Did AI kill SEO or the vision of it? An observation from small SEO agencies

For any business, a successful SEO strategy is paramount. Not only to attract new customers, but also to reduce the cost of conversion. Just as there are businesses in need of these services, there are agencies offering these services. So how should you choose?

There are pros and cons to each agency out there. A bigger company has a bigger team, bigger budget, more experience, and qualified professionals to take your website to the top and increase your chances of sales. Whereas smaller SEO agencies have always had one unique selling point: they can give your website more time and attention.

A bigger budget is not everything; a good content strategy is. That is where small SEO agencies have always been able to compete with bigger businesses.

Times have changed, and so has SEO

Every day, there is a new article listing reasons why SEO is dead. When, indeed, it’s not. Google has not changed its policies about how it ranks websites. What changed is everyone’s approach to SEO.

I have witnessed this change firsthand. AI’s ability to dish out content at a lightning pace has made a lot of people uneasy and more attentive, while it has made others wrongly confident. Small SEO agencies, that once targeted growth through quality, are now trying to do it through quantity.

Small businesses are letting go of their exclusivity when it comes to personalised attention and taking on more and more projects, on the mistaken belief that AI will help them manage all that workload.

Among the changes we have seen over the last few years, one thing that hasn’t changed is that content is still the king. Just because AI can use a few fancy words here and there does not mean the content it generates is helpful. However, most businesses are still in the dark when it comes to AI and SEO strategy.

Don’t get me wrong. AI is a great tool. But that’s all it is, a tool. It is there to assist your content strategy, it’s not your content strategy. But sadly, many businesses have made the mistake of settling for mediocre, but a lot of content.

Their selling point is no longer their ability to be flexible and thorough, but how quickly they can set up your website. 

This is what’s killing their SEO. Their inability to adapt AI where it matters and explore new domains. 

How does this mindset affect writers?

KPIs are nonexistent, and writers are being asked to deliver as many landing pages as possible so that the company can quickly build all the new websites they just acquired. 

But what about research? There is not enough time to delve deep into what works and what doesn’t. Because company owners are holding onto the belief that “With AI, you can make dozens of pages every day.”

Yes, we can. But should we?

Any writer worth their salt will tell you that a good landing page needs at least 3 to 4 hours. Checking what the competitors are doing. How are we going to differentiate our product/service? Learning what separates us from the competition.

It all takes time.

That is where AI can help us with research, content management, and other managerial tasks, rather than content creation.

LLMs are designed to give you an average answer on a given topic. It will give you the consensus. It’s up to the writer to make it unique, give it some personality, and make it stand out among the noise.

I used to think this was common knowledge, and people understood this. But having experienced it myself and hearing from fellow writers, this trend is more common than I thought. This has further exacerbated the crisis of below-par salaries. Writers who were already being underpaid are now expected to deliver more with no increments.

However, writers are being forced to comply due to increased uncertainty in the job market and an increased number of new “writers” who think they can take on this mammoth task, just because AI exists.

So if you are someone who runs or works in such a business, maybe it’s time to change how you think about AI and its role in your company.

Use it to optimise your content, not only for Google, but for AI overviews and AI results on ChatGPT and Perplexity. Who better to optimise your content than one who is going to pick it later?

Would you like to hear more from Faisal on this topic? Drop him a comment or a message!