You don’t have to look right now to find tonnes of blogs and videos about using Chat GPT and other similar AI tools like Jasper to automate content creation. These promise to reduce your copywriting costs while enabling faster production.  It’s probably not a clever idea.

Why Chat GPT is a Tempting Proposition for SEO and Content Agencies

The chances are that, your content team have already started investigating how Chat GPT can be integrated into their workflow.  It seems like a silver bullet for content production at scale.  Rather than needing to painstakingly write a page, all you need to do is ask the AI something like:

“Write me a 500-word blog post automating content production with Chat GPT”

Within a couple of minutes, your AI copywriter of choice has written you a spell checked, grammatically correct blog post of about the right length that answers your question.  All you need to do is copy and paste it into WordPress, and there you go.  Free content!

The reason this is tempting is that it saves time and money. Rather than needing to providing good quality training and pay a half decent copywriter to research, write, and then edit a blog post, it’s all done for you.  A job tat might have taken half a day is now done in moments at almost no cost.  If you’re trying to improve processes, that’s got to be a tempting proposition.

Is AI Content any good?

Well, yes, in some cases, most readers can’t tell if they’re reading something that has been lovingly crafted by a real person or generated by software.  At a surface level, content from Chat GPT and Jasper could work for a lot of purposes.

But is it good enough?

This is a more subjective question. Good enough for what?

Is AI content good enough for SEO?

Well, it probably ticks a few of the EAT expertise boxes that Google’s guidelines talk about.  In most cases, the sources that are used as the foundation the AI to build upon are the same ones that a real copywriter would come across during their research. Although as Open AI state, the data they use is from 2021, so it won’t be 100% up to date.

With more guidance than just asking for an article to be written, the AI can be directed towards fulfilling certain additional guidelines. These might include using different phrasing and topics into the page to show greater awareness of a subject.

It’s also worth noting that Google have stated multiple times that auto-generated content falls outside their guidelines, and can result in a website being referred to their Webspam team – there’s a great article about that from Search Engine Journal here.

Some SEO’s already, mistakenly, believe that Chat GPT / AI content isn’t detectable.  They’re wrong. Google have been working on AI for years, and recently launched their Chat GPT competitor (Bard). To think that they’re unable to identify content that’s been created by software is naïve.  Microsoft have invested heavily in Open AI and are integrating Chat GPT into Bing.  They’re not going to struggle to find an AI generated needle in a haystack.

Is AI content good enough to stand out?

This is a more complex question. Google and Bing really frown on duplicate content and pages that don’t add anything new to a topic.

While Chat GPT and the inevitable clones can write quickly, the question of whether they can write with originality is a more complex one.  If 100 people ask the tool for a page using the same prompt, the differences between those pages will be minor.  None of the personality of a real writer will be present in the article. The individual biases that give the article a distinct perspective will not be incorporated into the text.

Chat GPT isn’t an infinite monkey machine. It’s a stateless computer programme where each session is unique and what occurred before does not influence its output.  With minor variations it will write the same page for you tomorrow that it wrote today, and will output more or less the same page for your competitor as it wrote for you.

That’s not going to differentiate your pages.

Once again, the AI content will put you into a situation where you’re falling foul of Google’s guidelines around unique and useful content.

Is AI Content Good Enough for Users?

This is a harder question to answer.

There are definitely situations where AI generated content will be more than adequate for users. For example pages of facts like the tallest mountains in the world, or weather forecasts.

However, an AI cannot experience the complexities of a task in the same way as a human might.  If you think about something simple like changing a lightbulb, the AI instructions might give you a step by step but overlook some of the stumbling blocks that could put a person at risk when following them.

Chat GPT has no fingers to burn, so it might not advise about waiting for the old bulb to cool before touching it. It doesn’t tell you to switch the light off to avoid getting a flash two inches away from your face.

Certain industries will always adopt new techniques in SEO ahead of others.  Right now, the most competitive fields are things like Crypto.  Would you trust investment advice that’s based on advice two years old? What about sources that you don’t know the provenance of?

Specialist Knowledge in AI Content

Specialist knowledge is also an area where AI Content won’t cut the mustard.  If you’re writing for an audience who know their stuff, and you present them with a page that’s only displaying a surface level understanding of a topic, that reader isn’t going to learn anything new.  Chat GPT has a fairly sizeable database that it draws on, but it’s not that big.  Certainly not big enough to be considered expert when it comes to complex topics like IT. Similarly professional subjects like accountancy where regulations differ from country to country.

On a personal level, I’d also question whether using AI to generate content shows any real respect for users.  Sure, some care and attention may go into it, but if a real person isn’t giving their viewpoint on a topic, will a real person get any true value from it.

Is AI Content Good Enough for Clients?

When a client comes onboard with your marketing or SEO agency, they probably do so on the basis that the content that they’re paying you for has been written by a specialist writer.  Clients in fields like law, finance, or medicine must meet strict compliance guidelines, and copywriters in those spaces can command substantial fees based on their knowledge.

As a client, I’d consider it pretty misleading if an agency I’m paying to write content thinks that AI generated text has the same value.

At best, I’d fire them, at worst, I’d be looking into whether it was a breach of our contract.

Going forwards I’d expect many contracts to specify that AI should not be used as a cheap shortcut.

Should Your Agency Use AI to Generate Content

Ultimately, that decision is for the agency to make.  Some will undoubtedly choose to swap out their expensive writing team for software, and that’s their decision. The history of SEO is littered with the bodies of “amazing” techniques that quickly resulted in major websites getting banned.

• Automated link building
• Low quality article farming written at a penny a word
• Substantially duplicate “thin” content

AI content might seem like a quick way to solve a problem, but it’s unlikely to be a sustainable solution, and if you’re hoping to play on Google’s pages, you will normally need to play by their rules.

What Next

If you’re in the process of making changes to how your agency works, or looking at ways to grow, scale, or make your agency better, we’d love to help.  Contact us today to book an initial call to discuss your objectives and we’ll take it from there.