A Human-First Approach To Generative AI and SEO

Content creators are constantly seeking ways to produce high-quality, SEO-friendly content that provides real value to their audience. At the same time, content marketers are expected to scale programs—without sacrificing quality—within stricter timelines and smaller budgets.

It’s daunting. But it doesn’t have to be.

AI and automation platforms, like Copy.ai, offer content marketers an extraordinary advantage—the ability to generate high-quality content at scale. AI technologies allows marketers to automate content workflows, optimize for user intent, and refine SEO strategies without compromising creativity or authenticity.

When developing SEO-friendly content, it's crucial to prioritize both quality and relevance to meet the requirements of today's search engine optimization standards that increasingly focus on user behavior and engagement metrics.

And before you go down a “but what about Google” rabbit hole for SEO-centric content, as of early February, Google stated that they don’t care about how content is produced, so long as it’s high-quality.

This shift underscores the growing importance of AI-driven content creation and its role in modern digital marketing strategies.

SGE (Search Generative Experience) is changing the game for content visibility. This new approach to generative engine optimization means content creators need to adapt their SEO efforts beyond just targeting traditional ranking factors if they want to stay competitive in search results.

In this article, we’ll discuss several best practices to help you make the most of these AI-powered tools and create high-quality content that ranks.

Focus on quality and value

When using generative AI tools, it's essential to remember that the quality of the content generated is directly related to the quality of the input (prompts) you provide.

AI models, including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini, rely on well-structured prompts to generate accurate, engaging, and SEO-friendly content.

Leveraging AI for content creation isn't just about getting words on a page—it's about understanding how artificial intelligence systems use natural language processing to interpret your prompts and generate content that resonates with both your target audience and search algorithms.

Think of it this way: If you provide a writer with a half-baked brief that lacks direction, helpful context, and even a goal, you can’t expect the first draft to be a home run. The same goes for your prompts.

To get the best possible output, take the time to carefully craft your prompts, ensuring they’re designed to generate the highest quality and most valuable content.

Don't just throw a few keywords at the AI and hope for the best—be intentional with your prompts. Effective prompt engineering can help AI algorithms understand search queries better, improving content relevance and search rankings.

A smart content strategy today include long-tail keywords that match what your audience is actually searching for. These more specific terms help your web pages show up in organic search results when people are looking for exactly what you offer.

If you’re not sure where to start, you can use any of these marketing prompts to get started.

Tips for Prompt Engineering

1. Be specific: Clearly define the topic and the angle you want the AI to cover. This will help the AI understand your requirements and generate relevant content.
2. For example, instead of asking for "an article about SEO," request "a detailed guide on using structured data to improve search rankings."
3. To ensure you’re writing fantastic prompts 100% of the time, you can use Copy.ai’s Prompt Improve feature, which will probe you for the appropriate additional context needed to go from ok prompt to fantastic prompt!
4. Ask open-ended questions: Open-ended questions encourage the AI to think more deeply about the topic and provide more comprehensive answers. This can be particularly useful for generating engaging meta descriptions and snippets for search engine results pages (SERPs).
5. Provide context: Giving the AI some background information about the topic can help it generate more accurate and relevant content. For instance, specifying that your content is for an audience interested in technical SEO can ensure more precise responses tailored to their needs.

There’s a lot you can do within the realm of prompt engineering to improve the quality of content that’s generated. That’s why our very own Anna Bernstein, Prompt Engineer at Copy.ai has put together a lesson on prompt writing:

Want to become a prompt writing expert? Check out these resources:

• 7 Prompt writing improvements you can make today
• [Webinar] Introducing Prompt School: Your output is only as good as your input

Use prompt chaining

Instead of asking the AI to generate an entire article in one go, use prompt chaining—a technique that breaks down the content creation process into smaller, manageable tasks. This approach allows the AI to focus on each task separately, resulting in better overall content quality. Here's a simple prompt chaining workflow you can follow:

1. Create an outline: Ask the AI to generate an outline or a list of subheadings for your content. This will help you organize your thoughts and ensure a logical flow of information.
2. Tip: Aligning subheadings with relevant keywords can enhance SEO content effectiveness.
3. Write the content: With the outline in place, ask the AI to write the content for each subheading. This will ensure that each section is well-developed and focused on its specific topic.
4. Rewrite in your brand voice: Once the content is written, have the AI rewrite it in your brand voice to maintain consistency across all your content.
5. Format the content: Ask the AI to format the content with proper markup, such as headings, bullet points, and bold text, to improve readability.
6. Fun fact: Proper formatting improves user experience and increases the likelihood of appearing in featured snippets on Google Search.
7. Edit and refine: Finally, pass in your style guide and editorial criteria to the AI, allowing it to act as its own editor and further improve the content quality.

This method aligns with SEO best practices by allowing content creators to refine keyword research, optimize headings, and improve readability step by step.

Leverage available data

AIaaS platforms like Copy.ai are designed to take in data and use it to generate personalized, relevant content. To make the most of this technology, ensure that you provide the AI with as much data as possible. Here are some ways to leverage data when using AI:

1. Target keywords: Pass in your target keywords to get SEO-optimized content that ranks well on search engines.
2. Customer data: Provide customer data (such as demographics, preferences, and behavior) to generate personalized marketing content that resonates with your audience.
3. Existing documentation: Summarize and repurpose existing documentation to create fresh content that covers familiar topics from new angles.
4. Web searches and data scraping: Perform web searches and scrape reliable data sources to include the latest information and statistics in your content.
5. Internal documentation: Integrate your internal documentation as a source of truth, ensuring that the AI-generated content aligns with your organization's knowledge and expertise.

When using Copy.ai, you can save time on the context sharing with Infobase, a place where you can store information about your company that can be referenced in prompts to improve the quality of content generation.

The Future of AI and SEO (With Zac Harris) is another great resource for learning how AI and automation are reshaping SEO strategies, and how you can take advantage of these advancements to optimize your content creation process.

Maintain brand voice and style

Consistency in brand voice and style is essential for building trust and recognition among your audience. To achieve this, have the AI learn from your existing content and pass in your style guide, ensuring that it follows your rules and writes content that matches your brand's voice.

Tips for maintaining brand voice and style

1. Analyze existing content: Review your current content to identify the unique elements of your brand voice and style.
2. Create a style guide: Document your brand voice and style guidelines, including tone, language, formatting, and any other relevant elements.
3. Train the AI: Provide the AI with examples of your content and your style guide to help it understand and replicate your brand voice and style.

AI and SEO: Advanced Strategies for 2025

Ready to take your SEO game to the next level? Here are some cutting-edge tactics that combine AI power with proven SEO techniques:

1. Build quality backlinks strategically: Backlinks remain the digital equivalent of a vote of confidence. Use AI to analyze your competitors' backlink profiles and identify opportunities for your own link-building strategy. Remember that a few high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites can outweigh dozens of low-quality ones. Consider partnering with industry influencers on LinkedIn to create co-branded content that naturally attracts backlinks.
2. Optimize for user queries, not just keywords: Modern SEO tools can help you identify the actual questions your target audience is asking. Use this intelligence to create FAQ sections that directly address user queries in a conversational way. This approach not only improves user engagement but also positions your content perfectly for featured snippets and voice search results.
3. Strengthen your E-E-A-T signals: Search engines like Google and Perplexity are increasingly prioritizing content that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Publish detailed case studies showcasing your real-world results, feature credentials of your content creators, and maintain a consistent online presence across authoritative platforms in your niche.
4. Leverage machine learning for content optimization: Today's AI systems can analyze top-performing content in your space and identify patterns that contribute to their success. Use these insights to create comprehensive overviews and executive summaries that satisfy both skimmers and deep readers. Machine learning can also help predict which content formats will drive the most organic traffic to your web pages.
5. Don't neglect technical SEO: While content quality is crucial, technical elements like meta tags and schema markup still matter enormously. Use AI to audit your site's technical functionality and identify opportunities for improvement. Properly implemented schema markup helps search engines understand your content's context and purpose, potentially boosting your visibility in rich results.
6. Create a unified social media and SEO strategy: Social signals may not be direct ranking factors, but a strong social media presence can amplify your content's reach and indirectly boost SEO performance. Use AI tools to identify content themes that perform well across both search and social channels, then create unified campaigns that leverage both ecosystems.

By implementing these advanced strategies, you're not just using AI as a content production tool—you're leveraging sophisticated AI systems to gain competitive advantages across your entire digital marketing ecosystem.

Wrapping up

Google's guidance on AI-generated content emphasizes the importance of rewarding high-quality content, regardless of how it's produced. Their ranking systems aim to surface content that demonstrates expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T).

By following the best practices outlined in this article – prompt engineering, prompt chaining, leveraging available data, and maintaining brand voice and style – you can harness the power of AI to generate high-quality content that ranks well in search results and provides real value to your readers.

Want to stay ahead of the curve? You'll need to keep your finger on the pulse of generative engine optimization. Understanding how SGE and other AI systems think about and present content is the new frontier of SEO—and the content creators who adapt fastest will win the visibility game as these technologies reshape how people search.

Enhance your knowledge further by exploring these articles:

• Mobile SEO: Boost Your Site's Search Rankings
• SaaS Lead Generation with Copy.ai, Experts Guide in 2025
• The Role of SEO in B2B: Strategies, Importance, and AI Integration

Ready to transform your content creation process? Request a demo of Copy.ai today and discover how our AI-powered platform can help you create high-quality, SEO-friendly content at scale.

To further explore how AI is shaping the future of SEO, check out The Future of AI and SEO to gain insights from industry experts.