Artificial Intelligence (AI) in SEO helps to improve your current SEO strategy by discovering opportunities, such as related keywords and increasing customer satisfaction. Its algorithms and speed help businesses expedite the process and enhance the accuracy of keyword research, competitor analysis, search intent research, and more.

How is AI used to improve SEO?

Visual Image Search

Visual image search is an exciting AI tool for SEO. You may have seen examples of this on your favourite apps such as Google Lens, Amazon Style Snap and Pinterest Visual Search. These features allow customers to snap a photo of any fashion item they have seen in public and find out where to buy it. Other versions of this are apps such as 21 Buttons, that allows users to upload images of their outfits and tag the website links to those items.

This feature not only boosts SEO, but also has 3 big advantages:

1. Visual Image Search reduces price sensitivity because when a customer wants to know where the item is from, it means they already have an emotional connection and want to buy the item without even seeing a price.

2. There is also an increase in customer satisfaction as this skips the need to ‘see how it looks on’ before purchasing, which should result in a decrease in returns and increase in happy customers.

3. Furthermore, customers who use these features have usually made up their mind about whether they’re going to purchase the item, which means you are gaining customers who are further down the marketing funnel.

Voice Search Optimisation

Voice search optimisation (VSO) has had a powerful impact on the SEO industry – a 2019 study found VSO is the second most popular choice of mobile search. VSO uses natural language which is a big game changer for SEO, as singular keywords won’t put you at the top of voice search results. According to Neil Patel, long-tail keywords now account for 70% of all searches! 

Local search results

Another key application of AI in SEO is local search results, Google Maps and other geo-locations. A large majority of consumers now search for local businesses that they will rely on on a regular basis, using the ‘near me’ feature of google maps and other apps.

AI technology ensures an accurate display of results in real-time. Therefore, inaccuracy of content in geographical areas is a deal breaker for AI-enhanced SEO.

Other AI SEO tools such as Google Cloud Translation API, which allows for quality translations in over 100 languages, can have amazing benefits for your localisation strategy, especially for international businesses.

Optimising content strategy

Google regularly updates their ranking system – a previous update was called ‘Rank Brain’, and this update brought in the ranking and positioning of sites on Google through searching websites for synonyms of keywords and semantic content. This ensures that the content of the website is natural and not clickbait. Google updates their ranking systems quite often which is something you need to keep an eye on when working on your website and SEO keywords.

Artificial Intelligence has just gotten started… and it’s here to stay, and we can’t wait to see what else AI can be used for in the future. Stay tuned for more updates!

By Alice Baker

Digital Marketing Executive, Sierra Six Media