Stop viewing AI as the enemy

Taylor says: “Begin looking at Artificial Intelligence as an ally and not an enemy or a competitor.”

Why might AI be an enemy or competitor?

“Search engines like Google potentially felt threatened by the release of things like ChatGPT and its surge in popularity. As someone who focuses on the content side of SEO or marketing, you might be thinking, ‘Who’s going to want me to write when AI can just do it for them?’

Instead, you can think about how to utilise AI to not just further your efforts, but save you tremendous time, allowing you to focus on what will really move the needle.”

How do you turn it into an ally?

“One thing that saves tremendous time and allows me to be more engaged in meetings is using tools for automated note-taking, which is great.

The big way I’ve turned AI into an ally is just by saving me time. In the SEO world, a lot of the tasks we do are monotonous and tedious. Good examples would be, if we’re launching a series of pages, writing meta descriptions for them, generating schema markup, or scouring stock photo images for an appropriate photo for a blog. In that case, I’ve utilised AI-generated graphic creation – it’ll produce a completely original image based on whatever you are looking for. Those are the much more monotonous tasks.

Another big area where it can probably save the most time is digging into data. When you’re looking for trends, you’re constantly bouncing between different graphs – Search Console, analytics, and different tools – and you have 30 windows open. I still add my ‘expert’ eye onto it, but I’ll plug reports into various AI tools all the time, and it’ll identify the trends I would have spent hours digging into.

Then, of course, I look at them, verify them, and dig deeper from there. I think of it like a sand sifter, where you’re throwing all this data in there and finding what’s important and what stays. Doing that manually can take many hours. It lets you get down to the nitty-gritty and the nuts and bolts of everything.”

What AI tools are you using?

“It really depends. Specifically for schema markup, meta descriptions, and things of that nature, I really enjoy using Gemini. Beyond that, I use ChatGPT here and there, but I like Gemini a lot. I like Bing’s Copilot. I use DALL-E, the image generator. The note-taker I mentioned is called Fireflies. I’ve also used Claude, which is for document summarisation.

Even beyond that, AI is being integrated into the tools we use every day. Google Analytics 4 has started to incorporate it more, as has SEMrush. With SEMrush it’s great because you can utilise the SEO insights in a way that’s more customised or specific to the project you’re working on.”

How would you rate each of these tools for different types of tasks?

“ChatGPT was just so fresh and new that it caught everyone’s eye. I have not used their paid version, but I think it’s one of the lesser options because, last I saw, its database only went back to 2021. With Gemini or Copilot, you can ask them about something that happened yesterday, and it’ll have that information.

More importantly, particularly if you’re using it to assist with content or give you ideas, you want to make sure what you’re putting out there is accurate. Bing and Google’s versions include links and citations to what they are referencing, whereas you have to take ChatGPT at face value and trust it.

With DALL-E, it’s not as good at creating anything too specific or accurate. If you’re just asking for a picture of a marketer stressing about an algorithm update, it’ll produce that. Then, you don’t have to worry about someone following up about using their image or using an image that’s on hundreds of other sites, because it’s completely original.

I don’t have any drawbacks for Fireflies. At some points, if there’s a bad connection or the person on the call is breaking up, that can cause some interference. Overall, though, it’s been very helpful. Without it, I would often be typing so fast that I’m only half listening, just trying to keep up with the typing. It allows me to be more fully engaged and make sure I’m checking all the boxes for whatever I’m attending.”

Can you use AI to help with client communication?

“To an extent. At Crush the Rankings we always wanted to set ourselves apart with our client communication, so they’ll never have to wonder where their money is going. Part of that is, whenever there’s a big shift (a news update, an algorithm update, or the antitrust trial), I will send an email to all of my clients explaining what’s happening.

I let them know, before they hear it from someone else, that we are aware of it and we’re on top of it. They’re pretty long and thorough emails, with links to articles and in-depth discussions. Recently, I’ve been able to use a tool like Gemini and say, ‘Google released this update yesterday. I’m emailing all my clients, and these are the points I want to cover. Can you put that email together?’ Then I’ll tweak it and modify it to our own vision.

Instead of debating wording and things like that, I can then go and find those articles that I want to reference. I don’t use it for automated emails, in any sense, but when it comes to a long email that’s more informative than unique to that specific client, then I’ve definitely found it to be helpful.”

Do you use AI to help you create reports for clients?

“No, I prefer to do that myself. On the first of every month, client by client, I hand-make all their reports – letting them know how the month went, how it compared to last month, etc.

I still like to do that. I’m so hands-on with the projects; I like to go and look at certain metrics that I’ve been focused on and put them together. However, I will often put my reports together and run them through an AI tool just to see if there is anything I missed.

I mostly use AI for those monotonous tasks like, ‘Here’s the new page we built. What schema would you recommend? Can you generate that?’ or, ‘I’m publishing these pages with these topics and titles. Can you write me a thorough meta description in 160 characters or less?’ It’s tasks that are not difficult, just tedious. A lot of us SEOs have done these tasks thousands of times. It’s nice to let someone else take the wheel, and then we just review it.

As far as content creation, I’ve never had an AI tool write a page or an article and just put it up. I like to write with outlines and then build out from there. I’ll often say, ‘I’m writing a very thorough article on this topic. I want no stone unturned. Here’s what I’m already discussing. What else could I touch on?’ It can help you build the skeleton of the content before the writers then go and put the meat on the bones.”

Are there any sectors where AI is more or less suitable?

“It’s less well-suited for the legal and medical sectors. That’s where you will need the most hands-on editing and reviewing, because you can’t have a situation where you are describing a law, or you link to a statute of a law, and it’s inaccurate. You could run into issues with your governing body, or the bar that you’re part of, for putting out poor information.

The same is true with medical. You don’t want people to read something inaccurate and end up in a worse situation than they were. Those are the two areas that I think it’s least well-suited for.

On the other side, I work with a big commercial cleaning company right now, as well as a coffee company with shops throughout the country. Those are much broader topics where you still need to be accurate, but the knowledge is more surface-level than if you’re discussing a medical procedure or a niche area of the law.

That’s where I’ve found it to be really helpful – in industries where you don’t necessarily need to go to law school or medical school to have an appropriate level of knowledge. Essentially, industries that don’t need compliance to review content before you publish it.

Again, I’ve never taken an article from AI and published it. I’ve used it for inspiration, and for making sure the article we’re putting together is as thorough as possible.”

How do you deal with hallucinations, and find issues that aren’t factually correct?

“A lot of what I use AI for is what topics I should discuss in an article, which will then become H2s or sections, then we will write it. However, for any article where I’ve had AI write something extensive, I’ll send it to a writer to personalise and put an expert touch on.

We’ve definitely seen it cite the wrong statute for a law and things like that. One of the biggest dos and don’ts with AI is you cannot have a set-it-and-forget-it mentality. You need to have the human touch. AI can be a lot of things, but it’s not a content writer.

It’s also important to understand that, with things like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot, it’s essentially a learning module. The more people interact with it, the more refined it gets. It’s important for you to keep up with your own ‘training’. You need to learn prompt engineering, and how to most effectively prompt the search engine to get the end result you’re looking for. You also need to stay up-to-date with new advancements and things like that.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“AI is very hit or miss. There are so many people who got slammed in March, where they were just spamming out AI content and then they all got manual penalties and were removed. That’s why it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it thing. If you’re doing that, don’t do that.

If you really want to save time, though, don’t focus on manual backlink acquisition. Focus on putting out the best information on your topic. The goal is, if someone lands here and they have any interest or questions about it, they have no need to leave the page. It’s all covered.

If you can focus on putting out that thorough expert-level content, leaving no stone unturned, that will naturally bring backlinks because you will have the most valuable information on the topic. Also, the backlinks it brings will typically be a lot more valuable and trusted than if you’re manually reaching out to various entities, which is incredibly time-consuming.

Focus more on what you’re providing the user, and what value you can offer them, and less on how to get into X directory or get Y backlinks. If you focus on the right things, in terms of content and user experience, and you provide a valuable resource, those links will come naturally. Those, to me, are the best links.

I’m not saying to completely neglect backlinks altogether. If you launch a new site and it’s a local business, then you should definitely spend some time getting local citations, local backlinks, and things like that. However, for any website that has established a baseline of authority and is looking to grow, focus on the value you can provide, not the value a backlink might provide you.”

Taylor Kurtz is Owner and Founder of Crush the Rankings, and you can find him over at CrushTheRankings.com.