In today’s digital world, search engine optimization (SEO) plays a crucial role in the success of websites. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and its ability to generate text, the question arises as to whether and how this technology should be used in SEO.
Does it make sense to use AI-generated texts or can they harm your website’s visibility? Does Google penalize AI content?
We’ll explore the pros and cons of using AI copywriting for SEO purposes and give you practical tips on how to get the best of both worlds.
You will learn how Google reacts to AI content, what the risks are and how you can use AI tools effectively and safely.
Stay tuned, because by the end of this article you’ll know if and how you should use AI copywriting for your SEO strategy – or if you’re putting your rankings at risk.
Advantages of AI-generated texts
One of the biggest advantages of AI-generated texts is the enormous time and cost savings. While human copywriters need hours or even days to create high-quality content, an AI can generate comprehensive texts within minutes.
This means that enormous time and cost savings are possible when creating content. This is particularly advantageous for companies with a limited budget or tight deadlines.
Scalability and efficiency
With AI, you can take content production to a whole new level. The technology enables you to create large volumes of text quickly and efficiently.
Whether it’s hundreds of product descriptions, blog posts or social media posts, AI text generators can handle these tasks with ease. This scalability and efficiency is essential for growing companies that constantly need fresh content.
A little programming skill and you can have hundreds or even thousands of texts created automatically via the OpenAI API.
Wow – creating endless content on autopilot and building hundreds of websites at the same time. A wet SEO dream. But in this form it always ends in a penalty sooner or later. I’ve tried it extensively, believe me.
Risks and challenges
LLMs are not yet mature enough. Although they can easily generate huge amounts of text, there are still major problems.
Quality and originality
Although AI-generated texts offer many advantages, there are also considerable risks. One of the biggest problems is the lack of quality and originality of the content.
AI models are based on existing data and tend to generate texts that may appear similar or even plagiarized.
This can not only damage your brand, but also have legal consequences. In addition, AI-generated texts often lack depth and creativity, which can have a negative impact on readers and customers.
Google’s quality standards (E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
Google attaches great importance to high-quality content and has established strict quality standards, which are known by the acronym E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
Logically, AI-generated texts have a hard time meeting these standards. While they can be informative, they often lack the human touch that gives them credibility and authority. Moreover, they often lack depth.
The result is usually superficial blah-blah, without concrete tips, without empirical values and sometimes with a questionable basis of information.
But does this mean that Google generally classifies AI-generated content as bad? So should we ban ChatGPT from the content process? Absolutely not!
Let’s take a look at what Google says about AI content.
Google’s stance on AI content
Google has defined clear guidelines for the use of AI-generated content. The company emphasizes that the quality and relevance of the content always have top priority.
AI content is not bad per se, but it must meet the same high standards as texts written by humans. Quote:
Our focus is on the quality of content and not on how it is produced.
Google therefore attaches importance to “helpful content”, i.e. content that offers the user real added value. Regardless of whether it was created automatically or written by hand. However, they also clearly emphasize the limits of use:
Automation – including AI – to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policy.
Well, in the end we always want to improve our performance in the search results, don’t we? But I think that’s now a question of wording.
The core message is probably: great content will be rewarded, spongy, superficial content will hurt you.
The source of the content doesn’t matter. In the long term, it is certainly not impossible that LLMs will have become so good that it will not be possible to tell the difference to a human copywriter anyway.
March 2024 Core Algorithm Update and its effects
The core algorithm update introduced in March 2024 has further tightened the evaluation of AI-generated content. Google has adapted the algorithm so that it can better recognize whether content was generated by an AI and whether it meets the quality guidelines.
Personally, I believe that this is more likely to be based on other factors. I think Google will consider user signals as well as unusual publishing rhythms and amounts of content.
There is currently no “AI text recognizer” that works reliably.
Either way, websites that rely too heavily on unedited AI texts risk being downgraded in the search results. The update places greater emphasis on the originality and depth of content.
Websites that offer high-quality, peer-reviewed AI content, on the other hand, can continue to rank well. These adjustments are aimed at improving the user experience and ensuring that the best, most informative and trustworthy content is displayed.
So how should we use AI for copywriting?
The key lies in the combination of AI and human expertise. The best approach when using AI text generators is to combine the strengths of AI with human expertise.
AI can provide an excellent starting point by delivering fast and comprehensive drafts. However, these drafts should always be reviewed and refined by a human editor.
The human factor brings creativity, nuance and (new) expertise that an AI alone cannot deliver. This way you can ensure that your content is both high quality and unique and meets Google’s high standards.
Creation of outlines and checklists
LLMs are particularly good at this: creating outlines and checklists.
If you want to write a post on a topic, you can use ChatGPT to create a good outline within seconds. Add a few ideas of your own and your outline is ready!
Formulate key points and lists
If you already know what you want to write in terms of content, you can also simply provide the language models with individual key points and leave it to them to formulate them.
This is one of the best ways to use AI for your SEO texts.
A good briefing is always important here.
Briefings to the AI should include clear instructions, such as target audience, tonality, keywords and important points to cover. In addition, checklists are helpful to ensure that all relevant aspects are considered and quality standards are met.
Well thought-out preparation makes the AI’s work easier and makes the difference like night and day when it comes to the quality of the result.
Quality assurance and revision
Even if the AI delivers a good first draft, quality assurance is an essential step. Revise the texts thoroughly to correct errors, check facts and fine-tune the content for style and coherence.
Make sure that the texts are original and comply with Google’s E-A-T guidelines. Use experts to check the text for accuracy and depth. In addition, regular audits of published content can help to ensure consistently high quality standards.
Conclusion
Using AI-generated copy for SEO can offer many benefits, including significant time and cost savings as well as unprecedented scalability.
However, it also harbors risks such as a lack of quality and originality of the content. Google’s strict quality standards, in particular the E-A-T principle, must always be adhered to in order to avoid devaluations in the search results.
Google has made it clear that AI content will not be rejected per se as long as it is of high quality and useful. The March 2024 Core Algorithm Update has further tightened these requirements, making a careful combination of AI and human expertise even more important.
By applying best practices – such as creating detailed briefings, regular quality assurance and expert review – you can make the most of AI’s potential without jeopardizing your SEO rankings.
AI should be seen as a tool that, in the hands of an experienced editor, contributes to the creation of excellent content. This way you can ensure that your website remains attractive to both your readers and search engines.