Creating and automating content with or without AI [Brighton SEO, Sept 2023]

This September 2023, we were in Brighton for the Brighton SEO event. This article is an opportunity to share with you the content of the "Creating and Automating Content with(out) AI" conference.

I really like this quote from Dave Brailsford, which explains the concept of marginal gains. To me it illustrates very well the work we do in SEO and why it's useful to have a good overview even if you specialize.

The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could thing of that goes into riding bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.

Dave Brailsford, British Cycling's performance director in 2012.
"Olympics cycling: Marginal gains underpin Team GB dominance" (2012)
URL: https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/19174302

Even if one optimization seems more efficient than another at a given moment, this doesn't mean that the others are unimportant. This is how I've been thinking about how to automate selected steps in our projects, and this is the method I wanted to present during my talk at the September 2023 edition of BrightonSEO.

While we've been lately developing a fascination with generative content, I remain relatively disappointed with the end results. Like disillusionment. So I quickly stopped thinking of AI as a miraculous solution. It's both a beautiful dream, a promise of idleness, and a fear on the part of a segment of the population that doesn't want software and artificial intelligence to replace us. No doubt because it would take away everything we humans have to offer, including our jobs. This is one of the issues addressed in Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, entitled Klara et le Soleil (Klara and the Sun).

France Inter, La rédaction numérique de France Inter, Friday, September 15, 2023.

At Onclusive, more than half of French employees replaced by artificial intelligence tools

URL: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/chez-onclusive-plus-de-la-moitie-des-salaries-francais-remplaces-par-des-outils-d-intelligence-artificielle-4134887

That's why I think it's important to present even SEO Copywriting as a technical discipline. Yes, it requires editorial skills, but if we're going to publish content online, it's essential to know how the Web works. It's even important to know how a computer works. Besides, editorial IS technical in itself.

Being a good web copywriter isn't that easy, so what do you expect from robots?

Indeed, you can be an excellent web copywriter, but this will be of little use if the robots can't access the website properly. Being a good writer is a complex and difficult skill to acquire. It enables you to create content that appeals to both a robot and a user, while promoting click-through rates to the web page from the results page. But writing while ignoring the technical issues can be very frustrating. It's a nightmare to spend so much time and budget only to end up with no technically viable web page at all.

Here's a list of tasks you can automate using the capabilities of a robot that doesn't need to sleep:

• analysis of very large amounts of data (⚠️ analyze ≠ interpret),

• search for information and data in a broad and unlimited way,

• convert one content format into another,

• create a very large number of draft and 1st draft versions,

• anything that requires you to click several times in a single day for a single task,

• enrich vocabulary and lexical fields.

Also, a robot doesn't get bored or tired. In theory, it also has no cognitive or social biases... except those that humans teach it. These are undoubtedly the worst. Remember Tay?

Lazy is the new smart.

In the age of artificial intelligence and generative content, it's even more interesting to combine these skills as a web copywriter:

• a strong digital culture,

• fundamental technical SEO skills,

• a certain level of laziness.

If you're lazy and smart, this is exactly what you need to set up the right automations. Maybe that task you've been procrastinating on would be something to optimize? Maybe a trainee could do it? Automating this task is also a great way of allowing the people you're training to spend more time on design and strategy.

But speaking of trainees, let's not forget that a robot is often a very naive person, highly motivated but not necessarily very clever. They take a lot of things at face value (like me) and tend to do anything if left alone for too long (like me?!). Remember that scene in Fantasia where Mickey, the sorcerer's apprentice, enchants the brooms to do all the work for him? It doesn't turn out well, as without supervision the brooms actually continue to do exactly what Mickey has ordered.

What you thought you wanted to automate and what you need to automate.

But before we criticize robots for not being able to guess what's going on in our heads, let's take a look at what we dream of entrusting to them. It's interesting that, like Mickey, we'd like to stop working and retire. But that's a pity: why not think of robots as an excellent way of delegating things that seem redundant? Thinking, designing and strategizing are the most interesting and fun parts of our jobs. Let's keep them to ourselves! Let the robots help us, and let's stay in command of the ship.

Here are a few examples of what is relevant to automate:

• search and sort sources quickly with solutions such as Google Scholar and Google Books, where you can scrape the results and then request summaries from ChatGPT to see what's worth reading in full at that moment,

• proofread for spelling, grammar and syntax(7 Antidote features for SEO Copywriting),

• contact experts to interview with emailing solutions like Yet Another Mail Merge,

• bulk uploading for the win!

• resize, crop and lighten images.

But how can you automate the creation of content that requires a high level of expertise?

In the book The story of success (2008)Malcolm Gladwell talks about a method requiring 10,000 hours to become an expert in any field. This finding comes from a study by Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363-406.

Today, the figure of 10,000 hours is an obsolete idea, but the message is there: it takes a lot of work.

So if you don't consider yourself an expert in a field, don't pretend to be. It will show, and that's not a good idea in the age of E-E-A-T. That said, even if you are an eminent expert, that doesn't make you a good writer either. You can have exciting ideas and still be absolutely boring to listen to and read. So the best solution is certainly to work with someone else. You're a good writer: call in an expert. You're an expert: get help from experienced people to structure a speech and get it into shape.

List of tips for creating content faster AND better.

• Analyze content already featured on Google's 1st page with YourText.Guru,

• Find names of experts and entities to explore with YourText.Guru,

• Automate format changes to give yourself the best chance of having your site appear with a featured or rich snippet (don't wait for Google to change or implement features to make your content structurally more attractive).

  • list in table format,

  • paragraph list,

  • article in FAQ,

  • computer graphics transcription with OCR,

  • scrape references from Google Scholar with a browser plug-in (Scraper)

  • consult keywords in books on Google Books,

  • use the APIs of the tool licenses you're already paying for to help you make broad analyses and prioritize,

  • use podcast transcription features to conduct interviews more efficiently,

  • use your devices' native functions (clipping on iPhone, OCR on Remarkable, etc.),

  • learn to write in MarkDown to easily transform any file into another format more suited to your current needs.

Automation for creativity.

If you automate the redundant tasks that bore you, your mind is freer to think and be creative! Creativity is all about connecting dots that sometimes seem far apart. But the link drawn between these two points creates something new and often exciting. This way of looking at things gives you the keys to identifying what you could automate in your methods. What are the things that slow you down, that create frustration? How would automating them help you?

But above all, don't forget your real objective, the reason you're on the Web in the first place: to be better than your competitors. This means creating interesting, relevant content that you yourself will want to read again and again.