Everything You Need to Know about Using AI as a Website Designer
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been generating a lot of buzz and excitement worldwide. Many have been curious and even apprehensive about the implications of AI. In fact, Squarespace itself has added an AI Feature that allows you to enter prompts or text to generate a draft of text content for your website.
This feature sounds incredible, but there may be concerns about whether search engines can differentiate between AI-generated content and human-written content. Will this impact search engine optimization (SEO)? To fully understand and utilize AI in a safe and appropriate manner, it is essential to start from the basics.
So, what exactly is AI?
Artificial Intelligence Systems are tools designed to mimic human intelligence and perform tasks that typically require human cognitive functions. These tasks include interpreting speech, playing games, identifying patterns, and making decisions. AI is built upon the concept that human intelligence can be understood and replicated by machines. By analyzing vast amounts of data, AI systems can identify patterns and use them to make decisions.
One example of an AI Tool is ChatGPT, which responds to prompts and provides detailed answers. It can even learn from its mistakes and answer follow-up questions.
Here I have used ChatGPT to troubleshoot some code I wrote to remove underlines in Squarespace. Here is its response.
ChatGPT suggested that other styles might be overriding the code, so I added "!important" to the code, and it worked!
However, ChatGPT is just one simple example of an AI Tool. AI has a multitude of applications across various industries and has been in use for several years. Although it has recently become more accessible to the general user, there is still controversy and concern about the extensive use of Advanced AI and its potential negative impact on society.
How are web designers using AI?
As mentioned earlier, even platforms like Squarespace have integrated AI tools to assist users in generating content. This particular tool can help you generate new text content based on prompts or text you have already written. It can also rewrite text. These tools can help reduce the time you spend preparing copy as well as streamline your design process. Here are the three main ways designers utilize AI:
Streamline your Design Process: Do you ever have a mental block when it comes to designing your client’s site? I am someone who has such a hard time getting started. Once I have a vision, I’m good to go but sometimes I struggle in the beginning to get a clear idea of how I want their site to look. There are a ton of AI Tools that can help you with this and can help you streamline your design process.
UX Design Generator or Template Generator: These tools can help you get a baseline for how you want to layout your site content. I highly suggest using this as a base to jumpstart your creative juices. It is always a good idea to make it your own.
Branding: There are a bunch of tools available for Font Pairing, Color Palatte Generation, Logo Design, etc. These tools can analyze your branding and let you know if anything doesn’t seem coherent.
Image Generation: Let’s face it. Your client can send you a ton of photos but there will always be that one spot on the site where none of their photos feel right. You can use AI for this. There are AI Tools that can generate business looking headshots, artwork, and other images based off your description and other photos.
Website Copy: Squarespace’s AI (as well as a ton of other AI Tools) can generate a first draft of copy for a page as well as improve copy you have already written. Some designers (like me!) have the client provide website copy to them. However, you may still need to add or edit the copy to match the flow of the website.
Writing Blog Posts: AI Tools like ChatGPT, GravityWrite, and more can generate blog posts for you based on keywords, topics, and other prompts. Check out this video on how to use AI to write a Blog Post.
I am sure there are a ton more uses for AI when it comes to website design. Check out these articles on some of the best AI Tools available for website designers.
Will I be out of a job?
So, if AI can basically do all of the tasks that I do, but faster, won’t that put me out of a job? Paige Brunton, the OG Squarespace Guru herself looked at this exact question. You can see her full answer here.
Spoiler Alert: No.
As you know designing a website that converts visitors to customers takes far more than a pretty design and good writing. While AI has a ton of great uses, it is far from perfect. As Paige points out in her post, AI is not capable of being able to do everything that you can. Plus, even if it could, there are a lot of reasons people would still hire you (for example: time, best practices, etc…. read Paige’s post for all the deats.)
Overall, AI can help you streamline your web design process or improve on your current content. However, it does have shortcomings.
AI can make mistakes: AI pulls information from a ton of different sources. However, it may pull incorrect information. In fact, at the bottom of ChatGPT’s website it says “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.”
No unique human touch: Again, AI Tools pull from multiple sources to generate its content. Therefore, the content it generates may not be completely unique and definitely won’t have your personal touch (which is what you were hired for in the first place!)
Integrations: Most AI Tools are trained for specific purposes, but websites for online businesses require the use of multiple tools and integrations to run. Therefore, your human touch is still needed to integrate all the tools and automations together.
Will using it on my website hurt my SEO?
Okay, so AI can help me streamline my website design process and even help me write blog posts. But, won’t that effect my Search Engine Ranking?
The answer to that is both a yes and no. Google uses a Helpful Content System to signal their automated ranking systems which sites provide quality content. It works alongside other systems to rank websites in searches. The goal of this system is to ensure that original, helpful content is ranked high in search results.
In September 2023, Google made a Helpful Content update which effected two areas that you should be aware of if considering to use AI.
AI Generated Content: Prior to this update the guidance from Google stated that the Helpful Content System would prioritize “original helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.” The updated guidance removed the words “written by people” and stated that the Helful Content System would prioritize “original helpful content created for people in search results.” Therefore, the update appears to relax slightly on the use of AI to write content. However, I would strongly suggest to use best practices when using AI for this purpose.
Self Assessment: Prior to the update the guidance from Google stated that the content on your site should be “written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well”. The updated guidance has added the word reviewed stating that the content on your site should “written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well”. Therefore, the update appears to encourage reviewing any content not written by you with an expert’s eye.
In summary, the use of AI itself will not harm your website's SEO. However, blindly copying and pasting AI-generated blog posts or content onto your site without any consideration or modification will not improve your rankings. Google's goal is to rank high-quality, valuable, and original content while devaluing low-quality, duplicated, or incorrect content. Therefore, it is perfectly safe to use AI to write content for your website including blog posts, provided you follow some key best practices.
What are the best practices when using AI?
Here are 5 key best practices to follow whenever you use AI to generate content for your website.
Use AI Tools to Generate Outlines using Detailed Prompts: Coming up with content ideas and writing the outlines can be super time consuming. Using AI to generate some ideas, titles, and outlines for you can really help streamline your process. Plus, since it is just an outline, there is lots of opportunity for you to make it your own and add your own expertise. This would ensure that it would still be original, quality content, written for people and review by an expert. Be sure to do some SEO Keyword research and use those keywords and details when prompting the AI. The more detailed the prompt, the more detailed the outline and generated text will be.
Be Cautious using AI to Generate Content on Sensitive or Controversial Topics: According to Forbes, the more controversial or sensitive the topic the more likely that the AI may be restricted from talking about it or not have a real understanding of the situation or context. This could lead to inaccurate information or information pulled from unreliable sources.
Review Any Content Generated by an AI: If you use AI to generate blocks of text or whole posts, be sure to review it with an expert’s eye. AI does not necessarily have fact-checking built into its training. It is your responsibility to ensure that any content you post on your site is accurate and representative of your ideas and business values.
Always Edit or Add to the Content to Make it Your Own: It is possible the AI tool has generated the same or similar content for another user’s site (especially if they have used the same prompt as you). So if you are generating large blocks of text (or whole blog posts) and pasting it onto your site without reviewing or editing the content, it is possible that your content will be very similar to someone else. Search Engines won’t rank your content high if it looks like a duplicate. Remember, the goal is to have original, quality content, written for people and reviewed by an expert. Therefore, any content that is generated by an AI Tool should be edited and reworked to make it unique.
Be Cautious using AI to Generate Images: This is more of a legality issue, than an SEO issue. Make sure that you have the legal right to use any images that you generated using AI. There have been some businesses facing copyright issues for using AI Generated Images and Art.
In Conclusion
AI Tools are tools that mimic human intelligence. They have many uses across various industries including website design, but they do have some shortcomings and disadvantages that you should be aware of before using them.
All in all, it is perfectly safe (SEO-wise) to use AI to write content for your website including blog post and can save you a lot of time by helping you to streamline various business processes.
However, when using any AI Tool it is important that you follow some key best practices and keep in mind that the overall goal of any content you publish on your site is for it to be original, high quality content, that is written for people and reviewed by an expert.
