SEO content writing is the type of writing that is done while keeping SEO best practices and policies in mind. The content created by such writing serves to help a website in raising its rank in the SERPs.
As compared to normal writing i.e., when you’re writing simple articles or essays, SEO writing requires a lot more time and effort. There are different things that you have to do, such as keyword research, keyword adjustment, content organization, metadata creation, and so on.
Using AI tools and online software during this whole process can be very helpful…and appealing. But helpful as it may be, there are certain rules and regulations that you have to abide by when using them. If you don’t, then your entire effort can backfire on you.
Let’s take a look at some of the dos and don’ts of using AI tools for SEO content writing. Once you read them through, you will have a good idea of what to do and what not to do with these tools the next time you have to write some website texts or a blog post, etc.
DO: Carefully Pick Good Tools for the Job
Source: insynch.co.uk
Although the general advice and advocacy is for people to use online AI tools for SEO content writing, it should be more specifically to use good online AI tools instead.
Just because a tool is AI-based and is found on the Internet does not mean that it is worth using. A lot of times, using a lame tool can put you in a fix rather than helping you out.
Consider the example of a really bad grammar checker. You could enter your content into that tool, fix the offered corrections, and then wrap it all up thinking you’re done…when you’re actually not.
That is why the first “Do” we’re mentioning here is that you should always carefully pick good tools for whatever purpose you need. And the way to find good tools is to be careful of the following factors:
- The popularity of the tool. The popular tools are generally high-quality ones. If a tool is popular, there’s a reason behind it. So, pick well-known tools.
- The features of the tool. Good tools come with good features. The number and quality of the features make the tool easier (or otherwise) to use.
- The reliability and security of the tool. You don’t want to use a tool that has a shady privacy policy. You should only trust your content to tools that have a clear and transparent one.
DON’T: Use Tools Excessively and Incessantly
While tools are helpful and everything, they don’t remain so when they are used excessively and incessantly. This is something that holds particular application for tools in the generative category.
For example, if you want to use a content generator to get some help with writing your content, you should do it sparingly. If you use it excessively, your own manual and creative writing will fade away in all the generated content.
Even in tools that are used for checking and proofreading i.e., grammar checkers and readability checkers, you should not go too overboard. In this case, going overboard would mean using different tools and having your content get spoilt with all the contradictory corrections and suggestions.
To make sure that your usage remains moderate, here is some stuff that you should do:
- Pick one good tool for a job.
- Don’t use any tool in a way that saps the creativity and personal touch from your content. This applies to content generators and AI assistants.
- Focus on improving your content quality and augmenting the writing process rather than automating it.
Elaborating on the last tip a little, it means that you should not try and make over the entire writing process to online tools. It can be tempting to use a content generator to create the content, check it for plagiarism, and present it as your own work.
But this isn’t correct.
A more constructive way to utilize online tools in that same setting can be to write your content yourself, use a paraphrasing tool to improve it, a grammar checker to perfect it, a plagiarism checker to ensure uniqueness, and then wrap it up.
While we are on this topic, it’s worth mentioning that you can find tools like this collectively on online toolkits. There are quite a few such toolkits that bring together a whole bunch of tools in one place, so you don’t have to find each one separately. Editpad, for example, is one such toolkit.
DO: Use Tools Carefully While Checking the Output
Source: nichepursuits.com
Whenever you use online tools for any writing-related task, you should take care to check the output that they provide. This applies to the short and brief stuff like ideas and outlines and even bigger outputs like entire swathes of content.
The importance of doing this can be better understood when considering what would happen if you did not do it.
Tools are tools, and they can make mistakes quite frequently, even if they happen to be high-quality. Highly trained generative tools can sometimes misunderstand the instructions and create content that does not align with the context and purpose, etc.
If you don’t check the outputs of such tools, the errors and mistakes they make can end up being used in the actual draft.
DON’T: Use online tools in unethical ways
Another resounding “don’t” of using online AI tools for SEO content writing is to not utilize them in an unethical capacity.
One of the most common unethical ways to use these tools is, for example, to misappropriate existing content. This can involve doing things like taking content from a source, changing it (by paraphrasing or rewriting), adding a little bit of newly generated content, and then using it as your own.
This point is similar to what we mentioned above about not using online tools excessively. You just have to make sure that the online tools you use augment and help in the writing process rather than completely take over it.
Source: gorrion.io
Conclusion
Just because online AI tools are so easily available and accessible does not mean that you can use them in any way you please. There are boundaries and rules that you have to respect.
Although we did it with brevity, the post above highlights the main dos and don’ts of using AI tools when writing content for SEO. To bring it together into one sentence, we can say that: you should use tools in a moderate capacity while being careful about the outputs they provide.
