AI for SEO: Top Tools For Your SEO Strategy

AI for SEO involves using technology powered by artificial intelligence to boost your website’s visibility in search results and save time on common SEO tasks. Here’s how to leverage SEO AI responsibly, including tools and actionable tips.

A whopping 86% of SEO professionals have integrated AI into their search engine optimization strategy.

From enhanced keyword research to automated content optimizations to voice search adaptation, AI is redefining what it means to rank — and how we get our sites to rank.

In this article, we’ll explore how AI is impacting the SEO landscape, how we can use it (ethically) to improve efficiency, and the top tools we recommend.

What is AI for SEO?

AI for SEO refers to the use of technologies powered by artificial intelligence to streamline SEO practices and help websites rank higher in the search engine results.

AI tools can be used for:

• Content strategy and keyword research
• Website audits and optimizations
• Rank tracking and analytics
• Link building
• User experience

Many of these tools rely on machine learning to analyze SERP behavior and continuously improve their recommendations.

How does AI impact SEO?

AI impacts SEO by automating and enhancing tasks like keyword research, content optimization, and data analysis, but AI is also impacting the search results themselves.

1. Tools

While many traditional SEO tools already have artificial intelligence features, new AI SEO tools use natural language processing (NLP) and ML algorithms to make data-driven decisions for SEO.

With 56% of marketers already taking an active role in implementing and using AI, chances are your competitors are likely already using these tools or will be soon.

2. Strategy

Until recently, SEO’s focus was primarily on rankings to drive organic traffic. Now, strategies have shifted toward reach.

With the rise of AI Overview in the last year, impressions rose by 49% while clicks fell by 30%.

GEO, generative engine optimization, is the process of optimizing website content to be more visible on AI-driven search engines like Google AI Overview and ChatGPT.

“I believe generative AI will positively impact multilingual, international SEO,” says SEO expert Matt Smith.

“Its ability to translate through natural communication is much faster. It cannot translate large amounts of data yet, but it will get there.”

Further reading: Google AI Overviews: How It Affects SEO (+ How to Use It to Get Ahead)

How to use AI in your SEO strategy

More than half of marketers reportedly use AI tools to optimize content and automate repetitive SEO tasks.

Use this AI-powered SEO workflow to boost performance and scale your campaigns at every stage:

1. Audit your website
2. Discover new ranking opportunities
3. Keyword research and content ideation
4. Track keyword rankings
5. Find internal and external linking opportunities
6. Improve user experience
7. Run competitive analyses
8. Create better content briefs
9. Scale your content creation
10. Optimize content for search engines and readers

1. Audit your website

Tools: Screaming Frog, Semrush

• Identify technical SEO issues
• Find crawl errors, broken links, and duplicate content
• Evaluate keyword density and readability

All-in-one tools like Screaming Frog or Semrush can build an audit report that identifies crawl errors, missing meta tags, broken links, thin content, duplicate content, and more.

Screaming Frog has an AI-powered crawler that analyzes website structure and identifies technical issues.

You can also use AI to analyze the keyword density of each web page and readability to ensure your content is optimized for search engines and humans.

Then, you can analyze audit results and prioritize which errors to resolve.

2. Discover new ranking opportunities

Tools: Surfer, Semrush

• Refresh underperforming content
• Identify pages stuck on page 2
• Add missing keywords and internal links

Revamping and repurposing existing content is just as important (if not more) than creating new content.

AI SEO tools like Semrush and Surfer provide content analyses to identify which pages need improvement to better align with search intent to boost visibility and clicks.

Surfer uses SERP analysis to score content and identify quick wins, like content ranking on the second page of the SERP that could reach page one with effective optimizations or opportunities to rank for overlooked keywords.

With this data, you can refresh old content so it ranks higher in the SERPs for more search terms.

In fact, one Surfer user’s content went from #7 to #1 overnight by following its optimization suggestion to remove 22,000 words from a 26,000-word article.

3. Keyword research and content ideation

Tools: Topic Mojo, ConversionIQ

• Analyze trending topics and questions
• Find keyword gaps that competitors are missing
• Use behavioral insights for high-converting keywords

Topic Mojo is a powerful keyword research tool that uses AI to identify trending topics and popular keywords to spark content ideas and discover new keywords.

Just enter a broad keyword like “ecommerce,” and it’ll generate a visual map of related search terms — complete with data like search volume, user intent, and trending queries.

It also highlights all videos, forum discussions, and social media posts on the topic.

At HawkSEM, we use our proprietary software, ConversionIQ, to identify keywords with high-conversion potential.

These tools guide both SEO and paid search campaigns to ensure we zoom in on search terms that generate leads and sales.

CIQ uses AI to analyze customer behavior to recommend the best keywords to use.

4. Track keyword rankings

Tools: Zutrix, Ahrefs, SERanking, Semrush

• Monitor the performance of key search terms
• Get real-time ranking alerts
• Adjust strategy based on shifts in SERPs

With the right AI tool, you can quickly identify the search terms your site ranks for and track its performance in the search results over time.

These tools provide real-time updates, generate reports, and surface performance metrics like ranking changes, CTR, and visibility trends to guide your SEO decisions.

SEO tool Zutrix uses AI to browse SERPs like a human (not a bot). This means you get accurate SERP data for your content ranking status.

Below, Semrush highlights which targeted keywords are dropping in the rankings to help prioritize optimizations:

5. Find internal and external linking opportunities

Tools : ankMath, Link Whisper, Beki

• Auto-suggest relevant internal links
• Discover high-authority external sites to link to
• Improve topical depth and authority

Internal links increase visitors’ time on site and show visitors that you’re an authority on a subject.

External links to reputable sites improve the quality of your content, signaling to search engines that your posts are sharing valuable knowledge.

Various SEO AI software offers advanced link-building features that either connect to your Google Search Console or use search engines to find them.

Rank Math (a WordPress plugin) uses Google data to find internal links to add to your posts. Just enter the keyword and it’ll search your website for linking opportunities.

Beki finds internal linking opportunities, suggests anchor text, tracks link health, and monitors the results of your linking efforts.

Pro tip: Speaking of authority, Google is hard at work creating policies around AI content and E-E-A-T. (The latter is Google’s ranking system for high-quality content, grading elements of expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.)

6. Improve user experience

Tools: Sprig, Hotjar, Crazy Egg

• Track on-site behavior and pain points
• Categorize feedback into themes
• Prioritize UX updates that impact bounce and engagement

User experience (UX) is one of Google’s ranking factors. If the site is cluttered, difficult to navigate, or irrelevant to the target audience, it’ll have a high bounce rate (when visitors leave too fast) and rank lower in search results.

There are a few ways AI can help improve UX on your website.

Sprig uses AI to analyze customer surveys to gain insights about their experience on the site.

It organizes feedback to highlight similar answers, so you can identify and prioritize website improvements.

7. Run competitive analyses

Tools: Konnecto, Crayon

• Identify what drives traffic to competitors
• Replicate and improve top-performing strategies
• Discover untapped content angles

AI-powered SEO tools allow you to comb through competitor websites and run analytics to determine gaps and opportunities in your own SEO strategy.

AI tool Konnecto doesn’t just look at what your competition is doing — it looks at what they do well.

It highlights competitors’ website features that drive traffic, leads, and revenue.

8. Create better content briefs

Tools : MarketMuse, Zenbrief, Narrato, Frase

• Auto-generate outlines with keywords, subtopics, and questions
• Align content with search intent
• Reduce writer guesswork and improve consistency

Once you complete your strategy and research keywords, topics, audience insights, and competitor analyses, it’s time to get your writers ready to craft high-converting content.

You can continue creating content briefs from scratch manually. Or you can opt for an AI platform that generates briefs for you.

Many tools available today run algorithms to find keywords, subtopics, questions, searcher intent, and other information to make data-driven content briefs.

A few of the top AI software options on the market today include MarketMuse, Zenbrief, and Narrato. Each offers different levels of customization and AI assistance.

For example, Narrato employs AI to generate SEO-friendly content briefs that reflect questions, keywords, and search intent. It also has AI templates to simplify content planning workflows.

Zenbrief uses AI to generate briefs and suggestions for content creation and helps optimize SEO strategies and increase organic traffic.

9. Scale your content creation

Tools: Jasper, HyperWrite, Copy.ai

• Produce first drafts quickly
• Repurpose blog posts into copywriting for social, ads, and emails
• Train tools on your brand voice and tone

Scaling your SEO content creation is possible with artificial intelligence. Today’s tools range from generating copy for emails to full-fledged blog posts.

But a word of warning: While some may mimic human-level content writing well, all AI writing needs an editor to ensure it’s on brand, reads well, and is factual.

Using AI to generate outlines speeds up the writing process for content teams. The key is finding the right software based on your needs.

Jasper acts as an AI-powered writing assistant, creating optimized product descriptions, landing pages, and blog posts.

Its brand voice feature can capture your tone and style by analyzing your website, style guide, product catalogs, and other resources.

Another tool, HyperWrite, stores a local database (on your PC) of your emails and Google Docs (with your permission).

It learns your writing style so it can make suggestions as you write or generate longer texts in your voice. It can even autogenerate email replies based on the context of the email and how it thinks you’d respond.

10. Optimize content for search engines and readers

Tools: Frase, Clearscope, Surfer

• Add missing keywords in headings and meta tags
• Match SERP content structure
• Improve content depth and topical relevance

AI SEO tools like Frase pull keywords from the SERPs to help writers identify topics and search terms to include in their pieces to make them more in-depth (and optimized).

Clearscope provides a list of keywords to include in your article to ensure relevancy and rankings.

Both score your content — Frase uses numbers up to 100 and Clearscope uses a simple A-F grading system.

Surfer also provides a content score and sends weekly task alerts, such as:

• Writing a new article (and even gives a topic idea)
• Adding keywords (and which ones)
• Inserting an internal link (and providing the URL)
• Watching a video to learn how to perform a new SEO skill (video link included)

Best AI tools for SEO

Here are the AI tools we recommend to speed up SEO workflows, organized by category:

How to maintain E-E-A-T with AI content

AI tools may assist in content creation, but they are not a replacement for writers. This is especially true when it comes to maintaining E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

Google uses E-E-A-T to help evaluate the quality of content and the credibility of the source.

While it’s not a direct website ranking factor, it heavily influences how your content is perceived and ranked in the search results.

Here’s how to make sure your content is E-E-A-T approved:

• Attribute quotes and data to credible sources
• Include expert reviews
• Add original insights
• Keep your content updated and factual

Potential negative impacts of AI SEO (and what to do about it)

AI tools can make mistakes and are not human bloggers, SEOs, or UX designers, and using these tools as replacements can lead to negative impacts.

For example, unedited AI content can lead to:

• Unhelpful content penalizations
• Failing plagiarism tests
• Ranking low in the SERPs
• Unnatural tone
• Downgrading of SEO teams (and their performance)
• Eliminating the creative process in SEO

You can prevent these issues by being more hands-on when using AI SEO tools. In other words, provide more oversight and add a human touch to the output.

How to use AI responsibly to benefit your SEO campaigns

AI is designed to be an advantage for businesses, marketers, and SEOs. Here’s how to improve your odds of success when using AI SEO assistants:

• Incorporate human input into AI-generated content: Although AI can generate content quickly, it lacks creativity and the human touch. Having SEO team members contribute to the content ensures your content is personalized and engaging.
• Carefully select AI tools: Test different tools to find the best AI software for your needs. It should produce high-quality content and adhere to ethical guidelines. Browse through online communities to find recommendations and consider pricing tiers — many offer free trials, but advanced features often come with premium plans.
• Support AI-generated content with other SEO campaigns: Don’t rely on AI content to get your content ranked. Aside from using human writers and editors, implement other tactics to support the AI-written content, such as building backlinks, using internal links, and optimizing website structure to increase SERP rankings.
• Check for plagiarism: AI-generated content can result in plagiarism, which can negatively impact your website’s SERP ranking and lead to Google penalties. Grammarly and Copyscape tools can check for plagiarized text.
• Continuously optimize content: Some AI tools help you optimize content using a scoring system and SEO checklist. This may help you rank initially, but SERPs change over time. This requires you to revisit your content to re-optimize it with more and better content to continue ranking high in SERPs.
• Fact-check AI-generated content: AI can generate content based on a predefined set of topics and keywords. However, it’s still up to you and your team to verify that the content is factually accurate. This will require a bit of manual labor to check reports and other sources to determine the truthfulness of the content, but it’s worth it to preserve your brand’s credibility and reputation.

Checklist: Next steps to implement AI in your SEO strategy

• Choose 1-2 AI tools that fit your current goals
• Use AI to audit your top-performing pages
• Build briefs and content clusters using keyword tools
• Test generative AI for ideation or first drafts
• Monitor content performance and optimize continuously

The takeaway

AI tools aren’t here to replace human SEO experts or content marketers. Rather, they can be seen as our friendly robot assistants. When used responsibly and ethically, AI can be a big asset to your SEO team.

The key is to educate yourself and your teams to use these tools to become more productive and effective, so you have more time to focus on other tasks, like big-picture planning and creative brainstorming.

Need more help with your SEO or other digital marketing initiatives? The experts at HawkSEM use AI to help businesses like yours grow visibility, leads, and sales. Contact our team today for a free consultation.

This article has been updated and was originally published in July 2023.