Why Human Generated Content is Still Important in an AI World

High-quality content and digital marketing go hand in hand. Still, in 2024, online content is more important than ever, but it also looks a little different from what it did even just a few years back. Content creation is an ever-changing landscape, and the rise of AI (particularly ChatGPT) means that more websites are using AI-generated content to boost their online rankings.

Many people have speculated whether AI content creation will become the end of human writers, but that is not the case in the world of today. Every website owner is still at the mercy of Google, which routinely changes their automated ranking signals. With Google placing increasingly more importance on content quality and evidence of expertise – made even clearer in the March 2024 core algorithm update – it’s obvious that content with a human touch is sticking around for the long haul.

The Rise of AI Content

AI has been part of our world for some time, not just in the movies or as the ideas of ambitious billionaires. 30th November 2022 was a particularly important date for AI, and the content creation process, as that was when the free AI tool ChatGPT was released, shaking up the world of content and marketing. Suddenly, people could quickly and easily create content using the language model, which became extremely popular.

It makes sense, too—businesses aim to save time and money, and creating content with AI seems to surely lead to cost-effectiveness. However, it’s not always the best return on investment (ROI)The ROI is the ratio of the return from an investment to the cost of the investment., especially when you consider that AI-generated content can harm your SEO performance. When the question is asked, “Does AI content mean the end of human-written content?” the answer, thus far, is simple: no.

Why Human-Written Content Still Matters (A Lot)

Google prefers high-quality content written by an actual human. Content written by AI doesn’t meet Google’s ranking systems, which change and shift as time goes on. Since AI has been on the rise, Google’s quality standards have made it clearer and clearer that AI simply isn’t up to scratch. Instead, in a gist, Google wants originality, authority, and expertise. They want informative, authority articles that truly help the reader.

Learn More Here: AI vs Human-Generated Content

High-quality Content

With the updated Google ranking factors over the last couple of years, it’s clear that high-quality content is a must if you want to boost online discoverability. There’s a particular focus on Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). That extra E for experience was added in December 2022, and here’s what Google had to say on the matter:

“E-A-T is gaining an E: experience. Does the content also demonstrate that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with actual use of a product, having actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced? There are some situations where you value most is content produced by someone with first-hand life experience on the topic at hand.”

An AI model cannot have the same expertise as a human who has first-hand expertise and experience with a topic.

Originality

Google also wants originality, and AI content is not original – it just isn’t. AI-generated content comes from a machine that learns from a bunch of already-written articles, which means it doesn’t have anything genuinely new or insightful to bring to a topic. On the other hand, humans have a world of fresh, innovative ideas they can bring to the table; each person responds differently to various stimuli with their own thoughts and preferences. Simply, AI cannot yet replicate the innate creativity of the human mind.

There’s also the issue of plagiarism risks. AI may create plagiarised content, which is the last thing anyone wants on their website, as it can seriously harm SEO performance and brand loyalty/reputation.

The Ability to Adapt

AI cannot understand the subtle nuances of tone. It might be able to meet the requirements of ‘friendly’ or ‘formal’, but it won’t be able to adapt to small, necessary tonal shifts that cater to particular brands. Being able to understand the core values of a website, brand, or audience and then tailoring the content to meet those core values is something only humans can achieve as of yet.

Creating Content for Humans – Not Search Engines

More than anything, Google wants blog writing, articles, and any online content to cater to humans, not search engines. This was made clear in the Helpful Content update of August 2022, where Google clearly stipulated what they are looking for, which is all about satisfying readers and creating a better user experience.

One thing they did to help users was come out with the expertise questions, which included, “Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, for example clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background information about the author or the site that publishes it, like through linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages. to an author page or a site’s About page?” Asking yourself these questions can help elevate your content marketing strategy.

Google also stressed the importance of asking Who, How, and Why about your content to keep it focused on the person reading it rather than generating content that appeals to search engine rankings. For example, whether the author of the content is clear and evident.

Does it Mean AI in Content is Obsolete?

Not necessarily! You can still utilise AI and meet Google’s standards, but that requires some human input. Google has said:

“Our focus on Google’s quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us to deliver dependable, high-quality results to users for years.”

Google is not overly focused on how content is produced, only that it is helpful and trustworthy. Using AI as a valuable tool alongside human-written work can be beneficial, as long as you do not view it as a tool covering all creativity and content creation.

Getting it Right in 2024

Getting it right in 2024 means knowing what Google penalises and what Google wants, which are fortunately stipulated quite clearly.

Here at Click Intelligence, our content writing services use human writers (never AI), and our team always takes on board any new quality thresholds set out by Google. Contact our team today to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level.