Table of content:
Understanding agentic behavior
What is Agentic AI in layman terms
How Agentic AI Relates to Agentic SEO
Understanding GPTs and AI Agents deeply
Why graph data is better for agents’ data quality and AI utilization
Criteria for Choosing the Best AI Agent/GPT for Marketing
AI Agents are more powerful than GPTs
AI and SEO are complex fields on their own. I know first-hand that they require deep expertise, dedication and lifelong learning if you want to truly master them and make them work in your favor. Just think of Google’s ever-evolving algorithms: nothing can be predicted, nothing can help you prepare unless you genuinely care for customers’ needs (or so the Big G says).
Working on the intersection of these fields, while finding new ways to level-up my SEO game, I discovered agents for SEO or agents in AI. I am absolutely certain they will become a trend or more precisely, something here to stay.
Let me cover the basics first. When I think of “agentic,” I picture an agent—whether a system or an entity—much like a captain navigating a ship independently, charting its course and making decisions with minimal guidance. In the world of AI, this translates to systems crafted to operate semi-autonomously or autonomously, steering through oceans of data and making choices based on their programming, all without an end-to-end human touch in between. This is actually what I first learned about 10 years ago, while doing my general Artificial Intelligence course.
Imagine agentic AI as a chess master that not only understands the pieces and the board but also anticipates and strategically influences the game. This level of artificial intelligence actively makes decisions and shapes its environment autonomously. It’s not just reacting to moves; it’s planning several steps ahead, using sophisticated machine learning algorithms to predict, react to, and even manipulate its surroundings based on its understanding of the data.
Bringing this idea into the area of SEO, think of “agentic SEO“ as a gardener who knows exactly when to water, prune, or fertilize plants, not just tending to them but mastering the ecosystem of the garden. Here, AI systems don’t just assist with SEO; they take the reins, dynamically managing and implementing SEO strategies. They do this by digesting real-time quality data (the most important step), staying updated with the latest twists and turns of search engine algorithms, and adapting to the ever-changing patterns of user interaction. Essentially, the AI becomes an SEO maestro that orchestrates the symphony of elements needed to enhance website visibility and effectiveness. Just like I am doing parts of my jobs but a lot faster and less prone to mistakes.
Agentic AI and Agentic SEO, though seemingly distinct fields, intertwine profoundly, establishing a collaborative foundation that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and search engine optimization (SEO) together. This union is characterized by the shared principles of autonomy and agency within digital spaces. Here, AI and SEO are not just parallel tracks but intersect to innovate how we approach technology and digital marketing.
Agentic AI emphasizes user experience, focusing on enhancing human-computer interactions to provide more intuitive, responsive, and personalized experiences. This aspect is crucial, aligning closely with user experience principles in web design and development that prioritize user-centric interfaces.
When these principles are applied to SEO, known as Agentic SEO, they transform how websites are optimized for search engines. Agentic AI not only aids in content marketing and keyword optimization through automated, intelligent content creation but also in backlink analysis and SEO audits. This automation extends to predicting user behaviors and preferences, which facilitates dynamic web page customization to improve user experience, including optimizing load times and enhancing mobile compatibility.
Moreover, Agentic AI simplifies the implementation of structured data and schema markup, crucial for enabling search engines to better understand the context and content of web pages. This capability is pivotal for improving visibility in search results, particularly for features like rich snippets and knowledge graphs.
To sum up, agentic AI’s influence on SEO through technological innovation and methodology brings a new era of SEO strategy that is more intelligent, responsive, and user-focused. This transformative integration of AI into SEO practices marks a significant shift towards an era of smarter, more intuitive digital marketing strategies.
I want to make it super clear that this isn’t meant to replace an SEO professional like yourself. My goal is to demonstrate how both of us, you and I, can finally relax and enjoy our vacations without fretting over the next wave of Google algorithm updates or stressing about the impossible demands our senior managers might make to prove our value.
I’ve discovered several effective ways that autonomous AI agents can assist with SEO challenges. Firstly, I find that AI agents are excellent at generating content. They can automatically incorporate targeted keywords and structure the information to enhance SEO performance, which saves a great deal of time.
Secondly, I’ve automated simple but time-consuming tasks like keyword research, meta tags generation, and link-building-related activities. This automation drastically reduces my manual workload and boosts efficiency.
Lastly, I employ these agents for real-time SEO optimization. They monitor content SEO performance as it happens and make on-the-fly adjustments to optimize content and strategies based on the latest search engine algorithms and trends.
As you were able to learn, this is not your typical Jarvis-alike assistant or Inlinks solution for aiding your content writing. It’s a full-blown solution that truly gets SEO, knows it “by heart” and uses this knowledge to optimize further.
A lot of clients have been asking us what’s the difference between GPTs and AI agents. I would kindly like to take the lead here, my dear reader and try to address these questions by looking into the details of modern AI technologies, particularly the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) and AI agents that utilize knowledge graphs with advanced graph retrieval augmented generation logic. They differentiate greatly in foundational architecture, data processing methodologies, and application purposes. These distinctions offer a window into how each technology uniquely shapes digital information processing and digital transformation through intelligent search optimization.
GPT, a language model based on the transformer architecture, has been trained on a massive corpus of internet text data. This training has enabled GPT to grasp the statistical properties of language, allowing it to generate coherent and contextually relevant text from simple prompts. This capability makes GPT incredibly versatile, applicable in fields ranging from content creation to language translation. However, GPT operates without a direct link to real-time or structured domain-specific data, relying instead on the broad patterns of human language it has learned.
To be fair, there are some GPT creators out there who (try to) implement retrieval augmented generation approach, but from my observation, they are very limited by design. This happens because the underlying database is not graph-based and utilizes limited prompt engineering approaches to optimize themselves, which leads to making them subpar in its nature.
Conversely, an AI agent trained on a knowledge graph is engineered to interact intimately with structured data. In simple words, that means that the WordLift team invested heavily in data cleaning and data quality over multiple years to build this knowledge up. We knew first-hand that knowledge graphs, which organize data into a network of nodes and edges that represent various entities and their interrelations, serve as the backbone for these AI agents. Such a setup enables the AI to efficiently retrieve and utilize domain-specific information, ensuring outputs that are not only accurate but deeply relevant to specific queries. That’s the power of our AI agent for SEO: developing next-gen, compliant user experience by leveraging the power of the data we curated over the last 2 decades.
In practical terms, especially in SEO and content creation, the differences are stark. While GPT can generate engaging content on a platform like WordLift.io, its creations are solely based on its training and the given prompts. An AI agent trained with knowledge graphs, however, leverages its structured data access to deliver precise content recommendations and SEO optimizations on Google Search and similar platforms. It identifies content gaps, suggests pertinent entities and keywords, and crafts content that is both informative and engaging, being finely- tuned to enhance search engine rankings.
Ultimately, while GPT models are lauded for their ability to produce human-like text across diverse topics, AI agents supported by knowledge graphs shine in their capacity to deliver precise and contextually relevant information and content. The latter’s expertise is invaluable for responsible SEO and content creation strategies that demand high levels of precision and deep domain understanding, making these AI agents crucial for targeted digital marketing efforts.
The distinction between graph databases and traditional SQL databases becomes crucial in optimizing AI applications. While SQL databases excel at handling structured data in a tabular format, they may not efficiently manage complex relationships and interconnected datasets. This limitation is where graph databases shine.
Graph databases, unlike their SQL counterparts, are designed to store, manage, and query data in the form of graphs. This structure naturally represents entities as nodes and relationships as edges, allowing for direct and dynamic connections among data points. Such a configuration is particularly advantageous for AI models, which thrive on rich, interconnected datasets that can be traversed seamlessly.
The importance of graph databases extends into the sphere of AI-driven data preparation and utilization. AI models, such as large language models like ChatGPT, can achieve their full potential when the data they process is not just vast but is also relevant, clean, structured, and semantically enriched. Graph databases facilitate this by allowing data to be organized in ways that reflect its real-world complexities and relationships. This structural advantage enables AI to more effectively interpret and utilize the data, enhancing tasks such as pattern recognition, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics.
Moreover, the integration of knowledge graphs—a sophisticated application of graph databases—exemplifies the synergistic relationship between AI and advanced data structuring. Knowledge graphs have proven their merit in both data-centric and AI-centric applications, serving as a robust framework that prepares data specifically for AI consumption, ensuring that the data is not just accessible but is also contextually rich and semantically meaningful.
My point is, if you truly care about responsible AI approaches that emphasize data quality and utilize user-centric approaches, then your casual GPT cannot do the magic for you. You need an AI agent instead. This leads me to the next section where I will try to establish some criteria that you can use as a benchmark in deciding what’s the right AI solution for you.
The success of using the AI SEO Agent by WordLift depends heavily on your organization’s data literacy, the quality of your data organization, and your capacity for innovation and change management. We pride ourselves in providing a helping hand to our partners and customers to develop these skills and innovate on top of our cutting-edge technology that enables AI agents in solving SEO challenges.
I often advise clients to focus on enhancing their AI skills first through various courses or services to meet their specific needs. This preparation enables them to experiment in the GPT sandbox, which can offer practical insights into how AI could benefit their operations. One can argue that I am definitely biased, but it’s also true that this tool is first of its kind: our AI SEO Agent allows you to revamp, expand and create content, making your job easier, while being the most effective solution for professionals and editorial teams like yours.
However, I also recognize my responsibility to act as a devil’s advocate, reminding them and you of the implications of the EU AI Act on your businesses. Generic GPT solutions may fall short because they typically do not utilize high-quality, ethically sourced data that complies with this act. Furthermore, these solutions are often powered by basic or inadequate prompt engineering, crafted by individuals without deep technical knowledge—nowadays, almost anyone can develop a GPT in just a few clicks. The key question to you, my dear reader, will be: what’s the data and process quality assurance that is in place in this situation?
The answer is almost always…NONE.
That’s why I advocate for WordLift’s tool. It’s a robust, straightforward solution that’s been refined by experts who have specialized in advanced technical and content SEO for over two decades. This makes it not just a battle-tested product but a reliable one that rises above the common pitfalls found in less mature AI applications. With that being said, we can conclude that….
Knowledge graphs, by their very nature, are all about connections. They structure data with relationships in mind, which is a huge plus for AI that needs to pull up relevant and precise information fast. This relational data handling means AI can be more nuanced and on-point, which is critical for SEO where the details really matter. This is a game changer because it means that AI models can navigate through these connections to pull out insights that are deeply relevant to specific queries. This isn’t just useful; it’s efficient, especially when handling complex queries that go beyond simple keyword searches.
Moreover, because these knowledge graphs focus on high-quality, structured data, the AI built on top of them can generate more accurate and useful content. Think about SEO—this accuracy translates into content that hits the mark every time, boosting search rankings by meeting user intent more precisely.
All this detailed, context-rich data handling isn’t just good for AI; it’s great for users too. By providing sharper, more relevant responses, these AI agents enhance the user experience significantly. This can lead to better engagement, lower bounce rates, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.
Therefore, when picking between the benefits of generic GPTs compared to knowledge graph-based AI agents, remember: it’s about much more than just processing data. It’s about making sense of the data in ways that are meaningful and strategically advantageous for SEO. That’s the value of choosing the right AI partner and the reason why choosing wisely matters.
Agentic AI is a writing tool that uses AI to research, write, and optimize content for your website. It can help with SEO by saving you time on content creation, suggesting relevant keywords, and ensuring your content is well-structured and informative.
While Agentic AI can’t directly guarantee ranking improvement, it can create SEO-friendly content that search engines favor. This, combined with a strong overall SEO strategy, can lead to higher rankings.
Agentic AI uses AI to research your chosen topic and generate content that incorporates relevant keywords and adheres to SEO best practices. It can also optimize elements like headings and formatting.
Several SEO content writing tools exist, each with its strengths. Consider factors like features, pricing, and ease of use when comparing Agentic AI to other options.
Whether Agentic AI is worth it depends on your needs. If you need help creating SEO-friendly content efficiently, it can be a valuable tool. However, it’s important to remember it generates content, and human editing and revision are still crucial for optimal SEO impact.
The post Agentic AI: When to Choose AI Agents vs GPTs for SEO and Why appeared first on WordLift Blog.
Stay in touch and up to date with your industry news… Always be a step ahead with BBK Services…
join newsletter now ⤵
