Will SEO ever be fully automated?
It is the one question that every person working in the industry has asked themselves over the years: will a robot replace me?
Since a large part of SEO is already being automated, you would think that full automation will be the natural next step. But the reality is that SEO is still a complex and laboursome procedure that requires a human touch in order to do it correctly.
While small parts of SEO can be automated, and actually work a whole lot better when automated, the process on a whole cannot and perhaps should not be left to a machine.
In this article, we will discuss automated SEO. Can SEO ever be fully automated?
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What is automated SEO?
Automated SEO is any part of the SEO process that can be programmed to be done automatically. It relies on SEO software and website plugins, which are set up to run various tasks without you having to think about it ever again.
Naturally, a partly automated process is hugely beneficial when it is used for those more mundane and time-consuming tasks, but when it comes to things that require the human touch, like planning and developing marketing strategies, you will find that automation is not the best, or smartest, method.
To make the entire SEO process automated is likely to backfire and create the sorts of problems that will require even more human effort to correct. Just like self-driving cars still cause accidents, automated SEO cannot think like a human and therefore cannot be creative or resolve problems as they come up.
What SEO can be automated and what should be done by humans?
The optimisation of a website requires so much more than coding, site auditing, and keyword analysis, all of which can be automated.
SEO is essentially all about the end-user, and so it is not just something that can be ticked off on a checklist and then left to run by itself on an automated system. For an SEO campaign to be organised and run successfully, you need to have actual people doing certain tasks, and you will also need people to keep an eye on the progress of the campaign, so that they can see if the SEO is working as it should, and that it is actually reaching people.
After all, SEO is all about getting the attention of potential customers and turning them into paying clients. For that to be possible, you need to create an SEO process that speaks to humans, and that is something a machine can’t do.
If you are thinking about automating your SEO, these are the aspects that will need to be done by humans:
All of the marketing
Okay, so this sounds broad and vague, and the bulk of your SEO work, and that is because it is. There are very few, if any, aspects of marketing that can actually be automated because all marketing is creative and requires a unique, often personal, touch.
From researching trends and marketing techniques, and going through all of the related data, to actually creating the marketing plan that will be used to get the brand out there, not much of this aspect can be done through automation, because machines and AI can’t replace human know-how.
Anything related to user experience
Everything about SEO and online marketing comes down to the human user experience and how people are going to interact with the brand. Google itself is very serious about websites having to provide users with an experience that is as natural as one human having a chat with another. Google is so serious in fact, that websites that look and sound too mechanical are actually penalised.
From the photos on the site to the layout, and especially the content, none of this can be automated, if you want to make sure that your site is providing users with an authentic experience.
All Public Relations tasks
If you are not implementing it already, you are missing out on quite a big marketing opportunity by not making use of Public Relations. PR is a highly effective marketing tool and yet so many people still think that the technique is more for high-end businesses and high-profile people.
PR is one of the easiest and best ways to create and grow contacts with people in your industry, and as you can imagine, it can’t be automated.
Every part of your content marketing
We have already touched slightly on this, but content marketing and content creation can’t be automated. Even though there are plenty of companies out there that claim to be able to create content through AI, the truth is that no machine can replace the conversational tone that copywriters use when creating content. AI content often looks very unnatural and in some cases, it can look downright strange. For this reason, it is always best to hire someone to write the content for you.
Any project management
While there are some great project management tools available, and they really do the job effectively, they won’t work if they don’t have a person monitoring the tools and ensuring that the SEO project runs smoothly. No machine will be able to do project management in the same way as a human can, and when an issue comes up, and it will, a machine won’t be able to address it, especially if the issue is related to staff.
