With the rise of multimodal large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, Co-Pilot, Claude, and Perplexity, it might seem like you need an entirely new SEO strategy to keep up. But the truth is, fundamentals such as meta tags, page structure, and link building still apply. What’s changed is how you can use AI to enhance those core tactics and improve your work.
Using AI to Streamline On-site SEO Strategies
Content creation, keyword research, and competitor analysis remain the backbone of any strong SEO strategy. Thanks to AI, you can automate tedious steps and spend more time on strategy, creativity, and execution.
Here are tips on how to use AI for on-site SEO strategies:
Content Development
Generative AI can speed up your content development process when guided by specific, detailed prompts. With the right input, AI can help create outlines, product descriptions, blog posts, schema markup, and FAQs. To start, identify the content’s purpose and build a clear prompt that includes your audience, goals, location, and tone.
For example:
“You are a home services expert who understands how to market HVAC services to potential customers. Create an outline for a service page about different types of AC units. The goal is to convert visitors into customers while explaining the benefits of each type of AC unit. The tone should be professional and informative.”
Once AI generates an outline, refine it by sharing feedback on what you like and don’t like about the results, and provide more details to strengthen what it’ll give you next. Remember, AI content should always be a starting point, not a final draft. Review and edit every piece to ensure it’s accurate, engaging, and in line with your brand’s voice.
When the content is complete, consider adding an FAQ section to address related questions. Adding these not only provides more value, but can also help improve visibility through FAQ schema markup.
Keyword Research
While tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Google Search Console can help with high-quality keyword research, LLMs can complement them by identifying new opportunities and patterns.
To use AI for keyword research:
- Enter a URL and ask the AI to summarize what the page is about.
- Request keyword ideas or variations to expand your list.
- Use your preferred keyword research tool to validate those ideas and gather search volume and competition data.
LLMs can also help you analyze data more efficiently. You can upload reports from Google Search Console and a keyword research tool, then ask AI to combine and compare them, aligning impressions, clicks, and volume to identify the best keywords to target or improve upon.
For even deeper insights, have the LLM sort keywords into topic clusters to make it easier to plan and organize future content.
Competitor Analysis
LLMs can help you uncover ideas based on your competitor’s strategy. You can learn how well their website is optimized and uncover ideas to stand out from these competitors. Ask questions such as:
- Is their metadata optimized?
- How well is their site structured?
- Which keywords are they ranking for?
- Are there any gaps between their content and mine?
- What types of content perform best for them?
These insights can reveal trends or gaps worth addressing. Just be sure to verify the findings, as AI can miss nuances or suggest changes you’ve already implemented. Cross check your competitors’ paid ad libraries for even more insights.
Off-site Optimization
Offsite SEO remains a key ranking factor, and AI can make the process faster and more organized.
Here are tips on how to use AI for some of your off-site SEO strategies:
Link Building
Acquiring high-quality links to your website is crucial to ranking. This includes blogs and editorial links, so AI can help you:
- Identify which blogs, news outlets, or directories are relevant to your niche.
- Generate email templates for outreach.
- Categorize potential sites by industry or topic.
- Find contact information for editors or site managers.
This type of research and customization can take hours (and sometimes days!) to complete, so AI is a huge help in accomplishing these tasks.
Local Citations and Directory Listings
AI can also help audit your NAP information across the most important citation and directory websites. Since LLMs use this information as part of their algorithm when suggesting brands or websites, you need to ensure it’s consistent across the web. Incorrect information about your NAP could hurt your business’s validity.
Don’t Forget About EEAT
To perform well in both traditional search engines and AI-driven results, you need to strengthen your site’s EEAT—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Without it, neither search engines nor LLMs will view your content as credible or worthy of visibility.
Dangers of Using Generative AI in SEO
Although AI is a valuable tool for research and content preparation, don’t rely too heavily on it, as it can harm quality. When you are familiar with how AI-generated content looks and sounds, it’s easily spotted.
AI also pulls data from existing web pages and other information sources, which can result in unintended plagiarism. That’s why human oversight is necessary to ensure content is engaging, factual, and aligns with your brand.
Go Forth, Responsibly
Generative AI has caused a large shift in the SEO landscape this year. Embracing AI can help boost your strategy, but be sure to never lose sight of providing people with valuable, trustworthy information.
Do you have questions on SEO and AI? Let’s talk.
FAQ
What is Generative AI?
Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence systems, such as large language models (LLMs), that can create new content, including text, images, or code, based on vast amounts of training data.
What is an LLM?
An LLM, or Large Language Model, is a type of artificial intelligence trained on massive amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like language. It predicts the next likely word or phrase in a sequence, allowing it to answer questions, summarize information, write content, and even analyze data. Examples include ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other advanced AI systems that can process and respond to natural language prompts.
What are keyword clusters?
Keyword clusters are groups of related keywords that share the same search intent. Instead of targeting one keyword per page, clustering lets you optimize your content based on a topic rather than a specific keyword. This is a great way to build topical authority for that keyword cluster.
How can AI improve SEO?
AI can assist with time-consuming tasks like keyword research, content creation, and data analysis. It helps identify trends, optimize on-page elements, and uncover opportunities faster, allowing you to focus on strategy and creativity.