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Search-engine optimization (SEO) involves accruing a diverse range of data from multiple sources and organizing strategy insights. Data analysis is, therefore, complex, time-consuming and costly.

From a digital-marketing perspective, the use of AI in SEO increases effectiveness, efficiency and speed. SEO specialists started using AI circa 2017 to take full advantage of Google’s RankBrain. The popularity of machine learning is growing.

AI reduces the need for developers to code software and plays a central role in the strategic planning and implementation of content creation. As a result, it saves businesses huge amounts of time and money.

Moving forward, AI will be essential for businesses to quickly move with trends in consumer behavior. And you can guarantee that AI will deliver data that is more insightful than other data-analysis tools.

Related: 7 Reasons Why SEO Matters for Every Startup

Why is AI important for enhancing voice search?

One billion voice searches are recorded every month. As voice-activated assistants and IoT become more prominent, SEO will become more reliant on voice search.

In an age where voice search will become the dominant tool for finding products and services, AI is essential. You will be able to optimize websites with internal links and accurately identify the best keywords for each page far better than you can manually.

Moreover, voice search relies on understanding natural language. People speak differently than they type. SEO professionals, therefore, have to rely on identifying long-tail+ keywords that have been generated from voice-search data. 

Expect to find more online content that employs questions for subheadings and adopts conversational-style language. Publishing interview transcripts is a step in the right direction.

Related: Here’s What AI Will Never Be Able to Do

How can AI improve hyper-personalization?

How search-engine algorithms rank websites is a highly guarded secret. However, there’s no question that user-engagement features among the top metrics that determine trust and authority

User experience is a crucial factor for online businesses. What’s more, customers expect businesses to provide personalized customer service.

Improving hyper-personalization for online visitors is only as good as the data you can collect. The process of organizing data sets would naturally take months and even years if businesses had to rely on humans alone. 

AI will speed the process up and provide more in-depth analysis such as customer sentiment and preferences. It also produces data in tree models rather than linear models. This enables you to make informed decisions with confidence. 

The data you recover not only enables you to improve the usability of your website, but can also help structure content across various communication channels. 

For example, you can organize certain “types” of customers into targeted email lists and curate content they are most likely going to be interested in. As a result, your overall online performance becomes hyper-personalized. 

Why is AI essential for mobile optimization?

The majority of online searches are performed via smartphones. Consequently, businesses have to devise content strategies that are geared towards small screens. While the solution has been to steer mobile customers to an app, consumers are only prepared to use apps regularly if they get value from them.

It’s worth noting that around 25% of apps are only used once. And apps that do not deliver value receive a low-star rating. 

How an app provides value will differ from one business to the next. Publishing high-quality content is a given for most businesses, and if you provide a service, AI can help to improve your chatbot facility. 

What consumers most want from an app is to find answers. AI uses advanced algorithms to understand how end-users interact with your app and collect insights that enable you to improve user experience. 

Related: How Entrepreneurs Can Use AI to Boost Their Business

How has AI changed customer-support services?

Interacting with customers online is one of the hurdles businesses are struggling to overcome. Despite the convenience and time-saving benefits digital forums promise, the inability to get answers quickly is frustrating.

Chatbots were expected to be the solution. They are able to handle multiple queries at once and dramatically ease the workload for call centers and customer-support teams. But in the past, chatbots still had a limited impact.

Today, though, chatbots have been “killing customer service.” They’re singing a different tune. And it’s all thanks to machine learning.

As deep learning tools have improved, so have chatbots. While they may never be perfect, chatbots are becoming better equipped to address customer questions more efficiently. 

Anyone that has used Google Translate on a regular basis for the last five years will have noticed how AI is learning to understand the idioms of language. Voice assistants are even getting better at understanding accents. 

This has enabled chatbots to understand customer intent and provide relevant answers promptly. Chatbots may still lack the depth of understanding in relation to emotional intelligence, but neural networks in deep-learning machines have the potential to mimic human emotions as well. 

An effective chatbot means customers spend more time on your website and are likely to return. It is this type of user engagement that search engines look for when ranking whether a website is good or bad.

Tech companies have invested billions in developing artificial intelligence. The AI market is estimated to reach around $191 billion by 2025. That being said, it’s clear that AI is the next innovation businesses should add to the list of technologies that can save you money.

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