How did your year start? Did you manage to take a break from work during the holidays?
Yes, the year started well—actually, even better than planned. I managed to rest, and now we’re ready for even bigger goals in the new year.
There is an opinion that January is a bad month for marketers because clients are not ready to work, and advertising performs poorly. Does this apply to your agency? Or has everything already picked up full speed?
In general, there are a few industries where January is not very active. On average, there’s a slight slowdown for just a few days or up to a week after New Year’s. However, it’s not like it was five years ago when no one did anything for two weeks after the holidays. We don’t feel that anymore. On the contrary, our clients actively order services they want to receive after the holidays, so work is in full swing.
In your opinion, how are two marketing trends—voice search and artificial intelligence—connected in terms of SEO?
Voice search and artificial intelligence are mainly linked through queries. AI can, to some extent, replicate Google’s or other search engines’ algorithms and generate information. For example, a person doesn’t necessarily need to Google the rules of a board game—they can simply ask a voice assistant. This reduces the number of searches and makes responses more precise.
How do you think artificial intelligence affects organic traffic growth? Could it even hinder the work of SEO specialists?
At this point, artificial intelligence no longer directly helps. Since spring 2023, Google has stopped ranking websites with AI-generated content, especially automatically created pages. The period when you could generate text and achieve good rankings has already passed.
Google is also increasingly generating answers to informational queries directly in search results. As a result, websites that previously received traffic from such queries are now losing it. This creates some uncertainty—if websites stop receiving traffic and monetization, they won’t publish content, and AI will have no sources to pull information from.
If a website contains repetitive content, such as product descriptions in an online store, will this affect its ranking? After all, such texts may look AI-generated, even if they’re not.
Yes, if a text has many characteristics of generated content, search engines might classify it as artificial. For online stores, this is less critical because, for instance, if a user searches for a specific TV model, even a simple description will help them make a decision.
However, it’s important to understand that different content-checking services have their own algorithms and margins of error. A lot depends on the criteria used by Google or Microsoft.
When it comes to using artificial intelligence for content creation, especially for SEO, how does it impact relevance and a page’s ranking chances?
Using AI increases the chances of getting at least minimal traffic, even if there are penalties for generated text. For example, a page containing keywords with even basic relevance will perform better than if it didn’t exist at all.
However, for informational queries like “how to choose,” “how to set up,” “how to attach,” Google might not display such pages in search results. Additionally, AI works similarly to academic research—if information is generated based on other sources, Google is more likely to prioritize the original data rather than the generated text.
Could this harm important pages in the long run?
Yes, using AI-generated content for important pages can do more harm than good. Content generation makes sense only for routine tasks where the content is not critically important. For example, a marketer can use AI to prepare a basic outline or structure, but the main content should be created by a human.
How does this impact content on social media, such as posts on Facebook or Instagram?
Meta also has its own artificial intelligence. At the moment, there are no official statements saying that AI-generated texts affect ranking. However, these platforms are more focused on behavioral factors—how long a user interacts with a post, whether they read the details, or if they continue scrolling.
If all posts become generic, such as AI-generated “success stories,” the platform may deprioritize them in the feed.
In your opinion, what aspects of SEO should remain exclusively in human hands, and which tasks can be delegated to AI?
It depends on the specifics of the task. There’s a good saying: “A good script replaces a bad specialist.” But almost everything can be automated—it’s just a matter of whether it makes sense. For example, if automating a task takes 20 hours while doing it manually takes just 30 minutes twice a year, it’s not worth automating.
When it comes to content, humans should remain responsible for writing and structuring it. AI can assist with analysis, page comparisons, and spell-checking, but the final content should always go through human review.
How is your agency adapting to changes related to the implementation of artificial intelligence? What advice would you give to specialists who are just starting to work with these tools?
We have always focused on creating content for people, so adapting to these changes has not been a challenge for us. Google has simply added new criteria for evaluating content, such as assessing uniqueness or AI generation. This is just another tool to help verify content quality.
For those starting to work with AI tools, it’s essential to understand that they are assistants, not replacements for specialists. The first step is to analyze which tasks are repetitive and can be automated. AI is useful for spell-checking, text analysis, and even some basic programming tasks.
Large data sets exist on various websites, and the same applies to ChatGPT. It can retrieve information, generate options, and perform tasks instead of a human by suggesting solutions. However, there isn’t a single massive database containing all the correct headlines or descriptions.
ChatGPT cannot scan websites or check link speed. It is more useful for simpler tasks, such as recommending a WordPress plugin or verifying specific details.
Similar to hiring an additional team member, if the workload exceeds what one person can handle, ChatGPT can act as an extra “employee.” However, its effectiveness depends on how well tasks are structured and reviewed. For example, if you ask it to generate SEO keywords, it’s best to set clear parameters to avoid excessive or irrelevant data that would require manual cleanup.
In paid advertising, AI-generated keywords are not particularly useful because it might suggest terms with no demand. Adding such terms to a campaign results in low search volume on Google, negatively impacting performance. That’s why we focus on keyword frequency and effectiveness.
What about AI-generated headlines and descriptions?
ChatGPT can be useful in this area. For new websites with limited content, it can generate titles and descriptions. However, users must review the generated data.
For example, if someone searches for “Dell laptop” and a regional variation like “Dell notebook” is also popular, AI may suggest these synonyms. In our tool (Note: Mykola refers to Yakiv Ads), there’s a keyword collection feature that aggregates data from different services, considering frequency and synonyms to help expand keyword lists.
Thus, ChatGPT is suitable for support tasks, especially for generating headlines and descriptions. However, its efficiency in keyword research or complex queries is limited.
If you give it a complicated prompt, it might apologize and continue making mistakes. Therefore, it’s crucial to provide precise instructions and closely monitor its output.
How do you balance family life and business?
It’s probably a bit easier for me since my wife is also a marketer, and we work in the same industry. However, like any entrepreneur, I don’t have a clear boundary between work and personal life.
Marketing isn’t a job where you can just close your laptop and say the workday is over. It’s a continuous process. Plus, dealing with different time zones adds to the challenges.
To avoid being constantly involved in every task, we have a team with clearly defined responsibilities—account managers, specialists, and so on. For example, I haven’t received unexpected calls or messages like “Why isn’t the ad working?” in years. This is thanks to well-established processes.
What advice would you give business owners on using AI for website promotion?
First, it’s essential to understand the basics of SEO. It includes technical optimization, content creation, and link building. You can’t just generate text, publish it somewhere, and expect results—those methods stopped being effective years ago.
Second, there’s no magic button for instant traffic. SEO is a systematic and ongoing process. You must consider competition—if your competitor is publishing hundreds of backlinks monthly while you only generate a few dozen, you’ll fall behind.
AI can assist with specific tasks, such as creating a content plan, analyzing pages, or suggesting ways to improve site speed. But without careful review, it can also cause harm.
For a free marketing audit and consultation, submit a request on the Marketing Link website or give us a call.
All the photos in the article are provided by the company(s) mentioned in the article and are used with permission.
