You might ask yourself: “Helpful content? Who’s creating UNhelpful content?” Believe it or not, there are many websites out there designed to exploit Google’s ranking algorithms to make a quick buck.

Some good news: If you’re already concerned about keeping your website helpful, you probably don’t need to be concerned about these algorithm changes. Most established sites with dedicated SEO strategies are already generating helpful content.

Still, Google’s ongoing updates to its Helpful Content System can impact even the most helpful sites. This is why it’s so important to stay up-to-date on changing algorithms and search trends. As new algorithm updates roll out and Google’s ranking strategy continues to evolve, even the most established sites should remain focused on producing high-quality content.

Read more about Google’s Helpful Content Update below and learn how to use these updates to earn an organic boost for your website.

What is the Helpful Content Update?

In August 2022, Google rolled out its first algorithm update focused on promoting helpful content. The Helpful Content System, a suite of ranking factors Google uses to determine the “helpfulness” of content, was designed to improve the search landscape by:

1. Elevating content that searchers find most informative, and 
2. Flagging for penalty any content that doesn’t offer value to searchers.

An important note: Helpful content is a site-wide signal, meaning that any unhelpful content on your site can impact your entire site’s performance.

Since that first roll out, two other iterations of the Helpful Content System have been introduced, with the most recent edition coming live in September 2023. And with so much buzz around the system to this day, it seems likely that an emphasis on helpful content will remain relevant for the long term.

What is Helpful Content?

As defined by Google, helpful content is “original, helpful content created for people.” Generally, this means that your site content answers the questions that searchers are asking in Google Search and leaves a visitor feeling satisfied after visiting your site.

Experts at Search Engine Land have identified four main factors to consider when determining whether a site’s content is helpful:

1. Content is designed with a specific purpose and audience in mind.
2. Content relies on (and makes prominent) expertise on the topic.
3. Content is trustworthy and credible.
4. Content is designed to help searchers find what they’re looking for.

Keeping these factors in mind when developing new content, or auditing existing webpages, ensures that your site benefits searchers, maintains its search rankings, and drives more organic traffic.

4 Major Factors That Make for Helpful Content

Google has made it very clear that its Helpful Content System exists to meet the needs of searchers. But without clear guidance, it can be very difficult to know exactly how to judge your site’s content quality. These four criteria can help SEOs and content creators to understand exactly what that requires.

1. Designed for a Specific Audience

Optimizing a site for SEO is often a numbers game. Content marketers are always looking for high-search volume keywords to target, while remaining in a level of competition that makes sense for their brand and allows them to rank.

However, while a robust and varied content repository is important to have, sites must still be careful to “stay in their lane.” For example, if my website is about photography, I shouldn’t be writing articles about toy cars. It’s too far from the core topic of my site, and my target audience isn’t coming to my website to learn about toy cars.

Your website should have one, clear focus. Broadening your content base in that space is fine, but moving into completely different verticals can signal that your site is more focused on ranking for more keywords than helping your audience find what they’re looking for. And at the end of the day, writing content for people is most important anyways. Building winning content strategies requires a clear focus and robust supporting articles.

This is why the popular pillar page strategy is so effective. A list of target keywords is broken into distinct topic clusters, and each topic cluster is then mapped to a unique blog article designed to rank for only those keywords. Pillar pages are those pages targeting a high-search-volume topic cluster core to the site’s purpose. This strategy allows your blog to cover more ground while staying focused on its main area of expertise.

2. Utilizes Expertise

Google has always placed an emphasis on real expertise when ranking content. In the early days, this meant the .gov and .edu sites got a leg up on many searches, as they were seen as more likely to be experts in their respective spaces.

Now, search engines look for content that refers to or quotes experts. My blog article about photography shot composure could have perfectly-optimized meta tags and content, but might still struggle to rank. Including a quote from an expert photographer, or linking out to their blog, can give my content a boost in rankings.

Additionally, first-hand expertise is incredibly valuable. If my blog article includes reviews of popular cameras, including proof that I have used each of the cameras I’m reviewing, my article will likely rank prominently. Google promotes content that relies on first-hand experience, so including any mentions of this can be incredibly powerful, especially in instances of review content.

Search engines want to see that content marketers are doing their research and getting their facts from reputable sources. Featuring this expertise in your content can therefore have large payoffs.

3. Trustworthy and Credible

Similar to the use of expertise, search engines want to feature content that searchers can trust. The same blog article published by two sources can rank differently based on the source’s reputation and established credibility.

This factor is a bit more difficult to impact than the others. Moz, creator of powerful SEO tools and an SEO thought leader, developed their Domain Authority score to measure this exact factor. A site’s Domain Authority is based on the site’s overall credibility, measured mainly by the number and quality of backlinks pointing to the site.

While Domain Authority can be difficult to quickly improve, writing articles on topics that your brand is known for can be a great way to ensure you’re getting the most out of your content. High-quality, authoritative, shareable content is more likely to attract backlinks from other domains, lending a boost to your site’s Domain Authority.

4. Helping Searchers Find What They’re Looking For

This last point may seem obvious, but it represents the core of Google’s Helpful Content System. Keeping your content focused on the altruistic purpose of the internet, helping users find information based on their search query, can be the best way to make sure your content ranks well.

So how do you do this?

Write content for people, content that gives useful information concisely. Avoid burying answers to questions in paragraphs of text, and make it clear, to search engines and people, what they can expect to find on each page. Your goal is to provide users with a satisfying experience, so consider your audience’s perspective when developing copy.

Why Should You Care About Helpful Content?

In addition to helping keep the web a productive and efficient place, keeping your website full of helpful content can have plenty of performance benefits. Helpful content is more likely to rank well for its target keywords, leading to more search traffic and more conversions.

With recent announcements and advances, many are wondering how AI will revolutionize content marketing. When deciding whether or not to use AI-generated content on your website, it’s wise to keep helpful content in mind.

While Google has made no mention of how AI content may impact helpfulness, keeping these four factors in mind when producing any new content will benefit your site. As Google has stated: “If you see AI as an essential way to help you produce content that is helpful and original, it might be useful to consider. If you see AI as an inexpensive, easy way to game search engine rankings, then no [you should not use AI to generate content].”

Want to learn more about these strategies and our comprehensive SEO services? Reach out to the team at sales@synapsesem.com.

The switch from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has come with both benefits and challenges for marketers. One of the most exciting benefits on the data analysis and warehousing front is the free (no 360 required!) BigQuery link.  

This link allows you to seamlessly export your GA4 data into Google BigQuery—a powerful, fully managed, and serverless data warehouse in the Google Cloud Platform. By combining the capabilities of GA4 with the analytical prowess of BigQuery, you can unlock a wealth of possibilities for extracting valuable information from your data. 

In this guide, we’ll explain how to leverage the BigQuery GA4 Export to its fullest potential. You’ll explore its advantages and discover how to set up the export, understand its data schema, and harness the power of BigQuery SQL queries to derive meaningful insights from your GA4 data. 

Why Should I Export GA4 Data to BigQuery? 

In the world of digital analytics, collecting data is just the first step in the journey toward meaningful insights. The true power lies in your ability to extract valuable information, identify trends, and make informed decisions. GA4 is a powerful tool in its own right, but to supercharge your data analysis, you should consider exporting your GA4 data to Google BigQuery for the following reasons: 

1. Integrate GA4 data with other sources: To gain a comprehensive view of your business performance, it’s best to combine your GA4 data with other sources. BigQuery offers seamless integration with various data connectors, making it possible to merge your GA4 data with advertising data from Google Ads, your CRM, or even external datasets. With all your data integrated, you can build customized audience segments, explore traffic attribution, and build simple machine learning models. 
2. Accelerated Data Visualization: For those dealing with sluggish GA4 data load times in BI and data visualization tools like Google Data Studio, Google BigQuery is a game-changer. The BigQuery BI Engine smartly caches frequently used data, drastically speeding up SQL queries and boosting the efficiency of data visualization and Business Intelligence tools. This translates to faster insights, smoother interactions, and an overall more responsive experience. 
3. Automate repetitive tasks: One of the biggest efficiency-boosters of using BigQuery is the ability to automate repetitive analyses and data pulls. By setting up automated queries and reports, you can eliminate the need for manual data extraction and analysis, saving valuable time and resources.  
4. Advanced analysis:  BigQuery is a powerful tool that supports advanced analytics and machine learning applications, enabling you to delve deeper into your data. You can perform complex analyses, conduct predictive modeling, and identify trends that might have remained hidden.  
5. Avoid sampling and thresholding: The BigQuery export contains raw data from GA4. This allows you to bypass data limitations you may see in the GA4 platform, such as sampling, cardinality, and thresholding. 

To fully reap the benefits of the GA4 BigQuery export, it’s essential to set up the link as soon as possible. The export isn’t retroactive, meaning the sooner you create your link, the sooner you start accumulating valuable historical data.  

How to Link GA4 and BigQuery 

The first step to exporting your GA4 data to BigQuery is setting up a Google Cloud account. Google Cloud offers a free tier that includes 10 GB of data storage and up to 1 TB of querying each month. For most small to medium-sized businesses, this free tier provides more than enough resources to get started with a GA4 export to BigQuery.  

Once you have your Google Cloud account set up, make sure that your Google account has “Owner” permissions in Google Cloud and at least “Editor” permissions in GA4. After you complete these initial steps, you can move forward with enabling the BigQuery link from the Google Analytics admin tab: 

1. Navigate to BigQuery Links under the Product Links menu in your property settings.
   
2. Click Link to create a new connection. 
   
3. Click Choose a BigQuery project to see the list of projects you have access to. Select the project you want the export to be housed in and click Confirm.
   
4. Select a location for the data and click Next. 
5. Configure your settings. You can choose which data streams to include with the export and specific events to exclude from the export under Configure data streams and events.
   
6. Choose the types of tables you want to export. The Event data export is event-scoped, whereas in the User data export, each row represents a unique user. You can also choose the frequency of your Event data export: “Daily” for once a day and optional “Streaming” where the current day’s data will be stored and can be accessed immediately.
7. Review your settings, then click Submit to finish setting up your link. 

Once the link is created, it can take up to 24 hours for your data to appear in BigQuery. For daily exports, a new table will be exported each day that contains the previous day’s data.  

Understanding the Data Schema 

Now that you’ve set up your link, the next step to unlocking the benefits of the GA4 BigQuery export is understanding the structure of the data. 

Tables 

For Event data exports, a table named events_YYYYMMDD is created each day if you have enabled the Daily export option. If you’ve also chosen to export streaming data, you’ll see another table named events_intraday_YYYYMMDD, which is continuously populated as events are recorded throughout the day.  

The User data export will create up to two new tables. The table named pseudonymous_users_YYYYMMDD contains rows for every pseudo user ID, excluding users who have not consented to cookies. If you’ve set up user ID collection for your website and are sending that data to GA4, you will also see users_YYYYMMDD tables, which include data for unconsented users. For both User data table types, rows are updated when there is a change to one of the fields. 

Data Schema 

The columns in each table type represent the parameters that are available for querying. Google has provided detailed explanations of each parameter for both the event data export and the user data export in their documentation. 

How to Query and Analyze Your BigQuery GA4 Data 

Now that you’ve set up your link and gained an understanding of data schema, it’s time to put your data to work. SQL is the language used to interact with the tables in your BigQuery dataset, and it offers a standardized way to communicate with your data. Here’s how to access the built-in query editor in BigQuery: 

1. Login to Google Cloud Console: Go to the Google Cloud Console and sign in with your Google account. 
2. Access BigQuery: In the Cloud Console, click on the navigation menu (☰) in the top-left corner and select “BigQuery.” 
3. Select Your Project: Ensure you have the correct Google Cloud project selected in the project dropdown at the top of the BigQuery Console. 
4. Write SQL Queries: 
   • Click on your dataset on the left-hand panel, where you have your GA4 data stored. Select the table you want to query. 
   • Click the “Query” button. This opens a pane where you can write and execute SQL queries. 

If you’re just getting started with SQL, there are many free resources online to help you learn the language, such as Codeacademy and Datacamp. A great resource for generating GA4 BigQuery queries specifically, without writing any SQL of your own, is GA4 SQL. This tool allows you to select the metrics, dimensions, and filters you want to apply to the raw data export and paste them as-is into the query editor. Google has also provided some basic and advanced queries in their Query Cookbook for Google Analytics to help you get started analyzing your data. 

As you become more comfortable with SQL, you can modify and create custom queries tailored to your specific business needs. SQL is a versatile tool that empowers you to interact with your data and uncover valuable information, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user. 

If you’re eager to harness the benefits of exporting your GA4 data to BigQuery, you can also reach out to Synapse SEM for help. Our team of experts can handle everything, from setting up the export to creating comprehensive reports and analyses that provide actionable insights. Contact us by email at sales@synapsesem.com or by phone at 781-591-0752 to get started. 

No matter where you stand on AI, it’s no longer something we can ignore. In 2022 alone, AI companies received $1.37 billion in venture capital — which is more than in the previous five years combined. And businesses are taking note. According to a recent survey from IBM, 77 percent of businesses used or explored AI solutions in 2022. Around half of these organizations were already seeing the benefits of AI-powered tools to automate business processes, increase efficiencies, and provide better experiences for their customers, across a variety of industries.

In sales and marketing specifically, 30 percent of adopters reported up to a 10 percent increase in revenue after implementing AI technology.

As technology advances, so too must our digital marketing strategies. Because let’s face it: AI has transformed the search experience. Google uses AI in its algorithms. AI bots like ChatGPT are putting quick answers—and research—right at our fingertips. And AI-powered writing assistants are becoming increasingly popular to create web-based content and improve efficiencies across marketing teams.

Synapse SEM has investigated, trialed, and tested several popular AI tools on the market, to understand their value and potential application in the search engine optimization (SEO) space. We’ve also explored Google’s perspective on AI in relation to content creation for SEO, and compiled recommendations for how to use AI effectively in your SEO strategy. Let’s dive in.

5 Ways Businesses Can Use AI to Enhance Their SEO Strategy

Before delving into the possible AI tools that marketing professionals can use, let’s first cover what they can be used for. Here are some of the many use cases we’ve identified for AI-powered platforms in the world of search engine optimization.

1. Early Keyword Research

AI SEO tools can be used to curate lists of popular keywords related to a given topic. Depending on the platform being used, there may be a dedicated feature for keyword research. Or, if you are using an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, you can simply ask it to generate a list of keywords related to your query. However, there are limitations to this, which is why we suggested “early” keyword research. These tools can provide a jumping point for keyword ideas but should be supplemented with KPIs like search volume, historical conversions, and difficulty.

2. Topic Generation and Outlines

Similarly, AI tools can assist in developing blog topic ideas, as well as outlines to support them. For example, you can command an AI bot to craft a catchy headline for a blog post. An AI tool can also generate an outline for you, providing key bullet points to hit on in your article, and suggesting various subheadings to use throughout. However, it’s important to remember that these tools do not provide data-driven recommendations. They do not always know the full competitive landscape around a topic, or the search volume behind semantic keyword phrases. Therefore, use these tools for inspiration—but consider some outside research, too.

3. Content Generation

There are a variety of AI content generators out there now, that can literally write content for you. From Jasper.ai to Frase.io, these tools have the power to write long-form content with a little guidance from the user. You can say, “Write a blog post about the impact of AI on SEO” or, “Write a paragraph about popular AI writing tools.” An AI bot will quickly gather and process content from all corners of the web, to put together a one-of-a-kind piece that you can use for marketing purposes. However, be aware: These tools are borrowing information from other web pages. While they will not copy content word-for-word, they will create summaries of what others are saying. They may not provide the real value you are looking for (or the real value that you need to rank highly in Google today). Further, it is not possible to know whether the information they provide is accurate. AI writers have the potential to fill your content with inaccurate, unreliable, or simply uncited research – therefore requiring a human-grade QA.

4. Meta Tags and Website Coding

Several SEO-focused AI tools are familiar with the basic best practices of meta tag generation. For example, Frase and Jasper both have tools that can craft meta descriptions for your page, with just a little direction provided. They will provide a handful of options, within the recommended character count, for your selection, using the same logic as their writing assistants. Other AI tools, ChatGPT being one example, can help you with the development of code to use on the back-end of a website. For example, I asked ChatGPT to provide me with the HTML code for a meta description. It said:

However, a meta description is just one example of the many codes ChatGPT can provide. You can also ask this AI chatbot about Schema Markup, noindex and nofollow tags, Robots.txt coding, and more. Always be sure to QA what the AI tool provides you, though, as ChatGPT bases its recommendations only on learnings from other web results (and they may not be accurate).

5. Content Syndication and Link Building

Just as AI-assisting writing tools can build content for your website, they can also build content for your social media posts. How does this impact SEO, you might ask? Sharing your content on social media is an important part of increasing your brand’s visibility, and has the potential to attract backlinks to your site. You can use AI to help craft engaging social media posts that feature your content. Jasper.ai and Frase.io both have tools to aid in Instagram captions, for example.

Social syndication isn’t the only means of building links, either. Email outreach is another way to get your content in front of a larger audience, and build links back to your brand. You can use an AI-powered platform to develop professional email outreach templates to promote your content, request backlinks, or ask about guest blogging opportunities.

5 Examples of AI SEO Tools that Marketers Love

There are an extensive number of AI-powered tools available to businesses and agencies today. ChatGPT is perhaps one of the latest to hit this list, but the general concepts behind these technologies are similar. For marketing professionals, AI tools are being used to increase efficiencies in content development, ad generation, and website optimization purposes. Here are some examples of the most popular AI tools we came across for SEO purposes:

1.     ChatGPT:

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot that was designed to simulate online customer care. However, even that definition is an understatement. Launched in November 2022 by OpenAI, this chatbot has already taken the world by storm. In fact, this AI tool set the record for the fastest-growing platform within just two months of being launched, and recently became one of the 50 most visited websites in the world.

ChatGPT has the power to answer complex questions quickly and perform in-depth tasks, such as generating website code, drafting outreach emails, and—yes—writing content.

The tool is rooted in GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. This means it has been trained on a large dataset of text and statistics from the internet, and further programmed to accurately craft sentences, generate answers, write articles, as well as learn from its users. It is designed to mirror human-like dialogue.

Of course, I put ChatGPT to the test. When asked how ChatGPT can be leveraged for SEO, it replied:

Thanks, ChatGPT! Overall, I found that the tool – when it was accessible (it’s frequently at capacity) – was a great way to get quick answers and topic ideas. For content creators, ChatGPT could be an excellent resource for overcoming writer’s block, generating catchy headlines for blogs, or even developing an outline or bullet points for a forthcoming blog article. However, I would not recommend relying on it for content writing or optimization. This is for two main reasons:

• ChatGPT essentially summarizes what else is on the web. It does not provide uniquely valuable content and may not provide the most helpful content for your readers. Similarly, it may not provide the most accurate information or research, because it’s borrowing from other corners of the web.
• It does not apply competitor insights or best practices to the content it creates. It does not assess the top-ranking websites, understand which headlines would be most effective, or utilize semantic keywords to help your content rank.

With that, I would recommend utilizing ChatGPT as a guiding point for SEO tasks like:

• Blog ideas. ChatGPT can generate outlines, headlines, bullet points, and even statistics to help guide your blog content.
• Code generation. ChatGPT has a good grasp on things like noindex tags, structured data, and meta descriptions. Just remember to QA what ChatGPT recommends—it’s not always accurate.
• Short content inspiration. We don’t want to ignore its content development features, but take them with a grain of salt. Try using ChatGPT to create short snippets, such as for a new Facebook post, product description, or quick blurb to try and get that Featured Snippet.
• Email generation. The content produced by ChatGPT doesn’t need to be applied to websites, but could also be used to craft emails quickly—especially ones being sent in bulk.

2.     Jasper AI:

Jasper is an impressive AI platform that generates content about 10 times faster than a human writer. Its primary purpose is for copywriting, but that can be applied to various functions: generating product descriptions, creating listicles for articles, writing introductions and conclusions, developing YouTube topic ideas, creating captions for Instagram, and coming up with compelling headlines for your blog posts. The tool also creates personalized cold emails, develops meta tags for various page types, and features a variety of advertising assistance, such as:

• Generates headlines and descriptions for Google Ads
• Develops headlines and primary text for Facebook Ads
• Creates posts and descriptions for Google My Business
• Drafts unique real estate listings
• Builds Tweets and TikTok captions

I couldn’t begin to describe the 50+ features that Jasper offers, but they all work in a similar fashion. Users input some basic information (i.e. about your brand, product, or blog topic) and the AI software will generate the content at the click of a button. You can also request the tool “regenerate” the content if you don’t like it, or give it more specific direction using “commands.”

So, I also put Jasper to the test. And my first impression was great – the tool is easy to use, intuitive, and full of useful templates to try. I found it especially helpful for overcoming writer’s block when I was stuck on a section of an article, and coming up with captivating headlines for my posts. It also was valuable when creating an outline for a blog, with it providing unique angles on a given subject. However, the more I used it, the more I became frustrated with the tool’s output.

Simply put, it was not giving me human-quality content. Jasper often wrote multiple paragraphs of content around the same topic, reinforcing the same exact points in different words, without offering unique value. When I commanded it to find a statistic to incorporate, I found some figures were outdated and I was not given a link to confirm the sources. Occasionally, the tool would go astray and off-topic from the core points of my article, pull in typos, or gather bizarre verbiage from the web.

Because the tool relies on the web to extract and create content, its sources are wide and vast. This is great in that it’s evaluating many different types of content out there; however, it also poses a high risk of compiling misinformation about your topic. The internet is full of misinformation, and when Jasper generates content, it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s fiction.

With that in mind, I’d recommend using Jasper for:

• Content writing inspiration
• Blog outline development
• Headline ideas
• Short snippets of content, including ad and social post development

But, be wary of longer-form text, statistics, and other information compiled by the tool. Always QA!

3.     Frase.io:

Frase is an AI SEO tool that is very similar to Jasper, in that it’s essentially a content writing assistant powered by AI. The system offers a diverse range of SEO and content-focused tools, including (but not limited to):

• An article writer
• Blog title idea generator
• How-to blog post generator
• Blog outline generator
• Meta description developer
• Content re-writer
• Semantic topic research
• Listicle creator, for questions, bullet points, and more
• Product description generator

Frase also offers some additional features for SEO optimization, such as a long-tail keyword research tool, based on SERP analyses, and a Content Analytics feature, based on Google Search Console insights.

As an SEO-focused AI writing assistant, Frase works a little differently than Jasper. Frase actually does some competitive research for you, suggesting and creating content based on the top-ranking search results for your target keyword. Frase also shows you the competitors that are ranking on your topic and enables you to create a content brief or outline inspired by the most successful competitors.

When I put Frase IO to the test, I was impressed with its ease of use, multitude of features, and SEO capabilities. The content it generated for me also read very well and sounded relatively human. However, I still ran into some of the same challenges that I did with Jasper: I questioned whether the content was fully accurate, and more significantly, I was not blown away by the content output.

I ran into very few grammatical issues with Frase, but ultimately found that it contained a lot of “fluff.” Similar to Jasper, there was not a lot of intention and meaning behind the paragraphs. The tool occasionally went astray from what I was hoping to convey in my article. I needed to remove and re-work many of the paragraphs it generated. At the end of the day, I am confident that with a little more time, I could’ve written a much better article from scratch.

With that, I would still recommend using Frase to overcome content hurdles and improve efficiencies when developing an SEO content plan. Specifically, my favorite use cases of Frase were as follows:

• Creating content outlines – Frase not only suggests headlines and subsections for your article, but also bases these suggestions on competitive insights and real-time SERP results. Frase also allows you to pull in statistics, frequently asked questions, semantic keywords, and more into your content briefs – which can be very helpful for freelance writers.
• Overcoming writer’s block – Similar to the other tools mentioned here, Frase IO is great for getting quick blurbs of content created when you feel stuck. This does not only apply to blogs; Frase could also be used to come up with social media post ideas, product descriptions, taglines, YouTube video headlines, and more.
• Developing Featured Snippet blurbs – Frase offers a few different tools that can be useful when going after a Featured Snippet result. It has a tool that generates definitions (enter that all-performing “What is…” pillar page) as well as tools for generating numbered lists, pros and cons, summary bullets, and more. With about 15 percent of all queries showing a Featured Snippet in Google, and with Featured Snippets capturing about 35 percent of total clicks, these Frase features are worth trying out. (Again, with a little QA, of course.)

4.     Surfer SEO

Surfer is an automated SEO tool designed to help content creators research, write, and optimize their content for organic search. It is positioned as an “all-in-one” SEO tool that uses artificial intelligence to provide easy-to-understand recommendations for digital marketers. At a glance, however, the tool feels less focused on content generation and more concentrated on the optimization process of web content.

I tried out a few of the key features of Surfer SEO, after taking some time to learn the ropes. Here is a breakdown of the primary tools available in Surfer SEO:

Content Editor

This allows you to optimize your content for SEO purposes. It is not an AI writing tool in its entirety, but rather, an AI-powered editor that is aimed at boosting your search engine rankings. The tool allows you to input your content or article and then scores it on various aspects like word count, headings, number of paragraphs, images, and semantic keyword usage. What I particularly enjoyed was that, on top of the score, it provides you with suggestions for improvement in these areas. It suggests your ideal word count (based on the search results), the types of headings you should be utilizing in your article, and semantic keyword phrases to utilize based on natural language processing.

Surfer’s Content Editor does provide you with unique, snippets of text that you can add to your article, assisting the writing process. For example, for the topic of “AI and SEO,” the tool provided me with suggested content around questions like ‘Will SEO be taken over by AI?’ and ‘How is AI used in SEO?’ In addition, the Content Editor provided competitors that I might reference while writing the article – an important part of any content outline – as well as a review of the content to ensure your article is fully unique (no plagiarism detected!).

Ultimately, I see Surfer’s Content Editor as a wonderful addition to any SEO or content writing toolkit—because it is optimization-focused. It can help you create SEO-focused outlines and refresh old articles that do not meet SEO best practices. However, these features do overlap with previously mentioned tools, like Frase.io, so I would recommend playing with each to decide on your use cases, and which UX you prefer.

Keyword Research

In addition to its robust content editing features, Surfer offers an automated keyword research tool. You type in a focal keyword for your article, and it will generate a range of related topics and topic clusters that you can incorporate into your content. Upon researching “AI and SEO” in this tool, I was given topic clusters relating to AI content generation, machine learning and SEO, how to automate SEO, and more. The tool also allows you to filter by intent and search volume, to help you get the most out of the recommendations. Overall, I found this to be very helpful for another “all-in-one” keyword research tool, but the information provided does overlap with what other SEO tools (like MOZ and SEMRush) provide.

SEO Audit Tool

Surfer’s Audit tool allows you to input any page on the web, as well as focal keywords for that page, and quickly receive recommendations for improved SEO optimization. The Audit tool is AI-driven in that it analyzes data from the top-performing pages in the search results, and provides uniquely tailored SEO recommendations based on those insights. The Audit provides recommendations related to backlink opportunities, internal linking strategy, keyword usage, word count of page, structure of content, load times, and more. This could be a very valuable tool for SEO professionals to find everything all-in-one place. However, the insights might overlap with what you’d find in other solutions, like MOZ, SEMRush, and others.

From my Surfer SEO trial, I found that this could be a great AI-powered SEO tool for existing content optimization, with supplemental features for keyword and competitor research. This tool is definitely geared more towards content creators seeking to better SEO optimize their web pages quickly. However, Surfer is not an entirely “all-in-one” solution. When thinking about all angles of SEO, it falls short of providing in-depth competitor analyses, structured content outlines, internal linking recommendations (and other writing components), coding and schema updates, and more.

5.     Grammarly

Grammarly is an AI-powered online writing assistant that has quickly become a part of my trusted content marketing toolkit. Historically, the tool was not an AI content generator but rather a content editor. Grammarly has long-been an excellent tool for reviewing content for spelling, grammar, syntax, clarity, and delivery mistakes. It ensures you are producing high-quality, mistake-free content. And it does this quickly and easily.

All you need to do is paste your content into Grammarly’s online application, and the AI-powered tool gets to work. It underscores any potential grammar, spelling, or punctuation issues, and lets you know when a sentence is not concise. But this is just at the basic level. An upgraded version of Grammarly can provide you with suggestions to enhance the vocabulary and tone used in your article. It can also assess the formality and fluency of the content, re-write unclear sentences for you, and flag any content that is plagiarized. While the free Grammarly plan is limited to very basic and critical content issues, the Premium version offers over 400 types of checks and feedback in real-time.

For the savvy writers looking to create excellent content, Grammarly is a unique and (in my opinion) essential AI content writing editor that will truly hold your work to high quality standards—which, as we’ll get into next, is essential for strong organic rankings.

Recently, Grammarly did launch the beta version of a new tool called GrammarlyGO, which is worth highlighting here. GrammarlyGO integrates into the traditional Grammarly dashboard, whether you have the free or premium version, and provides AI-assisted content ideas when you’re facing writer’s block. You can use it to generate headline and outline ideas for your blog post, or even to craft paragraphs of text. Below are some examples of output I received for this article, from this easy-to-use tool:

GrammarlyGO’s AI writing assistant can help you to:

• Generate ideas for a blog post
• Write a thank you note
• Craft an engaging email
• Respond to a customer complaint
• Write a marketing proposal
• Draft a sales report
• Announce a new product or service
• Tell a story

And so much more. You can also adjust the tone, level of formality, and goals of the content within this AI tool. However, similar to the other tools listed here, GrammarlyGO does not appear to be founded in SEO best practices. It also does not share its sources of content, which could cause you to question its reliability.

Summary of AI SEO Tools and Use Cases

Use Case	ChatGPT	Jasper AI	Frase	Surfer SEO	Grammarly
Keyword Research	Average	Not Available	Great!	Great!	Not Available
Headline Generation	Average	Great!	Great!	Good	Good
Content Outlines	Average	Great!	Great!	Good	Good
Competitive Research	Suboptimal	Not Available	Great!	Great!	Not Available
Content Writing	Average	Good	Good	Not Available	Good
Content Editing	Good	Good	Good	Not Available	Great!
SEO Content Optimization	Suboptimal	Great!	Great!	Great!	Not Available
Meta Tag Creation	Good	Great!	Great!	Great!	Not Available
Technical SEO	Average	Not Available	Not Available	Not Available	Not Available
Social and Email Copy Generation	Average	Great!	Great!	Not Available	Not Available

What Does Google Have to Say About AI and SEO?

Google recently released updated guidance about AI-generated content. In this February 2023 release, they confirmed that automation has long been used to generate useful content, and that there can be value in using AI tools to create helpful, exciting content for your website. However, Google discourages the use of AI tools for creating content for SEO’s sake: “If you see AI as an essential way to help you produce content that is helpful and original, it might be useful to consider. If you see AI as an inexpensive, easy way to game search engine rankings, then no [you should not use AI to generate content].”

Here are some key snippets of Google’s 2023 statement on AI content generation:

“When it comes to automatically generated content, our guidance has been consistent for years. Using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies…

“This said, it’s important to recognize that not all use of automation, including AI generation, is spam. Automation has long been used to generate helpful content, such as sports scores, weather forecasts, and transcripts. 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…

“Google’s ranking systems aim to reward original, high-quality content that demonstrates qualities of what we call E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness… Our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years.”

With this, Google suggests that content creators continue to assess (and prioritize) their work’s quality, authority, and trustworthiness. Quality content is the content that will rank well for SEO, whether it’s generated by a human or by an automated tool. However, when AI-generated content is used to manipulate search engine rankings, that would be against Google’s official Webmaster Guidelines.

Google’s Guidelines for Automatically Generated Content

Google Search Central defines automatically generated content as content that’s been generated programmatically, where it’s intended to manipulate search engine rankings. This might include:

• Text that makes no sense to the reader but which may contain search keywords.
• Text translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing.
• Text generated through automated processes.
• Text generated using automated synonymizing or obfuscation techniques.
• Text generated from scraping Atom/RSS feeds or search results.
• Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding sufficient value.

If your content falls into any of these categories, Google might flag it as spam. And you might see an effect on your content’s organic visibility (or lack thereof).

Google has a variety of systems, including SpamBrain, that help to detect spam content, however it is produced (by a human or by AI). However, during an Office Hours session in April 2022, John Mueller, Search Advocate at Google, revealed that Google cannot yet tell the difference between AI-generated content and human-written content. If AI-generated content is high-quality and informative (even if it was written for SEO purposes), it can rank very well.

What Google Looks for in Content (No Matter How It’s Produced)

Whether it’s written by AI bots or experienced human writers, Google seeks to rank content that is valuable and informative.

“Focusing on rewarding quality content has been core to Google since we began. It continues today, including through our ranking systems designed to surface reliable information and our helpful content system. The helpful content system was introduced last year to better ensure those searching get content created primarily for people, rather than for search ranking purposes,” writes Google in their 2023 blog post.

Danny Sullivan, a Public Liaison for Search at Google, agreed with this sentiment on Twitter, reminding us: “For anyone who uses *any method* to generate a lot of content primarily for search rankings, our core systems look at many signals to reward content clearly demonstrating E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).”

Google’s Helpful Content Update Aimed at Relegating AI-Written Content

Google has consistently expressed a preference for unique, valuable, and authoritative content. It seeks to rank content that showcases expertise on a given topic and offers a learning experience for its readers. It looks for content that is people-first, designed to educate human readers.

Hence, the release of the “Helpful Content Update,” which was first rolled out in August 2022. The Helpful Content Update is a new, automated, sitewide ranking signal that Google now uses to:

1. Demote low-value content that is not particularly helpful to users, and
2. Reward websites with high-value, helpful, and people-first content.

The August 2022 roll-out was the first of many Helpful Content Updates. A second was released in December 2022, and Google has stated that more may be on the way: “Over the coming months, we will continue refining how the classifier detects unhelpful content and launch further efforts to better reward people-first content.”

The key word here is “people-first.” Google will devalue websites that have created content primarily for search engines and search traffic, if they are not providing value to real, human readers. The search giant explains: “SEO is a helpful activity when it’s applied to people-first content. However, content created primarily for search engine traffic is strongly correlated with content that searchers find unsatisfying.”

This brings us back to the topic of AI content generation. Why are we using AI? To optimize our content marketing and SEO strategies, right? To churn out more content faster, and meet the growing demands of CMOs to drive organic traffic? At the end of the day, this is the reality. This is how AI is being used. We just have to be careful in how we use it. If AI-generated content isn’t great content—if it’s not helpful, intentional, and unique—it could end up hindering a website’s rankings.

So, how can you assess whether your content is “helpful”? Google suggests asking yourself these questions:

• Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?
• Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
• Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?
• Are you writing about things simply because they seem trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
• Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
• Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count?
• Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic?
• Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer?
• Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?

If you answered yes to any of the above, take it as a signal to re-assess your content approach.

Final Recommendations for Using AI in Your SEO Strategy

At the end of the day, it’s safe to say that AI has changed SEO as we know it—and businesses who adopt AI tools to support their marketing strategies are likely to reap the benefits. In the realm of search engine optimization, AI can help to streamline content writing processes and reduce the time it takes to develop SEO-focused topic ideas, article outlines, email outreach, and even coding tasks.

However, after trying out these tools, my stance remains the same. AI-powered content writers and SEO platforms are great assistants. They are helpful support systems. But they are not replacements for humans. AI content writing tools, in particular, are not going to be your token to improved SEO rankings. Google desires content that is written by people, for people—Content that offers unique value, so that readers can walk away feeling their question has been answered. For now, AI is not producing that quality of work. It still needs the human touch.

For the record, I really tried to use AI content writers to compile this article. While I was generally impressed with the ease of use and topic ideas offered by each AI writing assistant, I found the content itself containing a bit too much “fluff.” In other words, the content was not unique. While the AI tools avoided plagiarism, and structured content in a logical way, I was not getting a lot of meaning or purpose behind the paragraphs of text. They felt more like summaries of everything else out there, without driving any single point home. This is, again, because of the way these AI tools work. They compile information from various websites and data sources to create unique content for you. However, AI bots, and specifically AI writing assistants, do not always know how to synthesize that information to develop a coherent story and conclusion.

AI tools also do not (to my knowledge) have a way to ensure accurate information, or ignore bad information—making it difficult for me, the writer, to trust the final output. ChatGPT even admitted this:

I’ll leave you with this conclusion, an example, written by Jasper AI:

While AI tools can be great writing assistants, they cannot replace human writers. This is especially true when it comes to producing high quality content that meets Google’s standards. Always fact check what AI tools suggest and don’t hesitate to get more professional help if you need it.

Do you want more advice about how to leverage AI or improve your SEO processes? Our team of experts are happy to help you plan your next steps.

If you’re interested in enhancing your SEO strategy, including leveraging AI tools, please contact Synapse by email at sales@synapsesem.com.