The Truth About Using AI to Rank in Google

March 17, 2025

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The Conventional Wisdom About AI & Blogging

If you’ve been paying attention to SEO Twitter, SEO YouTube, or that one dude in your mastermind group who somehow ranks for pet grooming and crypto investing at the same time, you’ve probably heard a few common takes about AI-generated content.

Let’s break them down:

1. "Google Hates AI Content"

This one gets tossed around a lot, usually by SEO consultants trying to sell audits. The truth? Google doesn’t hate AI content—it hates bad content.

Google’s Helpful Content Update (which sounds like a scam email) explicitly states that content should be written for humans, not search engines. AI itself isn’t the problem. Spammy, low-quality, auto-generated garbage? That’s the problem.

2. "AI Can Write a Blog in Minutes, and It'll Rank Instantly"

There’s a lot of content mills churning out AI articles at scale, thinking they’ve hacked Google’s algorithm. But if you’ve ever actually read one of these blogs, you know the truth:

  • They’re repetitive.

  • Sound like they were written by an intern who’s never slept.

  • Offer zero unique insights.

Ranking on Google requires more than hitting the word count. AI can assist, but it won’t replace original ideas, experience, and good writing.

3. "AI Detection Tools Can Spot AI Content, So You Shouldn't Use It"

You’ve probably seen screenshots of AI detectors showing “99% AI” or “100% probability AI-generated.” The implication is that Google can do the same thing.

Except... it can’t.

Google’s John Mueller has never confirmed that they use AI detectors to penalize content. The algorithm is looking for quality, originality, and engagement. If AI helps you write better content, Google isn’t going to punish you for using it.

That’s the free game. Now, if you want the real strategy for ranking with AI, keep reading…

How to Actually Rank Using AI

Finding the Right Keywords

AI won’t help you rank if you’re targeting keywords that are too competitive, too irrelevant, or too useless. The goal is to find:

  • Low-competition, high-value keywords (aka, the ones big brands haven’t dominated yet).

  • Transactional intent (people actually looking to buy or act, not just read).

  • Keywords with a featured snippet opportunity (that’s free real estate).

Best tools to use?

  • Ahrefs

  • SEMrush

  • LowFruits (great for finding weak spots in search results)

Getting the Google Snippet

That little boxed answer at the top of search results? That’s gold. AI won’t just spit out content that lands there—you have to format it right:

✅ Answer the question in the first 2-3 sentences.✅ Use a clean, structured format (like numbered lists or tables).✅ Use the keyword naturally in the answer and subheadings.

Most AI-written blogs don’t structure answers properly, which is why they never land in the snippet.

What the Blog Must Do to Rank

Here’s where AI can help, but only if you use it right:

  • Outline manually, generate drafts with AI, edit heavily.

  • Add real-world insights. AI can’t replace actual experience—inject your expertise into every post.

  • Break up text with bolded sections, quotes, and images. Google loves scannable content.

AI is a tool, not a shortcut. The people who win with AI aren’t the ones copying and pasting—they’re the ones using it to speed up their unique insights.

So, what about this post? It was mainly written with AI.

Can my AI content beat the AI detectors.

That’s what gets missed.

People talking about AI is easy to detect are not able to prompt AI to get results that appear human.