3 Tips for Effectively Integrating Generative AI into Your SEO Marketing Agency’s Messaging

An SEO marketing agency (that shall remain nameless) has finally put out an article on whether or not generative AI like ChatGPT-4 will have an impact on their services’ value or effectiveness. As I craft operational workflows that make generative AI work for the content creation team at my current company, I was deeply curious about their perspective.

I admit to being less than impressed. So today, in a totally unrelated article, I will list out three tips for anyone interested in how to effectively discuss their SEO marketing’s approach to generative AI.

1) Rigid and reactionary messaging is bad for everyone

Ignoring the “problem” of generative AI in your space until it’s impossible to shove under the rug is not only bad for your own business model. It’s bad for everyone watching you. And when your messaging ultimately ends up being “AI won’t change anything” in the face of massive corporate upheaval in the face of AI, well, changing everything, you end up looking rigid and reactionary instead of innovative and engaged.

2) Don’t assume your audience knows what’s written by AI

If your messaging’s main takeaway is “audiences will always prefer content written by humans over chatbots,” you are vastly underestimating the sophistication demonstrated by these AI programs’ ongoing iterations while vastly overestimating whether humans can tell the difference between an article written by a human or merely edited/cleaned up by a human. “I can always tell” is a demonstrably bad metric that always misses the mark.

3) Don’t focus on the consumer, focus on the producer

The people most impacted by the shift in how content will be produced for SEO purposes in the future are not the people reading the articles, but rather the people writing them. How AI will replace online copywriters is the primary talking point across LinkedIn, and leaving that out of your analysis is… conspicuous. You might be reassuring readers that they “can always tell,” but what are you doing internally? Are your copywriters feeling valued and secure in their roles? Are they still able to charge a living wage when it’s cheaper for you to generate content using ChatGPT-4?

So what should you be doing instead? The answer is actually very simple!

Talk to your potential clients about how you are working to integrate the amazing new opportunities afforded by generative AI into your cutting edge SEO marketing strategies. Talk about how your copywriters will always be prioritized because of your respect for their institutional knowledge and expertise, not just because “we don’t think we could fool you… yet.”