AI vs. Manual SEO: Which Works Better for WordPress Sites?

SEO is critical for any website owner who needs their site to rank well in search engine results. For many WordPress users, the range of ongoing SEO tasks means manual optimisation is difficult to achieve and seldom maintained effectively. Today’s AI-powered tools overcome these challenges, automating many tasks and providing detailed insights. In this post, we compare whether AI or manual SEO is better for WordPress users and their websites.

Manual SEO

SEO covers on-page, on-site and off-site optimisation. On-page involves actions like keyword and competitor research, content optimisation and performance monitoring; on-site involves technical aspects, like site speed, mobile-friendliness, site structure and crawlability; and off-site SEO is all about getting backlinks and boosting your website’s online authority.

Traditionally, these tasks have been performed manually. In comparison to AI SEO, this approach offers owners a greater degree of control over their SEO strategy than automated tools and allows for more creative, human-generated ideas for content creation. However, many WordPress users simply do not have the time or the technical know-how to carry out SEO effectively.

There are tools that can ease the manual SEO workload, ranging from the free and very useful Yoast plugin to the more expensive SEMrush, Ahrefs and Moz Pro. Additionally, there are more comprehensive and affordable tools, like marketgoo, that have recently started to add some AI features.

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What AI SEO offers

AI SEO completely transforms how website owners approach optimisation, carrying out many of the tasks automatically and using AI to analyse relevant data and make key decisions on your behalf. Here are some of the things AI SEO tools can do.

1. Automation
   AI SEO tools automatically carry out time-consuming tasks like keyword analysis, content optimisation and competitor tracking. What’s more, they do these things quickly and at scale, which is especially useful if you have multiple websites or are a web developer or agency.
2. Creating optimised metadata
   Optimising metadata, such as meta descriptions, page titles, image alt text, etc., helps search engines understand the subject matter of your web pages and their relevance for search results. Manually creating and inputting this data on your pages can be a laborious process.AI SEO tools generate metadata automatically and optimise it for relevance, search intent and readability. Aside from creating the metadata, some AI tools will also input it for you, completely automating the tasks.
3. Advanced keyword and content analysis
   Choosing the right keywords is incredibly difficult given that your site has to compete with other sites using the same terms. AI SEO tools analyse search volumes and user intent and identify keyword gaps, offering suggestions that have the best chance of ranking highly. Moreover, they can also suggest ideas for content creation and keyword placement.
4. Competitor tracking and analysis
   AI tools can monitor your competitors’ content strategies, keyword rankings and performance data to provide insights that help you outperform them. As a result, you will be able to create better content strategies.
5. Content automation
   Aside from automating content creation for web pages, blog posts and even product descriptions, AI SEO tools can also schedule publication and optimise the content for SEO. This is ideal for website owners who lack the time, creativity and know-how to produce optimised, engaging content. It is also ideal for agencies that develop and manage clients’ WordPress websites.
6. Analysing user intent and behaviour
   By analysing search behaviour and user intent, AI SEO tools can help WordPress users create content that is a closer match to what people are searching for. This, in turn, makes the content more relevant for search engines and improves its chances of ranking higher.
7. Real-time optimisation
   From changes in user behaviour to updates in search engine ranking criteria, SEO is always evolving. The latest tools keep abreast of these changes and provide real-time recommendations for improving your on-page SEO.
8. Scalability
   For developers and web agencies, the speed at which AI SEO tools work and the level of automation they bring make them ideal for scaling up production. This enables professionals to handle a greater number of projects or manage more websites for their clients.

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Manual SEO vs. AI SEO: A Comparison

Available AI SEO tools

There are currently only a few WordPress-compatible SEO AI tools that offer the range of features mentioned above. Those who use the free Yoast plugin may be interested in Yoast Pro, a plugin which integrates very easily with WordPress and is ideal for individual website owners and small agencies. For larger agencies, tools like AlliAI enable you to manage different clients’ SEO from a single dashboard, making multi-website oversight much easier.

Beyond AI SEO Tools

While these new tools can carry out many SEO tasks, they cannot improve site speed, which is an important ranking factor. Speed optimisation is vital for WordPress websites as plugins and themes make them data-heavy.

Owners wanting to boost performance should consider the latest WordPress hosting solutions that provide a raft of speed optimisation features. At Webhosting UK, our plans come with enterprise-class hardware with high-frequency CPUs and superfast NVMe-SSD storage, together with AccelerateWP, a suite of tools that automatically enhances loading times through:

• Caching.
• Script minification
• Database optimisation
• Lazy loading
• Cron optimisation
• HTTP/2 push

These hosting features can dramatically cut page loading times, thus improving user experience and search engine rankings.

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Conclusion

For websites that want to grow their traffic, SEO is essential. While manual SEO allows creativity and control, it requires a good understanding of the optimisation process and a considerable amount of time and effort. AI SEO provides both the intelligence and the labour, delivering data-driven insights and automating tasks. SEO also requires fast loading and response times; this can be best achieved through a dedicated WordPress hosting solution.

Find out how our WordPress Hosting not only improves SEO and user experience but also strengthens security and eases site management. For more information visit our WordPress Hosting page.