Using AI in SEO: Your #1 Guide to Smarter SEO Strategies

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Let’s be honest; for most of us, SEO is boring. The process is crucial, but sometimes, the many aspects of improving search engine optimisation are dull, monotonous, and repetitive.

However, that’s changing with new processes that automate tasks and produce better results by incorporating AI in SEO effectively.

Stick around to find out how – you won’t want to miss out!

Advancements in AI have allowed us to rethink our existing business strategies, ranging from marketing to advertising.

The problem is, that AI – even in its current form – cannot make design decisions that can match that of a human or understand more nuanced parts of the creative process. It can be easy to dismiss all AI as unprepared for widespread integration into our business workflow, but not so fast.

Let’s break down the benefits and uses of AI with SEO and explain why its potential shouldn’t be overlooked.

First, some SEO fundamentals

SEO doesn’t need to be rocket science, but there are a few key fundamentals that can make or break your rankings.

• First, speed matters. A slow site kills engagement, frustrates users, and sends all the wrong signals to Google. If your pages take more than 2-3 seconds to load, expect higher bounce rates and lower rankings.
• Next, search intent is everything. Ranking high is pointless if you have the wrong target audience. Understanding what users actually want is essential. For example, are they looking for information, a brand, a service, or ready to buy a product? By aligning your content with their intent, you’ll see more organic traffic and conversions.
• And let’s not forget mobile. More than half of all searches happen on phones, so if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re already behind. Keeping your pages fast, easy to navigate, and designed for smaller screens.

There is more to SEO than this, which is why we’ve gone into more detail in our SEO basics guide below.

SEO Basics: How to Master Basic SEO for Your Website [UPDATED]

However, if you stick to the three rules above, you will already be ahead of most website owners.

The benefits of using AI for SEO

SEO relies on algorithmic flags that can be difficult to understand and grasp for most of us mere mortals, but AI is great at pattern recognition – much like Google’s search engine algorithms are. In some ways, you might say AI and SEO are a match made in heaven.

Search engines are powered by data-driven algorithms that become so complex that it’s almost impossible for us to understand them entirely.

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

Sure, we can stick to best practices and optimise constantly, but there’s still always a piece of the puzzle missing in terms of understanding the complexities of how Google search works.

Even for tasks such as keyword research, the process can be time-consuming and tedious.

This is where AI can provide a huge benefit for those of us who need to carry out SEO.

For example:

• Automating or assisting with boring or difficult SEO tasks, like identifying relevant keywords
• Processing large amounts of analytics data to improve your decision-making
• Finding problems with website content or code and suggesting appropriate action
• Carrying out deep research and providing educated ideas and suggestions

I know what you are thinking – this is all well and good, and there are a couple of examples here, but what else is AI good for when it comes to SEO, and how can it be leveraged?

Below, we’ll dive straight into what AI does best with search engine optimisation.

Some top strategies for using AI with SEO

As with any tool, choosing the right one depends on the job.

In 2025, we have several AI tools that can benefit our content creation processes, SEO, and business decisions. Here, you will discover how you can put artificial intelligence to work and climb the ranks of Google search with improved search engine optimisation strategies.

Keyword research

AI can now take keyword research to a whole new level, making data-driven predictions on which keywords are most likely to perform well, and also convert to business, all based on real data. Long-tail keywords you may have overlooked can also be discovered with the use of AI, granting you a higher chance of ranking in search engines.

Long-Tail SEO: What It Is, Examples & How to Use Long-Tail Keywords For High-Intent Search Traffic [UPDATED]

Here are two AI-powered SEO tools to help with keyword research:

• SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool — Tailored suggestions based on ranking potential
• Moz Keyword Explorer — Ideal for small businesses looking to improve their SEO

Without meaning to state the obvious, AI chatbot tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or DeepSeek are great at brainstorming and even carrying out deep research.

At a very basic level, this includes tasks like search intent analysis and keyword research.

The above example shows how GPT-4.5 has provided a list of high buying intent keywords for a fictitious Birmingham-based bakery, prioritising terms that purchase immediate purchase intent, locality, and specific product searches.

We can see that these suggestions were informed using a wide range of popular SEO resources, specifically within the field of keyword research for bakeries.

For more information on keyword research, check out our guides below.

Search Intent for SEO: Understanding Search, User & Keyword Intent [UPDATED]

Keyword Research for SEO [UPDATED]

Content optimisation

AI can be used to optimise the content you’ve created.

There are so many ways generative AI can be used for content optimisation, but here are 5 great examples:

• Analysing keyword usage and suggesting changes
• Suggesting new target keywords to include
• Providing insights on competitor content that ranks well
• Recommending internal links to add
• Creating meta tags or structured data

All of the above SEO tasks can be carried out using ChatGPT for free or one of the paid versions for advanced capabilities.

You may find that you can capitalise on a gap in the market for niche topics while enhancing the readability of your content. AI SEO tools can suggest topics that trend and rank well while suggesting any relevant keywords you may have missed.

Here are two AI-powered content optimisation tools worth considering:

• Frase — Analyses top-performing content and helps to construct SEO-friendly briefs.
• SurferSEO — SEO tool to audit content and assist with content creation using AI-driven insights.

Problem solving

Finding issues with your content, such as broken links, incorrect metadata, structured data errors, or duplicate content, can be a time-consuming task.

This is another area where AI can prove useful, saving you time and being incredibly accurate at identifying issues that can stop your content from reaching its full ranking potential.

Two AI-powered SEO problem-solving tools we highly recommend are:

• Screamingfrog — Finds indexing issues, analyses technical SEO, and can produce detailed audit reports
• Screpy — AI-driven web analysis tool for monitoring and optimising SEO

Popular AI SEO tool recommendations

Here are some popular AI SEO tool recommendations that can be used to give your SEO efforts a competitive edge.

AI Tool	Use case	Key Features
SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool	Keyword research, search intent, & competitor analysis	AI-powered keyword grouping and search intent detection
Moz Keyword Explore	Ideal for small businesses & easy to use	AI-driven SERP analysis and keyword suggestions
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer	Deep backlink & competition data insights	Keyword difficulty score, traffic estimation
Keyword Insights AI	Topic clustering	AI-powered keyword clustering, content gap identification
SurferSEO	Real-time SEO content optimisation	NLP-powered content recommendations and keyword suggestions

The impact of AI on Google

Google has always sought to resolve a user’s search query in an accurate, relevant, and timely manner.

With Google’s SGE (or Search Generative Experience), users can find answers to questions quicker than before using generative AI responses.

Prior to SGE, Google would provide you with the top websites that contain the most relevant data to your query, but you would still have to look through the content of the website to find what you were looking for. With integrated AI, you get a snippet of information relevant to your query quickly and directly within the search window.

Google’s algorithm has adapted and improved to consider more than just backlinks and keywords with modern search engine algorithms that use Machine Learning to provide results dependent on context and user intent.

AI has also impacted Google in other ways, leading the company to reconsider ranking factors and flags, leading to the rise of Google’s Helpful Content Update and E-E-A-T framework.

Why Good Content Matters: SEO Content Creation Guidelines [UPDATED]

Google search will undoubtedly continue to evolve by integrating AI and detecting AI content as we move closer towards 2026. So make sure you keep an eye on our blog for any updates as and when they happen – don’t get left behind!

For a deep dive into how AI is shaping the future of SEO, read our article below.

AI Means The Death of SEO? Not So Fast – Let’s Look At How AI is Shaping The Future of SEO

The importance of demonstrating E-E-A-T with AI

Firstly, what exactly is E-E-A-T?

E-E-A-T is a Google framework that determines how valuable and credible your content is, helping to reduce the amount of low-quality content listed on search engine results pages.

It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Content created to serve users looking for answers has always been valued in the eyes of Google, but this framework takes it one step further by making search engine results more accurate and based on real data.

Although AI can be a blessing, it can also be a curse if used incorrectly. One of the reasons why E-E-A-T is so important today is due to the influx of low-quality AI content generation.

If AI is taking information that is already online, and rewording it, there’s no real value in that content in the eyes of Google. Such articles won’t provide anything new and are derivative, unoriginal, and of little value to whoever reads them.

With that said, is there a way to demonstrate E-E-A-T with AI so businesses can have the best of both worlds?

The answer is balance and using these tools correctly to assist the process of high-quality content creation rather than overtake it completely. Large automated tasks can be completed in their entirety by AI, but with anything relating to creativity and content, human collaboration and oversight are crucial.

How AI can help with E-E-A-T

It may sound paradoxical as the E-E-A-T framework exists to combat low-quality content, in part due to the rise of AI content. That said, AI tools can still help you comply with E-E-A-T providing you follow some basic rules.

Here are some ways AI can assist with the process of high-quality content generation while abiding by the E-E-A-T philosophy.

Structure your content

Tools such as SurferSEO can provide recommendations for layout, structuring, and even drafting an outline for your written content.

This provides you with some guide rails that can keep you on track via an outline created with the best-ranking pages in mind.

This, when paired with keyword analysis, can be incredibly powerful and supplements your work nicely without invalidating the actual content in the eyes of the search engines.

SEO Keyword Analysis & Planning: How to Choose the Best Keywords For Your Website [UPDATED]

Data analysis

Trends and insights can be tapped into quickly and easily using AI.

This type of research completed manually can be incredibly time-consuming, almost becoming outdated by the time you acquire the data. With AI, this data can be accessed instantly and can help you tap into insights that boost your content’s quality while saving you time in the process.

Our guides below explore how you can use ChatGPT to carry out AI SEO analysis in bulk using Google Analytics and Google Search Console exports.

AI SEO Analysis Using ChatGPT Google Analytics Data Exports

How to use ChatGPT with Google Search Console CSV Data: SEO Analytics Prompts

Topical clustering

Topical clustering is an effective SEO strategy used to develop authority regarding a set of topics or subjects by grouping multiple pieces of content under one hub page.

AI can be used to group relevant topics strengthening topical authority.

Topical Authority in SEO

Topical clustering is particularly effective when businesses are producing content that has many subtopics. Through the use of interlinking, you provide a more comprehensive resource for users to find exactly what they need.

Figuring out where AI can help the most with your SEO

AI shouldn’t be used as a solution looking for a problem. You should identify the bottlenecks in your SEO workflow and also look at which tasks can be safely carried out through the use of AI tools.

As mentioned above, content research and keyword analysis are both worthy of AI usage to streamline boring processes while still generating superior results.

If you need help identifying where to start when using AI and SEO, here are some basic steps:

• List non-creative and time-consuming SEO tasks such as competitor analysis
• Find repetitive tasks such as pre-publishing meta tag optimisation and checks
• Predict trends based on large data sets
• Track user behaviour to determine search internet and habits
• Identify content gaps and SEO opportunities

These are just some ideas on how AI can help you tackle those boring, time-consuming tasks without taking away your creativity or causing you problems with your position in search.

Other AI guides and resources for SEO

If you would like to learn more about using ChatGPT for SEO, we’ve produced an in-depth guide below.

Using ChatGPT For SEO: “Mind Blowing” ChatGPT SEO Guide [UPDATED]

For some amazing SEO prompts to get the creative juices flowing, see our prompt engineering guide below.

A Guide to ChatGPT SEO Prompts and Prompt Engineering

We highly recommend reading through these to fast-track your knowledge on the subject of using AI to enhance your SEO efforts.

FAQs about Artificial Intelligence for SEO

Here are some frequently asked questions that we receive about using AI for search engine optimisation.

If you still have questions, feel free to reach out to us on social media, and we will be glad to help.

Does using AI with SEO really work?

Using AI with SEO for specific tasks can be very effective. It depends on which part of your search engine optimisation efforts you incorporate AI into. For anything creative, our opinion is that it’s best to avoid using AI or at least have human oversight of the process.

Does Google penalise AI-generated content and strategies?

Google doesn’t currently penalise AI-generated content, providing the content created is useful and unique (source. Google Search and AI Content), but it’s important to read the Google FAQs carefully.

This is a challenge when using AI alone to create content, as it tends to be derivative. However, if you work alongside AI to create content while sharing your anecdotes, unique insights, experience and personality, there is no reason why your content shouldn’t rank in Google Search.

The alternative is the scenario played out in the video below, where search results get flooded with low-quality AI-generated content and fake news.

It’s very possible that Google will later change their stance on AI-generated content and start penalising this kind of activity to combat this issue.

Just remember to follow the principles of E-E-A-T when working with any AI-generated content, and always apply SEO best practices, such as those covered in our guide below, which extend to more than just link building.

Google’s SEO Rules & Guidelines for Link Building

When should I use AI for SEO?

We’ve provided some great ideas and strategies above.

Keyword research, crawler troubleshooting, and identifying niches are all areas where AI can be particularly helpful and productive.

Using ChatGPT with Google Search Console or Analytics allows you to harness your data and act upon it more effectively.

AI is particularly effective at pattern recognition, which is why it is a good fit for working with insights and even predicting trends and user behaviour.

Will AI replace human SEO?

The future of SEO with AI tools raises the question of whether manual processes and SEO professionals will be replaced by automated AI systems.

AI will likely continue to assist with SEO campaigns and related tasks, but as far as we can see, AI won’t be replacing the need for human involvement in search engine optimisation.

This is due to the changing SEO landscape and constantly shifting goals. The need for human involvement may be minimised, but having human oversight ensures that you enjoy the best of both worlds regarding automation and accuracy.

Is AI SEO free? If not, what are the costs?

The cost of using AI for your search engine optimisation efforts depends on which area of SEO you are focusing on.

Many free AI tools can be used to assist with various SEO-related tasks.

For example, the free version of ChatGPT can be extremely effective in providing outlines and suggestions for metadata while brainstorming. ChatGPT is also good at setting goals based on your accumulated data.

If you are looking for more advanced AI tools, examples such as SurferSEO can assist you with content writing and keyword suggestions. Packages start from $79 (approx £63).

Will AI-powered search results reduce organic clicks?

In some cases, yes.

AI-powered search engines are already here, and being used by millions of users per day. For quick queries, Google SGE allows for answers to be generated while still on the search page, saving clicks and, consequently, fewer clicks on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

These are sometimes referred to as zero-click searches, where Google provides answers without generating click-throughs.

Moving forward into 2026, we expect a hybrid solution that continues to rely on serving websites for deeper context where needed, with integrated AI-generated answers where appropriate. AI is very good at parsing information and outputting it efficiently. This means we may see more search engine results containing these intelligent and concise summaries.

How can I measure the success of my AI SEO efforts?

When investing time and money into AI-powered tools for SEO, it is important to be able to track organic growth over time.

With the use of tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, you can accurately track changes and improvements with traffic and keyword data for a specified period.

Measuring CTR and engagement metrics such as bounce rate and time spent on site will help paint a picture of how well your SEO changes and adjustments are performing.

To keep track of these measurements, focus on the following metrics:

• Organic search traffic/clicks
• Keyword data and search ranking
• CTR (Click-Through Rates)
• Conversions and conversion rate
• Bounce or engagement rates

Additionally, backlink analysis tools such as Moz Link Explorer are a fantastic way to track the quality and number of links pointing to your website.

How long does it take to see results from AI SEO?

SEO is a slow process, even when using AI tools to assist you.

Assuming correct use of the tools and the production of quality content, you can expect to see results between 6 and 12 months on average. It is worth remembering that this is somewhat of a generalisation, as your results will largely depend on the quality of your overall efforts, the age of your website, and various other factors, including backlinks.

By harnessing topical clustering, improved internal linking, and keyword optimisation, you should be noticing stronger search rankings and more organic traffic within the 6 to 12 month period.

If you need help with your SEO campaigns or have any further questions about the process, feel free to get in touch with our experienced team via our website.

Conclusion

To conclude, AI is a useful productivity and time-saving tool to have at your disposal when improving your search engine optimisation efforts and overall SEO strategy.

It should be used as a tool without expecting a fully automated process that replaces the need for SEO professionals and human involvement.

AI-powered tools are well-suited for data-heavy tasks that require analysis and insights into how to strengthen your position in search without eliminating experienced SEOs from the process when it comes to decision-making and campaign direction.

The future of SEO using AI as a tool is guaranteed and should be embraced by forward-thinking businesses and website owners today. SEO isn’t dead, it’s just evolving, which is why your processes and workflows should too.

For a professional but forward-thinking SEO service, simply get in touch with Opace to discuss how we can help you meet your goals.

What is your experience using AI in SEO? Have you found any useful tools or tips for your SEO strategy? Let us know in the comments or across our social media channels.