In the wake of the AI revolution, any killer content strategy must put humans first, argues Richard George, head of organic performance at Wavemaker.
Rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have created the opportunity for content to be created at a scale and pace that exceeds human capabilities. By the end of 2024, data creation is predicted to reach 147 ZB (zettabytes), compared to 64.2 ZB in 2020, and 30% of content in large organizations will be synthetically generated.
As AI-generated content explodes, the debate about the role of humans in content creation intensifies. I believe that human intelligence (HI) is not only as important as AI, but Integration This leads to a successful and impactful SEO content strategy.
50% of consumers can tell AI-generated content apart, resulting in 52% less interest While the goal of content marketing is to grab the attention of a brand or organization’s target audience, provide information, answer questions and capture their interest, this is not a good start.
Google is tuned to detect and remove low-quality, automated content, which is an important reminder that real humans should be prioritized when it comes to creating content.
The starting point is to define Who The subject for which content is created.
You are not a search engine, and you should not be. Understanding your audience and their search behavior is fundamental to SEO. Google looks to human signals and helpful content to demonstrate trust and authority. Brands that do this are more likely to win in search engines.
By combining both first-party and third-party data with search and social data, brands gain a comprehensive view of their target audience, allowing them to create informed content strategies that engage, inspire, educate and drive people to buy.
Along with this, you also need insight into how your target audience searches for your content. That is, what questions are they asking when searching for your brand, product or topic? And how do they physically search, type or speak? Aligning your content with user intent will increase visibility and qualified traffic.
So where do they search? Older demographics use Google, while younger demographics prefer social platforms like Instagram and TikTok. SEO will keep your brand's attention glued to Google, but it's important to broaden your reach and incorporate insights from these social platforms into your holistic content strategy.
Again, forget search engines and think humans first. Successful content aligns with your audience's needs and search intent.
Google’s ranking system rewards original, high-quality content that demonstrates EEAT (expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness), so focusing on this gives people value.
This is why AI-generated content can hurt your SEO on its own: human writers use their personal experience and creativity to create engaging, unique content. AI lacks these subtleties and creates content that doesn't seem authentic. This reduces the value and ranking of your content.
AI can be used to generate ideas and improve the speed of content delivery, but it needs to be balanced with human intervention to maintain content quality and provide unique value to your audience.
AI-generated content must be kept in check by human oversight
In the digital world, content created by real people is important, but what's often overlooked in SEO conversations is the people writing that content.
Why is the author important? Because Google's quality ranking method (EEAT) looks for signals about the level of experience and trust in the content. However, it doesn't favor pages that are created purely for SEO. Therefore, highlighting that you use knowledgeable, trustworthy authors is a great way to show Google that your brand is providing EEAT content.
Authors should be clearly spotlighted for demonstrating EEAT
When it comes to authors, it's time to swap your SEO hat for a PR hat. What is your author's digital footprint? Does Google know you exist? Whether your brand has a notable expert or not, you need to make your author famous in the eyes of Google.
This can be achieved in a few simple ways, such as having a dedicated bio page detailing your experience, including links to internal and external content you have written, naming your authors in bylines, author sections and related pages of your content, implementing a person schema on your article and author pages, etc. This will help web crawlers understand who wrote the page and their credibility.
Connecting with content creators increases the chances of a successful SEO strategy for your brand, as Google appreciates the human aspect. If your brand doesn't have suitable authors, you can use tools like Muckrack or Ahrefs to find authors who are available to participate under license.
It's clear that content creation requires a more human-centric approach than ever before. It's not about AI, it's about the HI signals that consumers want and Google rewards. it is Providing value is the key to ranking highly in search engines, and it's what makes for a killer SEO content strategy and program.
The simple fact is that humans give content authority, empathy and credibility; using AI to create content allows for scale and pace. do not have Quality. In the wake of the AI revolution, a good content strategy must put humans first.
