I Use AI for SEO Work. Here's Exactly What That Means & What It Doesn't.

When I tell people I use AI in my SEO work, I get one of two reactions.

The first is curiosity. “Oh, interesting — how does that work?” They lean in. They want to know more.

The second is skepticism. A slight pause. A look that says: “Is that… cheating? Is she just plugging my business into ChatGPT and calling it a day?”

I get it. I genuinely do. AI has become one of those words that means everything and nothing at the same time. Everyone’s using it, everyone’s talking about it, and very few people are being straight about what they’re actually doing with it.

So let me be straight with you. Here’s exactly how I use AI in my SEO work — and more importantly, here’s what I’m still doing entirely as a human being, because that part matters more than you might think.

First, Let's Talk About How Most People Use AI

When most people think about AI, they think about ChatGPT. They think about typing a question and getting an answer. And honestly, that’s how a lot of people use it — as a very fast, very articulate search engine.

Ask it to write a birthday message. Done. Ask it what to cook for dinner. Done. Ask it to explain how a mortgage works, summarize a long email, help you write a text to your landlord, draft a complaint letter, settle an argument about movie trivia — all of it, done, in seconds.

And that’s genuinely useful! There’s nothing wrong with that. AI as a conversational tool, a writing assistant, a quick-answer machine — it’s changed how a lot of people get through their day.

But here’s the thing: as an SEO strategist, that way of using AI is like hiring a master carpenter and watching them use their tools to hang a picture frame. Technically, yes, that’s something you can do. But it’s not even close to the full picture. The way I use AI in my work isn’t about getting quick answers. It’s about doing deep, specific, strategic work faster and more accurately than was ever possible before — and still applying human judgment at every single step that matters.

Step One: I Listen to You. No AI Involved.

Before I open a single tool, I sit down with you and I listen.

I want to know about your business — not the elevator pitch version, the real version. What do you actually do? Who do you love working with? Who drains your energy? What have you already tried online and why do you think it didn’t work? What’s the dream outcome if this goes really well?

This part is entirely human. No algorithm can tell me that you’ve been in business for twelve years and built your reputation on word of mouth, but you’re ready to grow beyond your zip code. No AI knows that you tried running Google Ads two years ago, burned through your budget in three weeks, and swore you’d never touch paid advertising again. No tool understands that you’re not trying to compete with the big chains — you’re trying to attract the customers who specifically don’t want the big chain experience.

That context is everything. It shapes every decision I make after this point. And it can only come from a real conversation between two people.

Step Two: Keyword Research and Why AI Changed Everything Here

Let me tell you what keyword research used to look like.

Before AI became part of my workflow, keyword research was the most time-consuming part of the entire process. We're talking six hours on the short end. For more complex businesses or competitive industries, it could stretch across several days, sometimes a full week, just for the initial research phase.

Here's what that process involved: I'd start by brainstorming every possible word or phrase a potential customer might type into Google when they're looking for what you offer. Then I'd expand those terms — variations, related phrases, questions people might ask, the way different types of customers might describe the same thing. Then I'd run all of those terms through a keyword research tool to check things like search volume (how many people are actually searching for this), keyword difficulty (how hard it would be to rank for it), and search intent (what someone actually wants when they type those words).

Then, and this is the part that took the longest, I'd go through the results and use my professional judgment to figure out which keywords were actually worth pursuing. High volume sounds great, but if the intent doesn't match what you're selling, you'll rank and still get nothing. Low volume sounds bad, but a keyword with 200 monthly searches and sky-high purchase intent can be worth more than a keyword with 20,000 searches from people who are just browsing.

It required reading the data, understanding the business, thinking about the customer, and making calls that no tool was going to make for me.

Now here's where AI comes in and this is where I want to be really specific, because this is usually where people's eyebrows go up.

AI-powered keyword research tools have transformed this process. What used to take me six hours to a week? I can now get through in one to two hours.

Not because the thinking got easier. Because the processing got faster.

The AI surfaces patterns across massive datasets almost instantly. It generates keyword clusters, identifies related terms I might not have thought of, flags seasonal trends, spots gaps in the market. It gives me a much richer starting point, much faster.

But, and this is critical, I still have to look at everything it gives me and decide what's actually worth pursuing for your specific business. The AI doesn't know that you only serve clients within a 30-mile radius. It doesn't know that you're trying to move upmarket and attract higher-budget clients. It doesn't know that one of the high-volume keywords it flagged is dominated by national brands you have no realistic chance of outranking right now.

I know those things. Because I listened to you in step one.

The AI gives me the raw material faster. I'm still the one who turns it into a strategy.

Step Three: SEO Implementation — Fixing the Foundation Before Building on It

Here's something a lot of people don't realize: you can have the best keywords in the world and still not rank. Because if your website has technical problems underneath the surface, Google isn't going to reward it no matter how good your content is.

This is where SEO implementation comes in and it's probably the least glamorous part of the process, but it might be the most important.

I go through your website and fix the things that are quietly working against you. Site structure, page speed, metadata, internal linking, mobile responsiveness — the stuff you'd never notice as a visitor but that search engines are paying close attention to. I use AI-powered audit tools to scan your site and surface issues faster than any manual review could. What used to take days of crawling through a site page by page can now be identified, categorized, and prioritized in a fraction of the time.

But again, I'm the one deciding what actually needs fixing first. Not every issue an audit surfaces is worth your time and budget. Some are critical. Some can wait. Knowing the difference comes from experience, not from a tool.

Think of it this way: before we start building visibility, we make sure the house is structurally sound. AI helps me find the cracks faster. I'm still the one who knows which ones to fix first.

Step Four: Content Strategy — Your Roadmap for Getting Found

Once the technical foundation is solid and we know which keywords we're targeting, we build your content strategy. This is the plan that connects everything together.

A content strategy isn't a list of blog post ideas. It's a deliberate, documented roadmap that answers three questions: What should you publish? Who is it for? And when should it go out?

I use AI here to analyze what's already performing well in your industry — what topics are getting traction, what questions your audience is actively searching for, what your competitors are missing. It gives me a bird's-eye view of the content landscape that would take weeks to build manually.

But here's what AI can't do: it can't decide what's right for your specific business, your specific audience, and your specific goals. It can tell me that a certain topic gets a lot of searches. It can't tell me whether that topic actually serves the customers you want to attract. That judgment call is mine — informed by everything I learned about you in step one.

The result is a content plan that isn't random. Every piece has a purpose, a target keyword, and a specific person it's meant to reach. You'll know exactly what's being published, why, and what it's supposed to do for your business.

Step Five: Writing — Your Voice, Made Visible

This is where the strategy becomes something real.

I want to be honest about how AI fits into the writing process, because this is where people have the most questions. AI assists with research — pulling together background information, identifying what a piece needs to cover to rank well, flagging gaps in the content. That part moves faster with AI involved.

But the writing itself? That still requires a human. Your business has a voice. It has a point of view. It has specific things that make it worth choosing over the competition. No AI is going to capture that without significant human involvement — and content that sounds generic is content that doesn't convert.

What I'm writing for you isn't filler. It's content designed to do two things at once: rank in search engines and actually mean something to the person reading it. Those two goals aren't at odds — but hitting both of them takes craft, not just output.

Step Six: Reporting and Ongoing Optimization — Because SEO Is Never "Done"

Here's the thing about SEO that nobody tells you upfront: it's not a project with a finish line. It's an ongoing process. Google updates its algorithm constantly. Your competitors are making moves. What worked six months ago might need adjusting today.

This is where reporting comes in — and it's one of my favorite parts of the process, because it's where you get to see the work paying off.

I track what's ranking, what's moving, what's bringing people to your site, and what those people are doing when they get there. AI helps me process and interpret that data faster — spotting trends, flagging drops before they become problems, identifying new opportunities as they emerge.

But what I'm really doing here is translating numbers into decisions. Not just sending you a report full of graphs and hoping you figure out what it means. We look at what the data is telling us, we adjust the strategy where it needs adjusting, and we keep building.

Visibility compounds over time. This step is how we make sure it keeps compounding in the right direction.

Is That Cheating?

No. And I want to push back on this idea pretty directly.

When accountants started using spreadsheet software instead of doing calculations by hand, nobody called it cheating. When architects started using CAD software instead of drafting tables, nobody said they were cutting corners. When photographers moved from darkrooms to Lightroom, it didn't mean they'd lost their eye for a great shot.

Tools evolve. The professionals who use them well still need to know what they're doing. The tool doesn't replace the expertise — it amplifies it.

If I handed your keyword research to someone with no SEO experience and said "use this AI tool and send them a list," you'd get a list. It might even look impressive. But it would be missing everything that makes keyword research actually useful: the strategic thinking, the understanding of your business, the judgment about what to prioritize, the knowledge of how keywords connect to content, to rankings, to the customers you actually want.

AI in the hands of someone who doesn't know what to do with the output is just a list generator.

AI in the hands of someone who does? That's where the real value is.

What Else AI Helps Me Do (And What It Still Can't Touch)

Keyword research is one piece of it. Here's a honest look at the other places AI shows up in my work — and where it doesn't.

Where AI helps: It helps me analyze competitor content at scale, so I can spot what's ranking and why without spending days manually reviewing dozens of pages. It helps me identify content gaps — topics your audience is searching for that nobody in your space is answering well yet. It helps me process data from site audits faster, so technical SEO issues get caught and prioritized more efficiently. It helps me stay current on search trends and algorithm shifts.

Where it doesn't help — and where I don't use it: It doesn't write the final strategy. That comes from synthesizing everything: the data, the conversation I had with you, the competitive landscape, what's realistic for your budget and timeline. It doesn't write your content without significant human involvement. Your voice, your expertise, your perspective — that's what makes content worth reading and worth trusting. AI can assist with research and structure, but the substance has to come from somewhere real. And it absolutely doesn't replace the relationship. The check-ins, the adjustments when something isn't working, the honest conversation when a strategy needs to pivot — that's human work, start to finish.

Why I'm Being This Transparent With You

Here's the honest answer: because I'd want someone to be this transparent with me.

If I were a small business owner considering hiring an SEO strategist, I'd want to know exactly what I was paying for. I'd want to know which parts were being done by a person who actually understood my business, and which parts were being assisted by tools. I'd want to feel confident that the strategy I was getting was built around my specific situation, not just generated and handed over.

That's what I'm committing to with every client. AI makes me faster and sharper. It doesn't make me less invested in your results.

And if you're a small business owner who's been on the fence about whether working with someone who uses AI is right for you — I hope this gives you a clearer picture. The goal has never changed: get your business found by the right people, keep it visible, and build something that compounds over time.

The tools just got better.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Curious about what an AI-powered SEO strategy could look like for your business? Book a free discovery call and let's talk.