Robots are coming for your job. At least, that’s what they say.
AI in content marketing is everywhere right now, and for a good reason.
Content marketing provides a massive return on investment (we like to see at least three to four times the ROI for our clients), so it’s only natural to want a simple, cost-effective solution to pump out content quickly.
But will AI content marketing tools actually help your business rank?
Will we soon be out of the job?
Let’s take a look.
What Is AI Content Marketing?
AI content marketing is exactly what it sounds like. Content marketing that uses artificial intelligence (AI).
There are a variety of tools on the market, but some of the most exciting — and maybe problematic — are the robo-writing tools. These are tools marketers can use to generate blog posts, press releases, website copy, social media copy, or even video scripts.
Many robo-writers use GPT-4, an AI language generator created by Open AI. GPT-4 is a complex language model that can generate human-like content from just a few words.
The biggest selling point for these tools is that they can create content quickly and at a fraction of the cost of hiring a writer.
But you might not want to get rid of your writing staff just yet.
Will AI Content Work for SEO?
Let’s address the elephant in the room. We do create human content, so we could see how you might thing we’d be naturally against AI content. That’s reasonable, but we have a business value of “Strive to be Better” — and if it means incorporating AI to create better content, we are very happy to do it.
We truly believe that AI content marketing can’t replace humans, but it could add value to the content humans create.
We see AI being useful for brainstorming titles or post ideas, helping spot grammar mistakes, or giving general suggestions to simplify copy.
But we don’t think it’s good at creating:
- Comprehensive outlines for SEO content
- Creative content
- A quality long-form narrative
- Content that’s additive to existing results
- Design that adds value
To answer the question: Will AI work for SEO content? Well, maybe. But we don’t recommend letting it create content from start to finish. And it’s definitely not going to replace human creativity anytime soon.
The Pitfalls Of AI Generated Content
Let’s try something really fast.
I’m going to show you two pieces of content highlighting some of the pitfalls of AI content writing tools.
One’s human … the other … isn’t.
Maybe that example is a little extreme. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m human, so if I really focus, I can nail that whole conversational tone, right?
Let’s take a deeper look here and dissect what makes my writing human and AI writing not.
Voice And Tone Matter
As you read this, think about how it might sound.
The pauses. The cadence. The tone.
AI hasn’t grasped the nuances of human language. It’s built on great big data sets, and while it can spot patterns with natural language processing, it doesn’t feel anything. That’s super important when you want a piece of content that engages readers.
Anyone, man or robot, can spew out an informative piece of content that satisfies the absolute bare minimum that Google wants. And you know what? It may even get you to the first page if it’s not flagged as spam.
But look at top content producers. Look at the SEO heavyweights.
They have a voice.
That’s what turns a good blog post into a great one.
AI Content Is Limited To Fragments
AI content writing tools create content by scraping the web for relevant posts and then stitching it together so that it’s vaguely readable.
That means it can only create something that already exists in one form or another. Oftentimes, when it’s slapped together, it doesn’t feel like a single piece of fluid content.
Ever seen the movie Chappie? It’s about an innocent robot whose genius creator tries to instill wholesome moral teachings, but the robot is stolen by a quirky pair of gangsters looking for trouble.
Throughout the film, the robot, Chappie, adopts different traits from both of its teachers. I’ll save you the synopsis, but you can notice a little of this in these AI content writing tools.
Because they pull info from anywhere and everywhere and then Frankenstein it all together, you may end up with a piece of content that’s a little bit wholesome computer wiz and a little bit criminal underground.
Even worse, there’s no guarantee that it’s original — this comes with its own problems.
Design Is Everything
We love our designers here at Siege. We genuinely couldn’t do this without them.
Design is a huge part of creating content that ranks.
Our design strategy begins as we’re outlining a post. We chat with designers throughout the entire process, sharing ideas to hone in on exactly the visualization we feel a piece of content needs to take it to the next level.
Sure, AI can “design,” but you’ll still have to tell it what to create. Plus, the end result can be a little weird, to say the least.
Now just imagine trying to tell it to create an infographic showing marketing statistics.
AI Kills Creativity
Listen, AI is great. It plays a key role in our daily lives. From traffic lights to Google searches, it’s everywhere. But overreliance on AI can take the spark out of life. No one wants Siri to manage every aspect of their existence, after all.
You need spontaneity and creativity. This is something AI just can’t offer. Creative content is fun to read, and it’s good for rankings.
There is a lot that goes into our content ideas here at Siege. In fact, we’ve created a whole methodology we like to call V.I.N.E.S. to keep content creative and interesting.
V.I.N.E.S. is our out-of-the-box research method. In short, we scour the web for:
- Videos
- Images
- News
- Expert commentary
- Social media
This helps us create content that readers are actually looking for.
AI regurgitates what’s already out there, so when Google sees more of the same, why would they rank it higher than what’s tried and true?
To drive meaningful results, you need to build meaningful traffic. And that comes from out-of-the-box thinking. Unfortunately, AI content is very far inside the box.
And while AI pulls content from all over, it can’t compete with content built from research across multiple mediums.
Do you think AI is looking at Etsy shopping trends to create a post about bachelorette party gifts? We’re willing to bet it isn’t.
Google Is Smart
And its AI is probably better than yours.
Google’s AI can tell if your content was written by a human or a robot. And guess what? It’s not a fan of robo-content. In fact, it sees AI-generated content as spam, which is against its guidelines.
Even if it’s good, AI-generated content won’t pass the AI sniff test. Google wants content that engages users and adds value. AI-generated content can only take from what already exists.
AI content tools can be useful for identifying trends or topics you should cover, but they’re no substitute for quality research and analysis backed up by data. AI won’t create a masterpiece of an article with compelling insight — it just can’t think like a human can.
Quantity Isn’t Always a Good Thing
AI content marketing tools might help create a ton of content quickly. They may even generate some decent short-term results, especially if you’re targeting lower-difficulty terms.
But that isn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, high publishing volume may even hurt your traffic in the long run. Although our data below doesn’t reflect AI-generated content, it does reflect low-quality content — resulting in similar outcomes.
Why?
Well, it won’t attract links, and (perhaps more importantly) readers won’t engage with your content. High-quality content will keep readers on the page for longer, showing Google that your content is actually helpful. A burst of lower-quality content that users might not engage with, however, will show Google just the opposite.
AI Content Marketing Tools Do Have Some Benefits
So we’ve been pretty harsh on AI content, but AI content marketing tools do have some benefits.
They can spot grammar mistakes you may have missed, improve the readability of your content, and even help cure writer’s block. But they’re not a substitute for human creativity.
If you insist on using AI content marketing tools, take a look at these dos and don’ts first:
Do:
- Use AI content tools to help identify gaps in your content strategy. AI can help you quickly research topics and suggest potential titles for your blog posts, articles, or other content.
- Take advantage of AI’s ability to help you with grammar and spelling mistakes. AI tools (mixed with the expertise of a copy editor) can help you catch major spelling and syntax errors.
- Use AI to test out different ideas before committing to a certain strategy or approach. AI can provide insights into what’s performing well in the market, so you don’t have to experiment too much on your own.
- Invest time into learning how AI works and what it can do. The better you understand AI, the more you can get out of it.
Don’t:
- Rely solely on AI content tools without any human input or oversight. AI is only as good as the data it is given, so AI content tools should always be double-checked by a human.
- Use AI to replace creative work entirely. AI can provide insights and help steer your content creation in the right direction, but AI cannot replace creativity or storytelling skills.
- Forget that AI has limitations. AI isn’t perfect, and it’s important to remember this and adjust accordingly when creating content with AI content tools.
- Jump into using AI without doing your own research first. AI tools pull from information across the web, but if you’ve spent even five seconds on the internet, you know that not all of that information is reliable.
What Are Some Of The Top AI Content Marketing Tools?
There are a ton of AI tools out there, and they all come with some pretty big promises. And while we don’t use AI content marketing tools at Siege, there are a few that we think are interesting.
OpenAI
Open AI just released one of the most exciting leaps in AI content development with its ChatGPT language model.
It’s so good, in fact, that I’m going to let it tell you about itself:
Basically, it’s the most human-sounding AI content tool…ever. And it’s completely free. Though it’s not without its flaws.
Some of ChatGPT’s limitations include:
- Plausible but factually incorrect outputs
- Rigid and presumptive responses to more open-ended inquiries
- Overuses some phrases
It’s also worth noting that there are already other AI tools popping up left and right that aim to detect whether or not AI wrote a piece of content.
So, while it may be one of the most advanced and exciting AI tools to date, it’s not quite ready to replace humans completely. But it could be a great resource to speed up and add to your natural creativity and flair.
Ok, ChatGPT, we get it.
Grammarly
Microsoft Word has had spell check for as long as we can remember, but Grammarly takes it to the next level.
Grammarly is an AI-powered tool that can help you edit and proofread your content quickly and (mostly) accurately. It also provides suggestions to improve the quality of your writing and even ensure you didn’t accidentally plagiarize any of your copy.
There is a free version and a paid version. The free version is pretty basic, tagging only the simplest mistakes, while the paid version costs $144 per year and provides suggestions to improve readability, clarity, and delivery.
While Grammarly is pretty sophisticated, it’s not perfect, so be sure to double-check its suggestions if you do decide to use it.
Hemingway Editor
The late, great Ernest Hemingway had a knack for keeping things simple. And with Hemingway Editor, you can channel your inner Ernest.
The free app can help you edit your copy for clarity, readability, and brevity. It’s a straightforward tool without any bells and whistles. It does one thing, and it does it well.
All you need to do is copy a piece of content into the app, and it will show you the content’s readability and where you can improve it.
Take a look:
BuzzSumo
Buzzsumo uses AI to scan the web, analyzing engagement levels and trends to provide you with topic suggestions. It also has built-in search filters so you can easily find what kind of topics are trending and popular within your niche.
Using it, you’ll be able to identify the most engaging content for your target audience quickly. This AI tool is great for helping you create content that will stand out from the competition and maximize your reach.
BuzzSumo has a free version, but if you want to unlock all of its features, you’ll need to fork out $299 per month.
Jasper.ai
Jasper.ai is an AI-powered content generation tool that can help kickstart content creation.
This tool can take a single sentence and turn it into an entire blog post, article, or webpage in minutes. But that doesn’t mean the content is always good — or unique. And don’t forget, Google sees AI-generated content as spam, which is a big no-no.
You can use Jasper for inspiration, but be careful not to use it as a crutch!
At $109 per month, it’s not for everyone, so consider if you really need AI-powered content creation or if a human writer can serve the same purpose.
So, Is AI Easy-Mode For Content Creators?
Of course, we’re averse to AI content tools here at Siege. They’re in competition with our business model. But we’ll be the first to acknowledge that they could be helpful if you use them correctly. And at the rate things are developing, it would be silly not to acknowledge how important these tools could become.
AI content marketing tools can save time, spot errors, and improve the quality of content. But it’ll be a long time before they replace human writers.
At Siege, we take serious pride in our content, and good content is built on creativity, not cutting corners.
Ready to create something amazing together? Drop us a line.
