10 ways to leverage generative AI for advanced SEO

Generative AI is revolutionizing SEO, especially for large websites dealing with complex technical challenges. 

AI’s exceptional capacity to analyze data, forecast trends, aid content creation and automate tasks can help shift your SEO approach from reactive to proactive. 

Discover 10 ways to enhance your SEO using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing Chat and Claude by Anthropic.

1. Improving information architecture

An internal linking structure optimized for the customer’s buying journey and search behaviors captures top- and mid-funnel search traffic. It also improves user experience to drive engagement and conversions. 

Generative AI can help organize inventory, content and demand data to create the optimal internal linking structure. 

Inventory structuring for an SEO-friendly taxonomy

• Use generative AI to examine the current content on a website, whether it’s product listings on an online store or the entire collection of articles for a web publisher. 
• Extract a clear and detailed organizational structure that mirrors the site’s content. 
• This structure should cover various user intents and needs throughout the purchase process.
• Cross-reference it with demand and internal search data to ensure that taxonomy category names align with the vocabulary commonly used by users who search for these items. 
• Use this taxonomy as the backbone of the site structure to improve user experience. 
• For example, when used to extract a taxonomy for an online antique bookshop using unstructured book description data, AI can easily produce logical, granular categories and attribute taxonomies based on genres, subgenres, authors, editions, themes, moods, publishing houses, eras, etc.

Adaptive navigation

• AI can improve the website’s navigation when used to analyze how customers browse and search. 
• It creates a more user-friendly experience by considering the right mix of supply and demand data and user preferences, ultimately boosting user engagement.

2. Content enrichment 

Don’t be afraid to leverage generative AI to elevate your content strategy. AI can become your trusted companion and a go-to tool for content gap analyses, content enrichment opportunities and more.

Predictive content planning

• Utilize AI to analyze internal and external search behaviors and sales data to identify emerging trends. 
• The online bookshop from the previous example might monitor Google, Amazon or other marketplaces to detect increases in search volumes and chatter around specific literary genres, books, or authors, which could signal opportunities for new content creation.

Seasonal content alignment 

• Leverage generative AI to develop a content calendar that aligns with seasonal occurrences, literary events, book launches, or writing competitions.
• This helps ensure that the sites’s content marketing remains relevant and timely.

 Dig deeper: 17 tips to improve your AI-assisted content creation process

3. Enhancing data analysis

AI can be a valuable tool for understanding your audience, its search patterns and on-site behaviors – use these insights to evolve your SEO strategy.

User engagement insights

• Use generative AI tools to analyze user engagement data, such as page views, time spent on pages and click-through rates, to identify the most engaging content and winning page types. 
• Understand how users interact with different content types and what captures their interest the most, then build on these insights.

Behavioral pattern recognition

• Utilize AI to detect patterns in user behavior, such as common exit points or frequently browsed sections. 
• Evaluate findings to zero in on user experience issues or SEO content gap opportunities.

Key audience segments

• Go beyond GA affinity categories to pinpoint specific customer segments that are most engaged, such as those interested in historical fiction or rare collectibles.
• Use these insights to expand related content offerings or product inventory to capture organic demand.

4. Elevating keyword strategy

Use generative AI technology to go beyond traditional keyword research by analyzing competitors and predicting high-value, popular and relevant keywords for your business.

While many existing SEO platforms like Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz and others already rely on some AI capabilities to enhance their tooling, AI-powered Bing Chat can help take keyword research to the next level. 

SEO query simulation with Bing Chat

Identify key themes and topics

Start by identifying the main themes and topics relevant to your niche. For an antique bookshop, this could include phrases like “victorian literature,” “rare first editions,” or “antique poetry collections.”

Formulate potential customer queries

Use the initial list of topics and phrases to create an expanded list of seed search queries that your customers might use, such as “best victorian novels,” “where to find rare first editions,” or “antique poetry book recommendations.” (You can use ChatGPT here.)

Engage with Bing Chat

Access Bing Chat through Microsoft Edge and simulate the customer search process by feeding the chatbot the formulated queries.

Analyze the results

Analyze the search results provided by Bing Chatbot for each query. Pay attention to the types of content – blogs, product listings, articles – that rank well and note down recurring themes or keywords that appear within the top results – these are likely to be top SEO performers in your niche.

Apply insights to your SEO strategy

Use the insights to shape your content strategy. For example, if top results for “victorian literature guides” contain book recommendations, analyses of key themes and authors of this era, or poetry collections, consider optimizing existing content or investing in equivalent new content that could compete with these formats.

Bonus: Use Bing Chat for keyword contextualization

Convert key topics and queries into questions, such as “What are popular Victorian novel genres?” or “How do people collect rare first editions?” to understand the broader context in which these keywords are used and discussed.

Note patterns in how these keywords are used and see if some terms tend to occur in specific contexts or alongside particular topics. 

For instance, if you find that “rare first editions” are commonly discussed in collecting and preserving, consider tailoring your content to this need.

5. Schema optimization for SERP features

Google’s SERP has come a long way since the days of “10 blue links.” 

Dozens of SERP features make up today’s universal results. While not all are designed to funnel traffic to the publisher’s website, increasing visibility across SERP features is critical for building brand and top-of-mind awareness.

Tools like ChatGPT can greatly help identify rich snippet and SERP feature opportunities for various content and page types (i.e., book listings, reviews, question-answer pages, or images) and generate the right schema markup.

Featured snippet listing placements – the coveted Position Zero – often see CTRs of over 30%. Maximize your organic CTR opportunity by leveraging ChatGPT to suggest formatting options that will help optimize your high-ranking pages for featured snippet placements.

6. Unlocking insights from off-site data

Off-site signals, brand sentiment, ratings, reviews and user feedback that appear across social media and other platforms can offer valuable insights for product improvements and reveal tremendous opportunities for building brand authority and trust, which are critically important in the age of E-E-A-T.

While many great platforms and tools leverage generative AI for brand sentiment analysis, it’s possible to accomplish the task with ChatGPT, Bing Chat, or similar tools.

Data aggregation

Use Bing Chat to search for recent news articles, blog posts, social media posts and forum discussions about your brand. Compile this data into a document or a database for analysis.

Initial analysis with ChatGPT

Input the aggregated data into ChatGPT, prompting it to summarize the overall sentiment expressed in the data provided. 

Ask the chatbot to identify key themes and topics that are frequently mentioned in relation to your brand. 

Contextual understanding with Bing Chat

Use Bing Chat to understand the broader context of the sentiment. For example, if there’s a negative sentiment, it can help explore the reasons behind it by providing related news or social media posts. 

Use it to analyze the data in bulk to identify user sentiments, find patterns and issue actionable recommendations that can be used to improve online reputation, adjust product inventory, or highlight other areas of concern or opportunity.

7. Trend prediction

Use generative AI to identify and capture emerging trends before the competition does. 

From freely accessible Google Trends to more complex and tailored solutions using TensorFlow or Keras to build tailored predictive models, the market is saturated with AI-driven predictive models.

While AI can also be leveraged for trend prediction, it requires a more creative approach involving information aggregation, summary and analysis. 

Prompt the tool to compile recent news articles, blog posts and other relevant data on a given topic and request summaries of this information with an overview of current market trends to collect relevant insights.

8. Streamlining SEO analysis

Use generative AI to automate essential yet repetitive analytical SEO tasks, enhancing efficiency and allowing you to focus on strategic growth. 

Google Sheets and ChatGPT can provide simple, intuitive, budget-friendly solutions for ongoing data analysis, tracking and more.

Automate data exports

Automate data exports from GA, GSC, MySQL, or a range of SEO platforms directly in Google Sheets using existing Sheets add-ons, a third-party tool, Google Apps Script, or a built-in integration.

Use GPT for Sheets or a similar add-on

Connect to your OpenAI API using GPT for Sheets or a similar add-on and prompt analysis of the data directly in Sheets, streamlining your workflow.

(Reminder: Always exercise caution and common sense when leveraging AI models to analyze proprietary data.)

9. Creating content that resonates

Understanding the emotional needs of your audience can help create more relevant content that resonates with your users’ interests, increasing engagement. 

Leverage tools like Claude by Anthropic for feedback interpretation, extraction of emotional triggers, and underlying user preferences. 

Regularly re-evaluate and adjust your SEO content strategy using new insights from Claude to ensure that your content remains relevant and engaging.

10. Enhancing SEO storytelling

See your SEO strategy come to life using AI to transform SEO data into compelling narratives for more effective stakeholder presentations, strategy pitches and quarterly check-ins.

Data storytelling

• Utilize AI to analyze and present SEO metrics as engaging stories, illustrating your digital journey and its successes. 
• Map the story to the traditional and recognizable three-point narrative structure for optimal effectiveness.

Presentation enhancement

• Use generative AI to create matching visuals for clearer, impactful and consistent decks.

Audience analysis

• Knowing your audience and their triggers will help you set your SEO presentation up for success. AI can help you understand your audience and its internal dynamics based on known data and inferences. 
• Evaluate AI-generated insights and suggestions and use them where appropriate to make small but impactful tweaks to your pitch. 

Using generative AI to streamline your SEO efforts

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing Chat and Claude by Anthropic provide immense opportunities to optimize and enhance virtually all aspects of an SEO strategy.

AI can drive efficiencies, uncover insights, predict trends and better help websites align with search intent and user needs. 

By embracing AI’s multifaceted applications, SEO professionals can shift their approach from reactive to proactive, gaining a competitive edge and the ability to continuously refine and improve performance.

Dig deeper: How to integrate generative AI in your SEO