Your content’s visibility may be at stake with the latest impact of AI technology used for searching and querying answers within search engines and AI tools. Your content’s visibility is no longer defined by ranking alone. AI systems use the well-known SEO principles, but also look for current, trusted, structured, concise, and clearly written content. The more comprehensive or deep the content is, the more AI systems are attracted to it.
Google and other AI systems do not penalize content because it is created by AI. The content producer does not matter, but the quality of the content does. Before the internet matured, content was published without any editing, control, or oversight. There was junk content everywhere with little value being published for content’s sake.
When you create quality content that is optimized with standard SEO principles and sprinkled with AIO optimization, AI systems and customers will find it. It is important to learn how to produce content that gets noticed by AI and human consumers.
Why Penalize AI-Generated Content?
Google and other AI providers will penalize content that is flagged as scaled spam. Scaled Spam tends to be AI-generated content that provides no value. However, human-written content can also be penalized. For example, when content contains sparse and generic information that is simply a collection of general information stuck together. When AI or human-generated content is published and posted without any editing, review, or updates, it likely will be flagged by Google’s scaled content abuse filter.
Penalized content frequently violates Google’s E-E-A-T principles. E-E-A-T stands for content with expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Penalized content spreads disinformation or potentially inaccurate information. Content that lacks originality can be flagged when it only contains standard information without a unique perspective or first-hand experience. Such content does not include expertise and is deemed untrustworthy.
How AIO Improves Content Visibility
AI-optimized (AIO) content gets rewarded when it contains original, quality information that includes the E-E-A-T principles and gains visibility. The higher the content quality and E-E-A-T score, the more content visibility and access improve. AIO content includes content written in a structured format that is parsable by large language models (LLMs).
Google and other AI providers reward content that contains reliable, accurate information that answers human queries, whether they use search or an AI tool. The purpose of AIO is to get cited as a source within an AI summary or answer. Getting cited means content is visible to consumers as a trusted source. Many consumers fail to click outside of an AI summary answer. In fact, CTR drops between 15-64% when AI overviews are provided. When your content shows up as a source, your content gains more exposure.
Steps for Optimizing Content With AIO
Optimize your quality content for increased visibility with AIO by:
- Continuing to practice SEO fundamentals including crawlability, metadata, linking, and using keywords.
- Content structure must allow AI parsing so it is easy to evaluate for authority, expertise, and trustworthiness. Keep in mind that AI systems don’t “read” top to bottom like humans but instead parse content blocks for answers to questions.
- Stick to the facts and back them up with credible, accurate resources.
- Provide answers to questions after every header.
- Practice direct and concise writing that breaks down complex information into bullet points or short paragraphs.
- Keep your content’s tone conversational so that it mimics how consumers naturally speak, or as close as possible.
- Use titles, descriptions, and H1 tags that explain the content’s theme or concept.
- Label subheadings as H2 or H3 to help AI parsers separate different topics or concepts within the text.
- Continue to use schema markup. Schema is code that informs AI and search systems what your content contains. It typically exists as a script that runs in the backend of a CMS system or through page code. Learn more at schema.org.
Writing content is critical, but so is the way content is reviewed or edited. Editing is critical to confirm writers use keywords as intended and include text that is similar to user search queries. Editors must review that Google’s E-E-A-T principles exist and all facts used are linked to credible sources. Remember, AI prefers high-quality, structured, and well-written text with depth.
Produce People-First Content That Provides Solutions
AIO works to keep content visible and accessible to potential customers. Content quality with a people-first focus is critical for getting ranked and establishing a reputation for accuracy, reliability, and expertise. AI systems and human users look for content they trust, and trust is hard to gain but easy to lose. Content wins trust with readable, accurate, trustworthy, and accurate content that provides answers or solutions to a human user’s question or problem.
People-first content means the content provides answers or solutions and isn’t written for the sole purpose of ranking or being cited by AI. SEO principles still matter even with AI citations. Focus your efforts on creating quality content that is easy to understand, skimmable, structured, and accurate.
Looking For Experts in Content Quality & Management?
Look into Better Content Matters (BCM). At BCM, our writers are trained from the start to write content that focuses on people first. BCM writers produce content that provides actionable solutions to answer a wide range of questions or queries. We provide answers your readers can use, and we pride ourselves on our depth of expertise not only in writing but also in editing and publishing as well.
BCM editors follow a detailed checklist to ensure all content is grammatically correct, concise, and links are accurate. In addition, they check that all content follows BCM-defined structure for headings, subheadings, and Google E-E-A-T. We follow Google’s guidelines for creating high-quality content naturally optimized with SEO and AIO.
Our team knows how to use SEO and keywords to strengthen search result returns without being obvious. We provide personalized client services so you get the content you need to grow your business. Contact us today to learn how we can help you maximize your content investment.
