Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid of AI

As someone who has been in the SEO field for over 5 years, I know that digital marketing and tech in general are a forever-changing landscape. Over the last 3 years, I’ve worked in the tourism industry and seen firsthand how COVID impacted the way people search and how they look for travel destinations.

When ChatGPT was first released, people were searching for things like, “things to do in Chicago.” But after the advent of AI, ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini, people now search in question forms and are often given an AI overview right on the Google SERPs. In this new digital landscape, many of my clients at my past job as an SEO Analyst were, frankly, freaking out about how to compete and rank in this new AI world. Some clients were just plain afraid of AI.

But I don’t see what some people see as machines taking over human jobs. Instead, I see machine learning helping humans parse through all the content online. AI is helping to mine a path toward a more cohesive understanding of how to search and how to rank. So, no need to be afraid of the AI ghost at all! Since recently being laid off, I’ve even come to use Gemini AI myself to figure out what’s next in this new world of job searching, how to structure my resume, and just for a basic understanding of how to emotionally navigate this difficult time.

So, how do you provide answers to clients in organic SEO, and how can they navigate this new search landscape? One of the biggest ranking factors these days is having great content on your landing pages. This means content that genuinely helps users answer their questions and provides a nice overview of what that service or person is speaking to or offering. The core truth remains: it’s all about delivering valuable, high-quality content and then strategically marketing it to the right audience. AI is simply a powerful new tool to help us do just that, not replace our creativity or expertise.