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I posted about that recently on LinkedIn, we think too much if AI will take our jobs? Will AI replace SEOs?

I don't think we're asking the right question here. The right question is

Can AI Do Your Job?

So I came up with this table, and listed some common SEO tasks. I scored my expected performance of an AI tool (be it LLM or agent) compared to an SEO with 5 years experience.

Here's how that came out like:

💡 Fun fact: the code for the above table was created completely by Chatgpt and Claude, it did take few rounds of review and me instructing Claude to use inline CSS, but looks good now right?

As you can see in the table above, I do believe AI can outperform a human SEO with 5 years experience in SEO. Why? Let's chat about some of the examples above, but keep in mind, this is my opinion (maybe I'm wrong who knows 🤷)

Task 1 [Perform a Technical Audit for a Shopify Store]: a CMS with pretty standard issues. That's definitely something that can be fully automated. The AI here may outperform a human SEO not because the AI is doing a better audit (the task is check-listed after all) but because from what I've seen, HUMANS MISS THINGS BY MISTAKE. So an AI in this situation would be more comprehensive.
Task 2 [Perform a Technical Audit for an enterprise custom backend website]: now while there's a checklist, backends differ and issues differ. Due to this nuances, I believe an experience human SEO maybe better suited for that task. However, I do believe the best overall output would be if the audit was done by a human using AI.
Task 3 [Create a technical recommendations document for developers based on the audit output] : from what I've seen, tools like chatgpt can create a nice good quality deliverable and eat what most SEOs create for breakfast 😸 If you input your audit findings to chatgpt, with the right prompt, you'll get a better output than what most SEOs deliver. It's an SEO skill issue for that specific task imo. NO I DON'T USE CHATGPT IN THIS WAY, but I do use it to "rephrase, or rewrite" something to make it "clearer".

So what are you saying Sara? AI can do our jobs most of the time better?

It's a skill issue

I really think this is a good exercise that we should all do and rate ourselves against ai in our day to day tasks to understand where we can bring more value, and where we should use AI.

There's a skill issue, and it's not necessarily "SEO knowledge" skills, more of the other skills like:

Communication skills in structuring and delivering recommendations
Attention to detail, it's common for an SEO to miss something here and there. Something we need to work on definitely.
Strategy, for now is a human skill. Unless you're playing chess and there's a specific set of rules and ways to predict exact outcomes, coming with strategies require creativity. Yes history does repeat itself, and sometimes a strategy can work multiple time, but rarely a strategy is a checklist.

Ok, so now what?

I don't have all the answers - as usual - which can be annoying. I can see you all those agency owners who may start thinking we should use more AI and less human SEOs. Don't do that for 2 reasons:

AI at this stage still needs an experienced human operator to at least QA the output.
There are tasks, specifically strategy related tasks, that humans outperform AI IMO

For SEOs, here's what I recommend:

For some tasks, don't try to compete against AI, try to find ways to use AI to generate an overall even better output.
Learn prompting, no it does not come naturally to us, the output is as good as the prompt. I think it's all the memes and jokes on "prompt" engineering on social media that made people think "oh that's a piece of cake, we don't need to learn that".. see below 😄

a meme where batman slaps robin over prompt engineering

Double down on learning the skills that AI struggles to replicate—those that require critical thinking, creativity, and human insight. That’s exactly why I believe in the power of SEO strategy [shameless plug: checkout my WIP SEO strategy course]. While AI can automate tasks and process data at scale, it lacks the ability to truly understand nuanced business goals. Focus on the skills that set great marketers apart in a world increasingly driven by automation. [chatgpt helped me word this 😅]
Yes, the advice is pretty cliche', but that's all we know for now, and I think it's healthy that we have these discussions.

That's that for today folks! Hope you found this useful at some level.

See you next newsletter.

SEO Riddler by Sara Taher

Can AI Do Your Job?