Using AI chatbots to 10X your keyword research

Many search marketers now leverage AI tools to support their SEO efforts, according to International SEO Consultant, Aleyda Solis.

However, while Google has confirmed that AI-generated content is OK as long as it's high-quality, original and useful, the search engine has also indicated that expertise and content based on real human experience will be rewarded with better visibility.

Finding the right back balance is key, and SEOs that fail to do this are likely to struggle to be competitive, Solis explained at SMX Advanced. But where to start?

Here's a recap of Solis' top tips on how marketers can make the most out of AI, beyond generating articles, to maximize their keyword research.

1. Give specific, descriptive and comprehensive prompts

If you want the best possible answers from generative AI tools, you need to use the best possible prompts, Solis said.

"Make your prompts specific, descriptive and comprehensive," she said before adding that instructions should address the five Ws and the H:

Who is the target audience?
What is the expected goal?
Where is it going to be used?
When is it going to be used?
Why do you want to use it?
How do we want to deliver this (e.g. format, language, tone, structure, length)?

Following these prompt rules can potentially save you a lot of time and produce quality results.

2. Hot topics inspiration

You can also generate ideas for hot topics using chatbots. If, for example, a TV show (e.g., "Succession") was trending, you could leverage AI to find out the top 10 most searched-for questions about the series, she said:

"AI will provide the results in a table, listing the top questions and search intent."
"I can then create content that piggybacks on the popularity of this TV series, which is amazing."
"This can save you so much time as you now don't have to go around using different tools to get these ideas."

3. Generate article ideas

Once you've discovered hot topics using AI, you can connect these findings to your brand's subject matter expert to produce article ideas.

Solis said she combined her research on "Succession" with the subject matter of a website on remote work. AI provided her with five potential article topic ideas:

"You can also obtain suggestions based on the top ranking articles."
"Using AI, you can see what pages are already ranking well for the query that you want to target."
"I asked for five article topic ideas that will allow me to rank for 'Succession remote working' based on the current articles ranking for this query in the top positions (but without copying them), then prioritize them based on the level of potential popularity and the user search behavior."
"It's such a creative tool!"

4. Deep dive with People also ask questions

Are you using AI to discover the intent behind Google's People also ask questions? By identifying intent, the risk of duplication can also be eliminated, Solis said:

"I love People Also Ask – it helps you to understand how to structure questions."

You can use AI to suggest title tags and descriptions for each keyword.

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6. Discover your competition

Another great way to use AI in your day-to-day SEO tasks – use it to find out who your competitors are for specific keywords. Solis explained:

"This doesn't only serve as an input to pretty much create content, but also to validate and check that you're actually targeting the right thing."
"So for example, if we are looking at who are the top five websites publishing content about ChatGPT for SEO and what are the top pages that they publish about this topic in 2023, you can use this tool for research."
"But you can also validate and verify that what you are writing will provide a new and different angle on a topic that is actually also already popular too and already covered by the main websites in your industry."

7. Inspiration without duplication

AI can suggest new and fresh content ideas for topics that rival websites have already covered. Solis said:

"You can ask AI to suggest three topics that have been covered but without duplicating the topics."
"Just ask AI to suggest headlines for these topics."

8. Validation and confirmation

Are you uncertain about certain questions, such as "is a single page enough to target two different search queries relating to this topic"? AI can help provide the answers. This type of validation is also applicable for a more international search scenario. Solis added:

"You can check if it is viable to run for a query across different country markets with the same pages because you may think, do I need different versions of this page to target this query in the UK versus the US versus Australia? Because while the language is the same, we know that in certain cases the terminology can be different."
"We can double check again by asking AI what type of pages are ranking in the top 10 positions in the UK, US and Australia."

9. Obtain video content ideas

You can also ask AI for different video content ideas based on topics and keywords that are trending.

For example, you can ask it suggest five video topics for ChatGPT for SEO based on existing trending video content. Explaining why this tool can be particularly helpful to marketers, Solis said:

"Many times, we can get [inspiration] blockage and cannot come up with something new and it's difficult to identify trending topics to maximise that others are not yet covering. This is a great solution."
"We can also get suggestions on hashtags for these videos when optimizing them for YouTube but without copying those in the top front pages."

When marketers are working on more technical campaigns, perhaps in the medical or health industries, it's important to be able to provide scientific quotes and cite research.

Solis explained that AI tools like Consensus were great for such tasks. She said:

"Tools like Consensus to get scientific insights to quote and link to have been so useful."

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