Every self-respecting content marketing affiliate knows the phrase “Content is King” and will therefore know the importance of creating high-quality, engaging content that will help their sites rank well in search engines.
The aim is to create content that engages, offers customers value and drives traffic to the chosen affiliate offers to convert sales.
However, with the rise of AI-generated content, the competition in search engines has become even tougher. AI tools are helping affiliates create a tsunami of content quickly and at a low cost, making it harder for search engines to rank good quality content. Google’s recent E-E-A-T update explained this
But there’s a secret weapon that many top affiliates use to maintain their edge: Semrush. This powerful SEO and digital marketing toolkit can help you stay ahead of AI content in several key ways.
1. Conduct smarter keyword research
One of the most crucial steps in any content strategy is choosing the right keywords to target.
Semrush’s Keyword Overview tool allows you to analyse search volume, competition levels, keyword difficulty scores, and more for any given keyword.
This data-driven approach ensures you focus your efforts on keywords that have a high potential for driving quality traffic.
Furthermore, the Keyword Magic Tool suggests hundreds of related long-tail keyword variations based on real user searches. By targeting these highly specific, low-competition phrases, you can create content that directly answers searchers’ queries – something AI struggles with.
According to a study by Backlinko, long-tail keywords have a 3-5% higher click-through rate (CTR) than generic terms, emphasising their importance in your strategy. Imagine what a 3% increase in clicks on your content may look like in affiliate commission at the end of the month?
2. Analyse your competitors (including other AI writers)
To outrank your competitors, you need to understand their strategies. Semrush’s Domain Overview tool provides a goldmine of insights into any website’s organic and paid search performance, backlink profile, top-performing pages, and more.
You can even use this tool to analyse the websites pumping out AI-generated content and identify potential weaknesses to exploit. For example, you might find that their content lacks depth, nuance, or a human touch that resonates with readers.
3. Find untapped content opportunities
One advantage human writers have over AI is the ability to identify fresh, unique content angles that machines might miss. Semrush’s Topic Research tool helps you uncover these opportunities by analysing broad topic areas and suggesting specific untapped keyword variations to target.
Research by HubSpot indicates that businesses publishing 16+ blog posts per month see 3.5 times more traffic than those publishing four or fewer, highlighting the value of finding new content opportunities. You can also use the Content Gap analysis to see which topics and keywords your competitors are neglecting, giving you a chance to create best-answer content that fills those gaps.
4. Optimise your content for better rankings
Even the best content won’t perform well if it’s not properly optimised for search engines. Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker crawls your pages and provides customised recommendations for improving technical, content, and user experience factors that impact rankings.
For example, it might suggest tweaking your title tags and meta descriptions, adding semantically related keywords, improving readability, compressing images, and more. By following these tips, Following these tips can significantly enhance your human-written content’s chances of outranking AI-generated output. A recent Moz article reported that on-page SEO optimization can boost organic traffic by up to 20%, underscoring this importance.
5. Monitor your performance
Humans’ key advantage over AI is their ability to continuously learn, adapt, and make strategic decisions based on real-world data. Semrush’s powerful reporting and analytics capabilities allow you to track your content’s performance across key metrics like organic traffic, backlinks, rankings, and conversions.
You can then use these insights to focus on your most successful content topics and tactics while eliminating underperforming strategies. AI content writing tools currently lack this agile, data-driven approach.
Semrush offers many other useful features for affiliate marketers, like social media tracking, PPC and Amazon ads management, market/traffic analytics, and more. However, the tools highlighted above are particularly valuable for getting ahead of AI-generated content.
6. Create SEO-friendly content with AI and data
Use ContentShake AI to combine AI with Semrush’s SEO data to create high-ranking content 12x faster. This cool tool is a smart writing tool that combines AI with real-life competitor insights and is available for free trial here. You can enter details about your niche and get multiple topic ideas. The tool analyzes your competition as well as questions your audience asks online. Get your entire article written in an instant with AI and real-time competitor data and generate ready-to-go content optimized for traffic and engagement. You can even create engaging posts for any social media platform in just one click.
Final thoughts
At the end of the day, while AI writing tools can be helpful for quickly generating rough drafts or basic copy ideas, they still struggle to match the depth, nuance, and emotional resonance of human-written content.
By using Semrush to conduct smarter research, find untapped opportunities, optimise your pages, and make data-backed decisions, you can create content that AI can’t replicate.
The best affiliate marketers are constantly adapting to stay ahead of the curve. As AI content becomes more prevalent, tools like Semrush will be critical for maintaining your competitive edge and driving sustainable, long-term success.
To try Semrush out for yourself, sign up today and take advantage of a free pricing tier which will allow you to get up to speed with the platform and let you get used to working with it.
If you’re an affiliate and love the product – join their affiliate program and earn as you learn by promoting Semrush to others too!
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