The future of SEO is always a mystery, and those who try and predict how it’ll change are certain to be proved wrong.
Regardless, I’m going to stick my neck out, and hope I’m wrong in my predictions.
AI Generated content is going to be the biggest trend in SEO
Unfortunately, I think the biggest trend in SEO is going to be AI generated content for get-rich-quick, lazy organisations. With the use of generative AI from the likes of ChatGPT, all we are going to see is a slow death spiral into awful repetitive content. Something knowledgeable SEO’s should be shivering at, after Google launched their “helpful content update” in mid-2022.
If you don’t know how ChatGTP works, here’s a simple explanation.
The software has scoured the internet and scraped the content from websites. So, when you ask it a question, it looks at this database of content and using very clever tech, spits out some text intended to look like a human wrote it, in seconds.
The problem is, it fails to do this a good portion of the time. Our SEO and Copywriting specialist has been provided AI generated copy by clients, to use as a basis of knowledge when crafting optimised website copy, and we can confirm, it’s full of faults, issues, and in many cases is near unreadable.
The other problem, and it’s a biggie, is that though this text looks new to you, it’s not.
It’s what was once called Spun Content. That’s where you take several original texts on a subject and cut, copy and edit into copy that looks new.
Content generated is also unverified and can be wildly inaccurate. Even ChatGPT adds a disclaimer.
And yet, people who see the cost of everything and the value of nothing will use the copy straight from the screen, with zero checks or edits.
In turn, this will fill the internet with more rubbish content for ChatGPT to scrape again and add to its database, which becomes less reliable and valuable by each scrape.
SEO & Optimised Copywriting
This rush to the bottom creates an opportunity for businesses who are investing in SEO from real writers who optimise sites and make them informative and entertaining to read. Writers and content creators who can speak with authority and with a unique brand voice will outperform auto-generated content in the long run, but that’s not trendy, or cheap.
Humans can instinctively tell the difference between a real, informed, passionate writer and a computer regurgitating content which has already been written by someone else.
Google knows you are cheating at SEO
Google can spot your cheating a mile off! And as Google continues to improve its E-EAT rules which look for “content created to be original and helpful for people” I expect sites full of ChatGPT content to be penalised in the same way that link farms were. Well, they were killed off entirely.
The biggest SEO trend for the next few years will be AI generated content, but this will be to the detriment of those caught in the hype. Human generated content will always win.
Smart businesses will see that AI has its uses and can be a strategic marketing benefit, but that AI can’t, and shouldn’t, replace the human voice of your brand.
It’s this human voice that customers relate to, that makes your business different in its landscape. That’s the reason your customers are choosing your brand and not your competitors.
