Key Takeaways
- Complexity of SEO: SEO automation can assist but not replace human expertise due to the intricate nature of SEO tasks.
- Competition and Innovation: Complete automation removes competitive dynamics crucial for SEO and content innovation.
- Expertise and User Understanding: SEO success increasingly relies on expertise and understanding user intent, aspects only a human can provide.
- Human Relationships: Building authority and trust through relationships will be critical for SEO success.
- Business Model Impact: Full automation will diminish content quality, impacting user experience and ultimately ad revenue for platforms like Google. As a result, it will make a fully automated SEO tool redundant
Waiting for the messenger boy
In 1878, Sir William Preece, the chief engineer of the UK’s Post Office, declared, “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” Good call, Sir William! Let me quickly grab my monocle and write this article while I wait for the messenger boy…
Thankfully, history is filled with such hilariously wrong predictions. The notion of fully automated SEO falls squarely in that camp.
While AI search engines and advanced content creation tools are the future of SEO, and SEOs will have powerful AI insights at their fingertips in the coming decade, forecasts of complete SEO automation miss a crucial point. They overlook the very foundation of how search engines operate. You see, AI will undoubtedly transform SEO, but the reality is, it will make optimising your website more complex, not simpler.
In that sense, SEO is much like communication technology. For instance, in 1959 Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General got it spot on, when he declared “Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles.” Ok, maybe not. What’s wrong with these Postal people and their predictions?
The bottom line is full SEO automation will never be a thing. So, let’s discover why.
Can SEO be automated today?
SEO cannot be entirely automated, and that will remain the case. However, while human expertise is irreplaceable, SEO automation tools can be powerful assistants. In recent times this has seen interest in AI SEO tools explode by 4850%.
For example, imagine you run a website for a running wearable. Here’s how automation can streamline your workflow:
- Content Brainstorming: AI-powered tools like ChatGPT can suggest content topics or keyword ideas. For instance, the keyword “running shoes” is too broad and highly competitive. Therefore, you can use AI to generate ideas for one of your sub-topic niches like HRV for trail runners.
- Smarter Keyword Research: Tools like SEMrush leverage AI to find relevant keywords and assess user intent behind them. This helps you avoid high-volume but irrelevant keywords like “laces for shoes” and focus on those that resonate with your target audience.
- Backlink Building: While automation can’t forge relationships or secure backlinks directly, tools like ChatGPT can assist. This includes tasks like email outreach and website identification.
- Automated Technical SEO: AI can help automate various aspects of your technical SEO. However, this will need several different tools. Moreover, you can use ChatGPT to optimise aspects of your website, although this will still require technical knowledge.
- Reporting: Tools like Google’s Looker Studio integrate with SEO platforms like Search Console and Analytics. This lets you automatically generate reports and identify trends. For instance, do you want to understand which platform drives traffic to your heart rate monitors? Automation pulls the data, saving you valuable time for analysis.
6 reasons why full SEO automation will never be a thing
In the future, AI will continue to shape SEO. How SEO works today will become unrecognisable in the next 10 years. However, full SEO automation is impracticable for the following reasons
1. AI needs new insights to thrive
Since the launch of ChatGPT, many SEOs have become obsessed with using AI to generate content. Who needs content creators when ChatGPT can do everything?
This phenomenon has seen interest in AI content skyrocket by 317%. Meanwhile, interest in AI content detection has boomed by 256% as people look to hide the fact, that they use AI tools! In short, AI content creation has become an industry.
However, before you run off to watch Netflix while ChatGPT generates thousands in website traffic – stop. Google has been cracking down on AI content, which can actually harm your search rankings. In short, AI on it’s will not make you rank.
The reason for this is simple. If everyone uses AI to create content, how will search results improve if AI regurgitates the same information millions of times over?
Moreover, AI is changing search engines. Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) will grow in importance and new features like Google’s AI Overviews will be introduced. Fundamental to these tools is the concept of “information gain”, meaning it values new insights.
Therefore, if you’re just pressing a ChatGPT button, thinking it will create great content to make your website rank, while you chill and laugh at cats playing the piano on YouTube, think again.
However, Google has not banned AI tools to create content, meaning some automation is possible. But you cannot use online AI content detectors, make a few changes to your AI content and hope for the best.
Firstly, these AI detection tools are only 66% correct, and Identifying ChatGPT content is relatively straightforward. Moreover, no AI detector will help you manage the brand impact of content inaccuracies, which ChatGPT is famed for. These “hallucinations” have led to the platform’s declining trust and traffic.
Secondly, even if you can trick these tools, you still don’t address the most basic requirement. Are you adding value? Therefore, you must humanise the AI text and understand how to optimise it with your insights.
2. AI SEO automation destroys competition
How will anyone stand out if everyone has fully AI-automated SEO tools? It’s like Marxism. If everyone is given the same amount of money, who agrees to clean the streets while someone else visits Michelin-star restaurants as a food critic? They don’t.
Like Marxism, SEO automation is a utopian ideology. Yet, this nirvana state can never exist because the fundamental principles of search engine design require competition. Consequently, we need some websites to have greater authority and others not. It’s this competition that facilitates and drives content creation and innovation.
However, a world where full SEO automation becomes prevalent is a world where search engines cease to exist. Moreover, if it were to exist, search engines like Google would change their entire algorithms making these full SEO automation tools redundant.
3. AI is driving a need for expertise and a deeper understanding of users
The latest trends in SEO indicate expertise and understanding user intent will be key to success. This means Entity SEO and Topical Authority become more prevalent.
For instance, imagine someone searching for “managing stress at work.” Consequently, Google must decide which of the following two websites it recommends as an answer to the query.
The first website answers the query but its overall specialism is kitchen ovens. The second website also answers the query but its overall specialism is stress management for the workplace.
Which of the two websites should Google recommend?
Clearly, it’s the one that specialises in workplace stress. They are the experts. It’s like wondering how you can improve your gut health and deciding to listen to Steve your car salesman rather than Melissa, a qualified nutritionist.
Ultimately this is where Google is going. They want expert content creators so they can understand users’ search intent. They can do that by understanding concepts. In other words, the more information algorithms obtain about a topic, the better they can understand how different subjects within that niche relate to one another, thus improving search results.
However, if SEO is automated, how will you demonstrate your expertise? You cannot because the expert is the AI and search engines already have that information. Therefore, you must focus on optimising for Entity SEO and Topical authority strategy.
4. As long as relationships require humans, full SEO automation will never work
In 1998, personal CD players were cool, Britney Spears was some kid off the Disney channel and search engines were for nerds. Meanwhile, two guys in a lab at Stanford University, who clearly had better things to do than listening to Savage Garden, had an idea for a new search engine.
They outlined how links between websites could be used as a signal for authority. In short, the more links you receive for trustworthy sources, the more authoritative you are. Consequently, your content should rank higher. These links became known as backlinks.
It’s unknown what happened to those guys but it’s rumoured they had a tiny start-up called Google.
Anyway, while backlinks have diminished in importance, and will continue to do so, they still play a role. More importantly, the concept of authority beyond the walls of your website will play a role in the future.
Therefore, building relationships will be necessary even if backlinks are completely removed as a ranking factor. Unfortunately, AI cannot and will never be able to generate backlinks for you. The reason for this is authority is a human concept. We need others to agree that we have status, we cannot just claim it for ourselves.
So, full SEO automation will never work, unless the future is some Black Mirror-style dystopian reality where humans have relationships with AI. If that’s the case we are all doomed.
5. Multi-channel SEO will drive trust and authority
In the future, search engine algorithms will improve at interpreting signals from multiple sources across the digital ecosystem. Consequently, their understanding of authority will include factors besides backlinks.
Therefore, it is crucial to understand multi-channel SEO. This includes how you get more followers and engagement on platforms like Instagram. Moreover, it will analyse everything from reviews to comments across the internet about you and your brand.
As a result, search traffic will become fragmented, with users selecting the platforms that reflect the types of searches they want to make. Therefore, there is unlikely to be one clear search engine winner from the AI wars, with Google set to remain a dominant player.
However, building an automated SEO tool for every platform is impractical. Each platform is unique with different algorithms. Therefore, fully automated SEO will continue to be a pipe dream.
6. Money Talks – AI SEO automation will kill Google’s business model
If you can be sure of anything, no company will willingly allow its entire business model to be destroyed. Yet, a fully automated SEO system would do exactly that.
For instance, imagine a future where people use AI to generate content. As a result, they can rank higher than people who create original content. Who would willingly create anything? We have seen the issues this can cause with Perplexity AI and accusations of plagiarism. However, if platforms like Google turn a blind eye, it not only impacts creators but also Google’s Ad revenue.
This is because the quality and originality of content would decline, leading to a less engaging and valuable user experience. Consequently, users will seek alternative platforms, reducing traffic and, ultimately, ad revenue for Google.
Of course, you could argue this means people will use other search engines. After all, AI search engines like ChatGPT have emerged. However, these companies are still in their infancy. As a result, they have not established how they will monetise their platforms. ChatGPT’s business model is already raising questions.
It’s probable, that AI search platforms from Perplexity to ChatGPT also become reliant on Ad revenue. Therefore, an automated SEO system not only kills search engines but consequently the point of having such a tool in the first place.
So, are we saying SEO will not be automated?
The dream of a single, all-encompassing SEO automation system is unrealistic and frankly, undesirable. Such a system would disrupt the very fabric of search engines.
The future of SEO will see continued evolution. SEO services will focus on deep expertise and content that resonates with users. Simple keyword stuffing and random backlink building will become relics of the past. However, this doesn’t diminish the value of SEO automation tools.
AI-powered SEO automation tools can be powerful, helping us streamline workflows and gain valuable insights. They free us to focus on the strategic aspects of SEO.
However, the future of SEO is not about automation replacing humans, but rather humans and automation working together for optimal results.
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