Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in marketing right now, especially for the SEO industry. Although AI has been available for years, the velocity of tools being created, and the hype associated with them, has reached a blistering peak.

Naturally, marketers are starting to ask a few questions. What’s real? What’s possible? And how can I maximize my impact with this technology today?

To answer all those questions and more, let’s take a look at where we see the opportunities and limitations of AI tools for SEO in 2023.
 

What is AI?

 
It’s also important to keep in mind how Google and other search engines use and define AI. For example, Google says AI “is a set of technologies based primarily on machine learning and deep learning and is used for various functions, including object categorization, natural language processing, recommendations, intelligent data retrieval, and more.” 
 

What is AI-Driven SEO?

 
Marketers in the SEO industry are increasingly using AI to quickly understand what makes a specific site or piece of content rank on search engines. Then, with the rise of generative AI tools, they can even use AI to generate and optimize content before the competition. 

ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, has been especially disruptive when it comes to generative AI. While we don’t see this technology replacing human writers anytime soon, the quality of ChatGPT responses has people excited and wondering if it will dramatically shift the search landscape in the immediate future. 
 

A Brief History of AI in SEO

 
Given the waves ChatGPT has caused recently, some may not realize that Google has been a major force in AI research and has incorporated AI-driven algorithms into products like Gmail and Google Search for years.

On the SEO side, Google launched RankBrain in 2015 to better understand searcher queries. This announcement was the first time Google officially went on the record as using an artificial intelligence system in their algorithm. This was a significant step forward in Google’s understanding of the importance of sentence structure in queries. It also signaled the shift in SEO from the importance of keywords to the importance of entities. 

Fast forward to 2019, and Google announces the launch of BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), a neural network-based technique for natural language processing to better serve results for the large percentage of unique queries they receive every day.

With these groundbreaking technologies, a flood of SEO tools and use cases hit the market to incorporate similar systems into common SEO activities such as content creation, image optimization, and forecasting.

The most buzzworthy new tool, ChatGPT, was launched in 2022 and builds on GPT-3 that was launched in 2020. This instance of generative AI exploded onto the scene, and the results have been truly impressive. The boasts of this technology still appear to over-promise and under-deliver, but this is the closest we’ve gotten to date and foreshadows a rapidly approaching future. 
 

How You Should be Using AI for SEO

 
It seems like no matter where you look, there’s always someone proposing a new way that tools like ChatGPT can help propel your SEO strategy forward. However, it’s not clear which use cases are helpful, and which aren’t a great use of your time. Here are four ways we recommend using AI for SEO:
 

Creating SEO Content with AI

 
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can be incredibly useful in the brainstorming and idea-generation phase. With the ability to rapidly produce lists and ideas, you can conquer the tyranny of a blank page quicker than ever. Refining your prompts and going deeper on the ideas that spark your interest can illuminate your own original ideas and novel connections you wouldn’t have arrived at otherwise. 

One caveat here is that the large language model it uses to populate answers makes it likely that tools like ChatGPT will give you the most common answers related to your prompts. This may be fine in certain situations, but you won’t always want the most common answer. 

We also recommend heavily editing your content to help your brand’s voice shine through while adding personality and asserting your expertise. Keeping the human element in the equation will help you better connect with your customers.
 

Using AI for Content Optimization

 
Where AI can be more helpful is on the content optimization front. For shorter snippets of content using a template, such as product descriptions or meta descriptions, using generative AI tools to scale can lead to major efficiencies. Again, you’ll want a careful human eye to review for accuracy and adjust as necessary to reflect your brand’s expertise, but this can save you a ton of time. 

Finding natural language processing connections can also help you build authority around entities and provide another avenue for optimization. This should align naturally with the topics your brand talks about anyway and the topics your customers are interested in, but it provides another valuable lens.
 

Automating SEO Workflows

 
While the text-based generative AI models are getting all the press right now, image classification was one of the first areas for AI to make waves and is arguably more advanced than the text content AI can create right now. AI tools for naming image files and creating ALT text can automate tedious manual processes. Using AI tools to generate reporting insights and distilling large data sets can also be extremely valuable.   
 

Scaling Your Existing SEO Strategy

 
While advances in AI over the past five years haven’t dramatically changed SEO strategy, it has enabled the ability to scale quickly. While blindly relying on AI negates the value of deep expertise in a field, it would be equally alarming if your SEO team didn’t employ any artificial intelligence at all. 
 

The Limitations of AI for SEO

 
As with any emerging field, there are not only limitations in the outputs but also considerable challenges and considerations around the impacts of these tools. We need to be thoughtful and cautious in our approach because we don’t know the things we don’t know. 

Here are a few of the current-day limitations of AI for SEO, especially generative AI tools.
 

Biases

 
The outputs of tools like ChatGPT depend on their training models, and when your data set is sourced from the internet, the problematic things that are posted when it comes to offensive language and stereotypes are going to be reflected in the tool’s outputs, which can also serve to perpetuate them.
 

Training Data

 
It’s essential to know the training data for your tool. For example, ChatGPT doesn’t access the internet, so when it gives an answer to you about viewing webpages, that isn’t an accurate description of how it operates. Its data set also only goes until 2021 (they make updates regularly), so it’s not the best resource for current events.
 

Accuracy & Understanding

 
While the technology behind something like ChatGPT is incredible, the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. A common issue is “hallucinating” or sounding very confident about an incorrect answer. 

The efficacy of using ChatGPT as a search engine right now is like considering me, a member of the SEO team, a search engine for paid search advice. With ten years of SEO experience and a wealth of experience working closely with our Paid Search team, I know a decent amount of the terminology, and I can give you a plausible-sounding answer if I need to. But what is the value in that? If you ask our paid search experts directly, you will be in much better hands. 

Since these tools don’t understand the material, their answers lack the requisite nuance of expertise. 

Knowing the potential pitfalls of your AI tools will help you use them more effectively. When you know what to look for, you can diligently review their outputs to avoid adverse outcomes for your brand.
 

AI-Driven SEO Tools to Try in 2023

 
With a steady stream of AI tools released every week, the impetus is on adding AI tools to your arsenal more than needing to use a specific tool or process. 

If you’re just starting to experiment with ChatGPT and getting excited about what AI can do for your program, here are some tools to try this year:
 

Low-Budget Content Tools

 
Our first bucket is budget-friendly content tools. Depending on your preferences, tools like Jasper, Copy.ai, and Frase are great options in this tier that can cost you less than $100/mo. Each tool has particular strengths, ranging from helpful templates to robust competitor research, that can elevate your current content process.
 

Enterprise-Level AI Insights Tools

 
Enterprise SEO clients have unique needs. The tools and platforms servicing this market have been experimenting with AI for better business insights for years. While these tools are significantly more expensive, if your website has millions of web pages or brings in millions of dollars of revenue through organic traffic, they can help you stay on top of the competition.

All of the following brands have an AI offering for data analysis and providing SEO recommendations:

There are AI-assisted tools for just about every aspect of SEO, but the important thing is to match that with your team’s expertise and the goals you’re trying to accomplish. These tools won’t replace your experts, but they can make their work easier and more impactful. 
 

Looking Ahead: Future State of AI in SEO

 
One of the time-honored traditions in the SEO field is to ask if SEO is dead. This question is revisited in countless think pieces every year, and the dawn of ChatGPT was merely another occasion to opine on the industry’s mortality. 

So will ChatGPT finally spell the end of search engines? Doubtful. 

While it will probably siphon off some usage from search engines, it’s difficult to imagine a wholesale change in global user behavior that completely upends Google in the short term. 

While SEOs are well-accustomed to grappling with their mortality, the past year is the first time that think-pieces threatened Google’s existence. First with Gen Z’s extensive use of TikTok and now with the AI chatbots. It’s not to say that empires don’t fall, nor that they can’t collapse quickly. Any good financial advisor would caution that past performance isn’t indicative of future results, but even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in this article with The Verge, “I think whenever someone talks about technology being the end of some other giant company, it’s usually wrong. I think people forget they get to make a countermove here, and they’re like pretty smart, pretty competent. I do think there’s a change for search that will probably come at some point – but not as dramatically as people think in the short term.”    

While it can’t move as quickly given its position as the incumbent, Google has already flung itself headfirst into the AI arena by announcing Bard, an AI-powered chat feature, to compete with ChatGPT and Microsoft’s integration of OpenAI technology into its products. 

While we anticipate the arms race between the search engines to continue, we also expect GPT-4 (available now) is the next step forward in generative AI and will be multimodal, expanding from text capacity to video, images, and sound. 
 

Conclusion

 
It seems like the world has changed since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, and in some ways, it has, but in others, this is just the next step in a decades-long process. It could portend rapid change or it could be a flash in the pan as people realize they don’t actually prefer a conversational model of search results. 

What we do know is this; it’s worth paying close attention to every development, maximizing the tools we have at our disposal today, and ensuring we have expert practitioners to make these tools valuable. 

The outlook today could look very different in the second half of the year – so it’s important to have a partner who keeps a close eye on the industry. If you’d like help navigating this constantly changing search landscape, reach out to our SEO services team or contact us today.

Marketing evolution has entered a new realm by going digital. And with that, abundant choices for reaching your target audience. What are the latest approaches and channels? Which ones are right for you?

Since 85% of Americans say they are online daily, leveraging the latest digital marketing strategies is worthwhile.

First, let’s recap what digital marketing is and why it’s crucial.

Key takeaways:

• Digital marketing uses electronic means to connect with buyers to sell a product or service or raise brand awareness.
• You’re able to reach a wider audience with digital marketing, which means building brand recognition, acquiring more customers and increasing revenue
• Omnichannel marketing uses various channels and digital platforms to present your brand, product or message. Your message is consistent yet fine-tuned for each channel.
• Aside from customers feeling valued, personalized experiences build brand trust and promote customer engagement.
• Micro-influencers tend to hold the highest engagement rates across multiple social media platforms.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing uses electronic means to connect with buyers to sell a product or service or increase brand awareness. This type of marketing occurs regardless of whether the users are online on the Internet. Digital marketing is over 100 years old, beginning with the invention of the radio. Other forms of digital marketing include TV, telephone and digital billboards.

However, online marketing is the most popular form of digital marketing. Online marketing is the simplest way to reach your target audience in the right place and at the right time. Examples of online digital marketing include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Content marketing (blogs, videos)
• Social media marketing (SMM)
• Email marketing

Why digital marketing matters

Digital marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing (e.g., an ad in a newspaper or handing out flyers):

• You reach a broader audience since the Internet is a global tool. You can, however, filter your audience to your niche market.
• A larger audience means building brand recognition, acquiring more customers and increasing revenue.
• Digital marketing is measurable, meaning your campaigns contain metrics that you can use to evaluate which methods are more successful.
• Digital marketing is also very cost-effective. Some strategies cost nothing (e.g., creating a blog or posting on social media). Also, there’s no paper to print.

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Four digital marketing evolution trends

Successful businesses understand that they must meet or exceed the needs and expectations of customers. Therefore, the customer drives marketing evolution. Let’s look at four strategies that are emerging.

1. Omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing uses various channels and digital platforms to present your brand, product or message. Your message is consistent yet fine-tuned for each channel. Whichever way your customers access your business, you’re there.

Omnichannel marketing is an evolution of multichannel marketing, where you make your brand available across multiple channels. Omnichannel marketing takes it further by seamlessly integrating the user experience across all digital channels. This method allows the customer to move from one platform or device to another and not just have a similar interaction but also retain their shopping and purchase history.

To devise an effective omnichannel marketing strategy, you need at least four things:

• Ensure that your website displays well across all devices, like computers, tablets and smartphones.
• Consistently present your content across all relevant channels, including your offline ones, like in-store.
• Customize the call-to-action for the specific channel. For example, an email campaign may require a button click, while a TV ad may need to display a web address.
• Keep customer data in a central location, facilitating the forward movement of the customer journey.

2. Personalized experiences

Customers want to feel valued by a company, and personalization creates that feeling. For example, if a customer bought laundry detergent from a particular brand, they may like an email reminder with a link to the product on the site when it’s time to replenish. 

Aside from customers feeling valued, personalized experiences build brand trust and promote customer engagement. How can you know your shoppers to create personalized marketing experiences? Here are a few tips:

• Conduct an opinion poll or a customer survey
• See what customers are saying on social media about your business
• Read online customer reviews
• Trend buyer history

3. Influencer marketing

Why has influencer marketing grown so popular? Consumers see influencers as authentic. Furthermore, people can engage directly with influencers. Many influencers respond to comments and chat with followers. This meaningful connection tends to make influencers held in high regard.

When dipping your toes into this marketing strategy, you may wish to start with a micro-influencer. Micro-influencers are individuals with between 10,000 and 50,000 followers. Micro-influencers tend to have the highest engagement rates across multiple social media platforms.

How do you find and partner with an influencer? Here are some things to try:

• Understand your target audience. Knowing your customers’ demographics, core values and social media platforms will help you select an appropriate influencer. 
• Look at your customer base first and see if there is an influencer that uses your product or service.
• Use the hashtag #sponsored on social media to see a list of influencers.
• You can contact the influencer with a direct message (DM) on the platform or through email. Propose the campaign along with suitable compensation.

4. Responding to social issues

Following the event of 2020, more than ever, customers need to trust the brands they choose. One survey showed that 50% of individuals would become loyal customers of brands they trust. 

How does a business earn the trust of its customers? The same survey provided further details. Customers look to see:

• How well the company treats the environment
• If they use materials and ingredients that are local, sustainable and ethically-acquired
• How well the company treats its employees
• How well the brand responded to the COVID-19 pandemic

You may think, “Is this a digital marketing strategy?” The answer is yes because you would advertise your company’s initiatives on your website. For example, the following are excerpts from Nike’s Impact Report on its website.

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The key to this marketing strategy is to be authentic. You must either back up or follow through on the statements made online.

Taking leaps in the digital marketing evolution with Optimizely

Today’s marketing strategies require innovation, insight and evolution. Optimizely’s digital experience platform (DXP) and the team of experts are here to help you attract and retain customers so your business can grow.

If you’re ready to take your marketing approach to the next level, get started with Optimizely today.

WhatsApp has become one of the most widely-used messaging apps in the world. With over 2 billion committed users, it has become a platform where people communicate with family, friends, and even the companies they buy from. WhatsApp Business, a version designed solely for businesses, allows companies to communicate with their customers and vendors. In this article, we will show you how you can use WhatsApp Business Accounts as a crucial marketing and customer service tool.

What is WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp Business is a free messaging app made for business use. It allows companies to have a presence on theWhatsApp business platformand relay messages to their customers.

WhatsApp Business has many useful features for businesses, such as automated messages, quick replies, and labels. This can make communication more efficient and save time for busy companies. It can be especially helpful for small and mid-sized businesses that don’t have the budget for a large marketing and customer service team.

Why use WhatsApp Business?

Using WhatsApp Business can give you a competitive edge. Many of its features are great for businesses. For one, it allows businesses to reach a large audience. With over 2 billion active users, WhatsApp provides a platform where businesses can communicate with their customers on a one-to-one basis. This personalized approach can help businesses build strong relationships with their customers and improve customer satisfaction.

Secondly, WhatsApp Business can improve customer service. By using features such as automated messages and quick replies, businesses can react to customer concerns quickly and efficiently. This can help businesses provide better customer service and increase customer loyalty. It can also be a great tool for sending large file transfers to customers, such as detailed invoices or product information.

Third, WhatsApp Business can be an effective marketing tool. By using features such as broadcast lists and group chats, businesses can reach a large audience with targeted messages. This can help businesses promote their products and services and increase sales. For example, if you are having a big Spring sale, you can send a mass Whatsapp message to all of your followers without worrying about incurring large data fees. You should always be sure to include your WhatsApp contact details on your digital business card so that you can build a following on the app.

How to use WhatsApp Business for marketing and customer service?

The benefits of using WhatsApp Business are clear. Now, let’s learn how to use it effectively for marketing and customer service.

Create a professional profile

The first step is to create a professional profile for your business. Be sure to include your business name, logo, contact info, and description. This will ensure people recognize your business and make it easier for them to contact you. You should feature your WhatsApp on your social media and e-commerce websites so that prospects can easily reach out for more information.

Use automated messages and instant replies

Automated messages and quick replies can be a time-saving, life-saving feature for small and large businesses alike. Automated messages can be set up to greet customers and provide information about your business. Quick replies can even be used to respond to frequently asked questions. This can help businesses provide better customer service and improve response times.

Use labels to organize conversations

Labels can be used to categorize conversations and make it simpler to find specific messages. This can be especially important for businesses that receive a high volume of inquiries. Labels can be used to organize marketing conversations, such as new customers, existing customers, and inquiries. Labels can also be used for customer service-related inquiries, such as a “refund,” “complaint” or “general inquiries” labeled folders.

Use broadcast lists to send targeted messages

Broadcast lists can be utilized to send targeted marketing messages to a wide audience. Businesses can build marketing lists based on customer preferences or interests and send them highly targeted and/or personal messages. This can help businesses promote their products and services and increase sales. It can also help add a personal touch to your business when you can directly send an intimate message – such as a Happy Birthday text – to a single customer.

Use group chats for customer support

Group chats can be used for customer support and provide customers with a platform to ask questions and receive support. Businesses can create groups for specific products or services and provide customers with information and support.

Provide personalized support

Providing personalized support can help businesses build long-lasting relationships with their consumer base. Businesses can use features such as personalized greetings and messages to provide a custom-tailored experience for their customers. This can help businesses improve customer satisfaction and increase brand engagement. You can also use WhatsApp to have customer service phone conversations with your customers by dialing their WhatsApp number.

Use WhatsApp Business API for automation

WhatsApp Business API can be great for automation. It can also save businesses time and optimize response times. It enables businesses to automate messages, set up chatbots, and integrate with other systems. This can aid businesses that aim to provide better customer service and improve response times.

Conclusion

WhatsApp Business can be a vital marketing and customer service tool for businesses. By using features such as automated messages, quick replies, broadcast lists, and group chats, businesses can reach a large audience, and provide better customer service while also saving time and money.