Is AI-Generated Content a Valid SEO Strategy? Only With a Process.

Libby Day • July 17, 2023

Short answer: yes, but the strategy isn't "use AI." The strategy is what you do with the output before it goes live, and most businesses don't have one.

Why the question keeps coming up

Every business writing content now has access to the same generation tools. That's exactly why AI-generated text, on its own, isn't a strategy, it's table stakes. If everyone can produce the same generic paragraph on the same topic, that paragraph has no competitive value, and increasingly search engines and AI models are getting better at recognising it as such.

What makes AI content work

The businesses getting real value from AI-assisted content treat generation as the first step in a process, not the whole process. That means:

A verification step, checking facts, figures and claims before anything publishes, since models are fluent but not always accurate.

A specificity step, adding the examples, data and point of view that only someone who actually does the work can supply. This is usually the difference between content that ranks and content that doesn't.

An editorial standard, the same one you'd apply to anything with your name on it. If it wouldn't pass as your own writing, it's not ready.

What makes it fail

Publishing first-draft AI output at volume, on the theory that more content means more visibility. It doesn't. Search engines and AI systems are actively getting better at identifying undifferentiated content, and a site full of it can do more harm than good to how it's perceived.

The actual strategy

Use AI to speed up drafting, structuring and research. Don't use it to replace the expertise, editing and judgement that make content worth publishing in the first place. That's not a compromise position, it's the only version of "AI content strategy" that's held up as search has evolved.

If you want a content process built around that principle rather than around volume, get in touch.

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