SEO

Google Doesn’t Care About AI Content. Here’s Why.

Published

1 year ago

February 23, 2023

Google Doesn't Care About AI Content. Here’s Why.

This seemed to come as a bit of a shock to some, but I think there are three reasons why it makes total sense.

If you’ve ever been asked what you think of someone’s website, you’ll know just how low most people’s bar is when it comes to content quality. They order a few dozen articles from Fiverr and expect you (and Google) to be impressed.

The impact of AI will lower the cost of this type of content. Folks no longer need to pay $5 a pop for cheap, low-quality content because they can write it for free with AI content tools.

Here’s an example of the type of content I’m talking about:

It’s readable and well constructed, but the content itself is just fluff. You can tell immediately that it’s words for the sake of words and that the author has never touched this product. They certainly don’t have any unique insights or genuine opinions about it.

Given that you can create “similar quality” content with AI tools, you may assume there’ll be a sudden and massive influx of low-quality content for Google to deal with.

Here are my two cents on this:

I don’t think it’ll be as bad as many people think – Your mom isn’t going to suddenly start a content site just because AI tools can now do the heavy lifting. It’ll mostly be folks already in the industry using AI tools. So while there will definitely be more content being created, I don’t think it’ll be a crazy amount more.
Even if I’m wrong, Google’s systems will deal with it – If your site is full of low-quality content, AI or not, Google will just lower your crawl budget to save resources. Remember, ChatGPT isn’t the first AI tool. People have been creating content with other tools like GPT2 for years, and Google has coped just fine so far.

Long story short, the search engine’s flood defense systems are robust enough to deal with the increased junk that AI throws their way.

Google has many search algorithms working behind the scenes to rank the best results for its users. Are they perfect? No. But I think we can all agree they do a good job on the whole.

For example, there are 717 million results for “lump on neck”—yet none of the top ones are from your average Joe. They’re all written by doctors and published on the sites of respected health brands. In other words, they have E-E-A-T.

Of course, E-E-A-T isn’t a direct ranking factor, so let’s look at a couple of known direct ranking factors and discuss a couple of reasons why, on the whole, AI content won’t flummox them.

Backlinks

People link to content for all kinds of reasons, but I think these are the two most common:

They already know and trust the author or brand.
The content is the source of a unique idea or statistic.

Given that it takes years to earn trust in an industry (even if you only publish high-quality content), it’s not going to happen if you only publish low-end AI content.

As for content that says something unique, take a look at these “unique” link building tactics ChatGPT came up with:

ChatGPT's "unique" link building tactics

If you thought you heard about these 20 years ago, you’d be right. They’re not unique ideas at all. You’re going to have to come up with these on your own.

Helpful content system

Google’s helpful content system aims to boost the performance of content that gives visitors a satisfying experience while demoting content that doesn’t.

Here’s how Google says it works in a nutshell:

The system generates a site-wide signal that we consider among many other signals for ranking web pages. Our systems automatically identify content that seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to those doing searches.

Given that AI tools are trained on existing content, it’s basically impossible for them to “add value.” They can only summarize and rework ideas that are already out there (or that you give them).

Google also states that this is a sitewide signal. This means it should still negatively impact those who think, “Meh. I’ll just publish a load of AI content, see what sticks, then improve it.”

Google couldn’t be any clearer about this. Its documentation includes an entire section about how automation can help create helpful content.

Here’s an excerpt:

Not all use of automation, including AI generation, is spam. […] AI has the ability to power new levels of expression and creativity, and to serve as a critical tool to help people create great content for the web.

If you’re wondering how, let me share three examples.

AI can make your content interactive

Let’s say you wanted to rank in the U.K. for “UK tax brackets.” If we look at the top results, they’re all about the same. They list tax brackets and explain how to determine which one you’re in.

Example of a top result for "UK tax brackets"

This is useful information, but you’ll struggle to calculate your personal tax liability in your head. You need a calculator, and it would probably be helpful if it was embedded right there in the post.

Before AI, unless you knew how to code, you’d have to hire a developer to do this for you. But now, with ChatGPT (and presumably other upcoming AI tools, like Google’s Bard), all you have to do is ask:

Asking ChatGPT to code an income tax calculator

Here’s the output:

Using the free Code Snippets plugin for WordPress, I managed to embed this interactive calculator in a post without any coding knowledge whatsoever. You can view a live working demo here.

Sidenote.

The calculator doesn’t account for the tapered annual allowance that (currently) applies to income over £240K in the U.K. But you could probably get ChatGPT to add this with a few extra prompts.

AI can proofread stuff

Last year, we tested the quality of freelance writers based on their rates. The cheapest charged just $0.02 per word.

If we take a part of their content and ask ChatGPT to proofread it, it makes minor improvements for clarity:

I’ve found this super helpful for improving spelling and grammatical issues in my drafts. Here it is correcting all of my typos and even capitalizing acronyms without me having to lift a finger:

AI can explain things better (and faster) than you

Here’s what happened when I asked ChatGPT to explain and name a budgeting hack:

I don’t know about you, but I think it explained my admittedly lame (and somewhat unrealistic in this economic climate) “hack” pretty well. Sure, the name isn’t that great, but we can always ask ChatGPT for some other ideas:

ChatGPT's alternative names for my budgeting hack

“Round Up Retreat” seems pretty catchy to me.

No. Bad AI content will rank for some keywords, just as low-quality content written by humans does. Here are two reasons why.

Google isn’t perfect

I’m sure some of you rolled your eyes when I mentioned backlinks and “helpful content.” After all, you can always buy backlinks (although we don’t recommend it), and there are plenty of sites with unhelpful content still thriving.

This is, in part, because Google’s algorithms aren’t perfect.

You can think of Google Search as one of those toys with holes that only let through specific shapes. They work, but if you spend some time twisting and turning the shapes (or grab a hammer), you can often force the wrong ones through.

Unhelpful content still ranks if you try hard enough

Just like these toys, Google’s algorithms aren’t going to catch all low-quality content—AI or not.

Google can only rank good content if it exists

Google’s algorithms are designed to surface the best results, but you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on some SERPs.

For example, here’s the top result for “best headphones for big heads”:

You can see that it’s bog-standard affiliate content. Lots of words, no unique insights, and stock images. In other words, the level of quality that AI tools could easily write.

So how can this possibly be the best result for the topic?

I think the answer is simple. The topic just isn’t lucrative enough to incentivize meaningful competition.

For example, the top-ranking page only gets an estimated 430 monthly search visits:

Estimated monthly traffic to the top-ranking page for "best headphones for big heads"

Let’s be (very) generous and assume that:

Each recommended pair of headphones costs $200 on average.
10% of visits lead to purchases.
The site gets 3% commissions from Amazon.

Do the math: $200 * 43 (10% of 430 visits) * 3% = $258/month.

This isn’t bad, but I still doubt anyone would be willing to buy and test dozens of $200 headphones to create exceptional content for this keyword. This creates a void of truly useful results for Google to choose from and a low bar for the “best” result.

In fact, ChatGPT could probably create content as good as the current top result.

Final thoughts

Marie Haynes summarizes Google’s stance on AI content well in this tweet:

Essentially comes down to this:
Use whatever you want to create your content. Just be sure you create helpful content that exhibits E-E-A-T.
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) February 8, 2023

Google’s taking this stance because it knows AI tools are like power tools. If you’re a carpenter, they’ll help you get the shelves up faster and with a better finish. If not, they’ll just help you botch the job faster—and take one of your fingers in the process.

But while some SEOs will lose a metaphorical finger (or two) by jumping knee-deep into AI content, others will make it work. Google’s algorithms are good, not perfect. So expect to see a few articles on shoddy AI content sites ranking like crazy and making bank.

Inevitably, though, these sites will tank. Not because they published AI content, but because they published low-quality content that never deserved to rank anyway.

Got questions? Disagree with me? Ping me on Twitter.

Related Topics:Care Content Doesnt Google Heres seo

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SEO

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

Published

3 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Max

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.

However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.

To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Writing Prompts For ChatGPT

What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?

A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.

The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.

Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.

ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.

How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT

Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”

ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.

Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.

If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.

For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”

Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.

However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.

Must-Have GPTs Assistant

I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.

This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.

It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)

Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024

For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.

With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.

Master Reverse Prompt Engineering

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.

By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.

One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.

This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.

Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.

Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts

First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.

Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.

Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”

Reverse Prompt engineering via WebChatGPT

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”

Reverse prompt engineering: Amazon product

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”

Reverse prompt engineering an SEJ blog post

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.

Go Deeper

Prompts and examples for SEO:

Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”

Important Considerations:

Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.

Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.

Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques

Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.

Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.

Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.

This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.

More resources:

Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock

SEO

Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey

Published

22 hours ago

April 23, 2024

Max

Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey

Understanding the impact of your content at every touchpoint of the customer journey is essential – but that’s easier said than done. From attracting potential leads to nurturing them into loyal customers, there are many touchpoints to look into.

So how do you identify and take advantage of these opportunities for growth?

Watch this on-demand webinar and learn a comprehensive approach for measuring the value of your content initiatives, so you can optimize resource allocation for maximum impact.

You’ll learn:

Fresh methods for measuring your content’s impact.
Fascinating insights using first-touch attribution, and how it differs from the usual last-touch perspective.
Ways to persuade decision-makers to invest in more content by showcasing its value convincingly.

With Bill Franklin and Oliver Tani of DAC Group, we unravel the nuances of attribution modeling, emphasizing the significance of layering first-touch and last-touch attribution within your measurement strategy.

Check out these insights to help you craft compelling content tailored to each stage, using an approach rooted in first-hand experience to ensure your content resonates.

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to content measurement, this webinar promises valuable insights and actionable tactics to elevate your SEO game and optimize your content initiatives for success.

View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.

SEO

How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords

Published

1 day ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Competitor keywords are the keywords your rivals rank for in Google’s search results. They may rank organically or pay for Google Ads to rank in the paid results.

Knowing your competitors’ keywords is the easiest form of keyword research. If your competitors rank for or target particular keywords, it might be worth it for you to target them, too.

There is no way to see your competitors’ keywords without a tool like Ahrefs, which has a database of keywords and the sites that rank for them. As far as we know, Ahrefs has the biggest database of these keywords.

How to find all the keywords your competitor ranks for

Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
Enter your competitor’s domain
Go to the Organic keywords report

The report is sorted by traffic to show you the keywords sending your competitor the most visits. For example, Mailchimp gets most of its organic traffic from the keyword “mailchimp.”

Since you’re unlikely to rank for your competitor’s brand, you might want to exclude branded keywords from the report. You can do this by adding a Keyword > Doesn’t contain filter. In this example, we’ll filter out keywords containing “mailchimp” or any potential misspellings:

Filtering out branded keywords in Organic keywords report

If you’re a new brand competing with one that’s established, you might also want to look for popular low-difficulty keywords. You can do this by setting the Volume filter to a minimum of 500 and the KD filter to a maximum of 10.

Finding popular, low-difficulty keywords in Organic keywords

How to find keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t

Go to Competitive Analysis
Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
Enter your competitor’s domain in the But these competitors do section

Hit “Show keyword opportunities,” and you’ll see all the keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t.

You can also add a Volume and KD filter to find popular, low-difficulty keywords in this report.

How to find keywords multiple competitors rank for, but you don’t

Go to Competitive Analysis
Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
Enter the domains of multiple competitors in the But these competitors do section

Competitive analysis report with multiple competitors

You’ll see all the keywords that at least one of these competitors ranks for, but you don’t.

Content gap report with multiple competitors

You can also narrow the list down to keywords that all competitors rank for. Click on the Competitors’ positions filter and choose All 3 competitors:

Selecting all 3 competitors to see keywords all 3 competitors rank for

Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
Enter your competitor’s domain
Go to the Paid keywords report

This report shows you the keywords your competitors are targeting via Google Ads.

Since your competitor is paying for traffic from these keywords, it may indicate that they’re profitable for them—and could be for you, too.

You know what keywords your competitors are ranking for or bidding on. But what do you do with them? There are basically three options.

1. Create pages to target these keywords

You can only rank for keywords if you have content about them. So, the most straightforward thing you can do for competitors’ keywords you want to rank for is to create pages to target them.

However, before you do this, it’s worth clustering your competitor’s keywords by Parent Topic. This will group keywords that mean the same or similar things so you can target them all with one page.

Here’s how to do that:

Export your competitor’s keywords, either from the Organic Keywords or Content Gap report

Paste them into Keywords Explorer
Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab

For example, MailChimp ranks for keywords like “what is digital marketing” and “digital marketing definition.” These and many others get clustered under the Parent Topic of “digital marketing” because people searching for them are all looking for the same thing: a definition of digital marketing. You only need to create one page to potentially rank for all these keywords.

Keywords under the cluster of "digital marketing"

2. Optimize existing content by filling subtopics

You don’t always need to create new content to rank for competitors’ keywords. Sometimes, you can optimize the content you already have to rank for them.

How do you know which keywords you can do this for? Try this:

Export your competitor’s keywords

Paste them into Keywords Explorer
Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
Look for Parent Topics you already have content about

For example, if we analyze our competitor, we can see that seven keywords they rank for fall under the Parent Topic of “press release template.”

Our competitor ranks for seven keywords that fall under the "press release template" cluster

If we search our site, we see that we already have a page about this topic.

Site search finds that we already have a blog post on press release templates

If we click the caret and check the keywords in the cluster, we see keywords like “press release example” and “press release format.”

Keywords under the cluster of "press release template"

To rank for the keywords in the cluster, we can probably optimize the page we already have by adding sections about the subtopics of “press release examples” and “press release format.”