may better target, draw in, and interact with your target audience by utilising AI to enhance and optimise your SEO efforts.

With the correct AI tools, you can improve your local SEO, uncover important backlinks, improve technical SEO, refine your keyword strategy, and produce SEO-friendly content.

Leverage AI to maximize campaign performance

AI has evolved beyond ChatGPT. Understanding AI-driven digital tactics is essential for marketers that want to accomplish more with less time and effort. You will learn how to use this technology to maximise your marketing efforts in our Advanced AI for Digital Marketing course. Discover how to utilise specialised technologies across channels including SEO, social media, and PPC, as well as how to employ AI for research and content creation. Additionally, you will learn how to use AI to optimise your digital strategy, increase planning, and boost productivity across the customer journey. Are you prepared to improve your abilities? Get started now!