Jonathon says: “My tip is to create custom web apps for SEO to help you improve your SEO workflows in general.”

OK, so what are bespoke web apps that can automate SEO workflows?

“I've recently been looking into how you can use web apps – such as creating a web app for your websites, using AI to create the app for you, and then using that.

For example, you can use it to create schema generators that validate schema or suggest new schema that might be relevant for a specific page.

Also, we've looked at using it to automate technical audits as well – a bit like the Screaming Frog platform, but not as advanced. It would create that, then we would be able to export it into a CSV or a spreadsheet to help us speed up our technical SEO workflows in our agency.”

We'll dive into what technology you use to actually get that done, but are you saying that we can't really rely on standardised SEO platforms, or are you just saying that what you're recommending is a more cost-effective way to do it?

“I still definitely, 100%, recommend pre-built apps like Ahrefs and Screaming Frog. It's just that sometimes, for us, it's easier to have a custom web app that allows us to then have the adaptability.

For example, when we do a tech audit, we want it in a specific format. Of course, when we do that, it makes it a little harder using platforms, because we have to export it and then change it into a specific format.

With the apps that I've been creating, I've been trying to build them so that when you export them, for example, into a Google Sheet, it's in the format that we want it in, exactly, for when we want to then continue with it – instead of us having to mess around with formatting it and everything.

I still 100% recommend using apps like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or Semrush, but that's why we've looked at doing that internally, to make it a bit easier for us and save a little bit of time on not having to format different audits or whatever.”

Okay, so you're creating these AI-powered apps, and then you're taking the data into Google Sheets.

Are you using Google Sheets as the hub – the central point for your data – and then taking this data and displaying it in various dashboards from there?

“Definitely. We're importing it, and I'm still looking into how to actually get it imported directly into Google Sheets because, at the moment, I've got it exporting as a CSV or something like that, and then importing it straight into Google Sheets to then manipulate it.

We can do that, and then use tools like Looker Studio to import the data and visualise it a little more easily for the client. We’ve got a lot of clients that are not very technical so, when we do a technical audit, they’re a bit like, ‘I’m not sure what this is actually talking about.’ So, when we can visualise it and make it easier then, yeah, definitely.”

What specific tasks are you looking to do this for?

“At the moment, I've been building it out for tech audits – for us, actually doing internal tech audits. Of course, we'll still do manual checking of multiple things, because machines can't do everything that we can check for technical SEO.

I've been building that out at the moment, which is what I'm actually supposed to be talking about at brightonSEO, in April. I've also been trying out an app that you can put a specific URL (or group of URLs) into, which then suggests what schema is relevant. I’m still having a play around with it at the moment because it’s not 100% Google-proof. For example, we’ve got a pharmacy client, so I know what specific schema I want to put on the page, but it’s not currently suggesting things like medical schema. I’m still tweaking it and trying to get it right.

With these things, especially with me using AI to build the tool, it doesn't specifically know loads of the things that we want to checkpoint and test. It's a lot of going back and forth from AI to then hopefully create the exact code that we want.

I've been testing tools like Bolt.new (I don't know if you've come across that) to build them out, as well as using ChatGPT to then host it on a specific server that we've now got internally.

I’m really still playing around with it, but that’s the great thing about it, because you can have a bit of a play around with it and see what you can actually create with it. You're not limited to, for example, the other tools that you use already.”

Focusing on schema, what's your workflow for that?

Are you taking content that already exists, live on a web page, and then using your AI-powered app to generate schema for that, take that schema, and apply it directly to that web page? Or is it for content that exists elsewhere but hasn't been published yet?

“At the moment, we're doing it for content that is actually published in specific places, like our client's websites.

I haven't actually looked at getting it implemented directly into the website yet because, at the moment, what we use is Rank Math, then import it using Rank Math’s schema tools, to then import it into the website. However, that could be something that we look into in the future, to then automate it and say, ‘Yes, I want this.’

What I have actually been able to do is actually have a button on the actual app (for example, for the schema one) that allows it to then give the schema that it suggested. Then, if you click on the button, it literally opens ChatGPT and puts the prompt in, because I've worked out what the URL is that ChatGPT uses, to then generate the response that you've put in.

I've been using that to then pull through – for example, say it's a blog or something, and we want to put blog posting schema, when the user clicks the button, it then goes into ChatGPT, loads it up, and then puts that prompt in for you exactly. For example, it might say, ‘create blog post schema for X URL,’ and then we’re using ChatGPT to generate the schema for us.

Of course, it's not 100% foolproof at the moment with AI, but I think AI is going to get a lot cleverer soon. Originally, when I first started using AI for schema generation and stuff like that, it wasn't doing it too well, but recently I've found that it seems to have stepped up another level. It's actually getting a lot better at generating the schema now.

It's still got a few issues with it. However, that's what we've been playing around with at the moment, and even just trying to get the prompts correct so that it does actually generate the correct schema for us straight away.”

Is it just ChatGPT that you're using? Have you tested other AI tools as well?

“I haven't personally tested others, at the moment, but I'm sure there must be ways to definitely use them.

I need to have a look at Gemini and stuff like that, and see if there are any other AIs that we could technically use, but, at the moment, we've primarily been using ChatGPT because, internally, we have a pro license to ChatGPT. That's why I'm using ChatGPT.

I'm sure there are other ways of using other AIs, like Google Gemini, Google AI Studio, and stuff like that, but I haven’t actually looked into that yet.”

Have you considered using a custom GPT as well?

“No, I actually haven’t. I’ve not thought about that.”

I'm just wondering if that could be set up and just focused on doing schema and, obviously, it then becomes a specialist GPT at that particular task.

“It's a good idea, yeah. With the one that I've been using for generating the schema, I have been trying to trial out, funnily enough, using a custom one, but it's to then give it suggestions based on the contents.

That AI is then getting the content to come through from the URL that we're using, and then it's suggesting the schema that's relevant – instead of, when we first started using the schema generator, it was doing it based on keywords that are in the content.

Sometimes, of course, that's not the best way for it to do it. It was picking up weird things that just weren't relevant to the page that we were doing. I have started using it, but I can't think what the AI is that it started using. I can't remember the name of it at the moment. It might come to me in a bit.

However, I haven’t done it specifically for it to click and then generate. There’s some AI in it, a little bit, but not 100% yet. Really, at the moment, I’m just testing it out and seeing how it goes, but I can see that it’s definitely getting somewhere. It will help a lot, it just takes a lot of time, of course.”

You also talked about things like site audits and in-house reporting. How does it help with both of those tasks?

“With the technical SEO audit, what I've done is, we've got our own internal technical SEO audit already in a spreadsheet. What I've done is I’ve literally given AI the list of what our actionables are and what checks we do internally, and then told it, ‘If there's anything that you can't do, admit that, but tell me which ones they are so that I know exactly what I need to do manually myself.’

I've been using that to then put a URL in, or I have been trialling getting it to specifically extract a full XML sitemap. If I've got a sitemap that I want to use, and the specific URLs – if I want to just audit blogs or something like that, for example, I'm using the XML sitemap for the blog specifically. Because most of our clients are on WordPress, we use Rank Math, so we use the Rank Math sitemap for that.

Then, extracting the data there, and then pulling it through into the tool that we're using to then pull through all the pull actions from those URLs and export them into a CSV, and then into Google Sheets, for example.”

In terms of in-house reporting, how would you take the data and actually be able to utilise that in a user-friendly way, and create actionable insights from what you found?

“I've been having a little look into using Looker Studio to then pull through the data from the platforms into a Google Sheet, then using the Google Sheet as the data source in Looker Studio, to visualise it. I'm still having a little test around with it, but I haven't got there just yet with Looker Studio.

It's trying to work out, like you say, how we can actually visualise it and better show it to a client for them to better understand it. It's getting there, but it's still very early stages of that side of things. I'm still trying to work out the system to try and hopefully get it correct, so it actually does pull through all the actionables that we want to audit, if that makes sense.”

You also talk about integrating search engine APIs.

Which APIs are you talking about there? What data do you actually get from doing that?

“I spoke in April at brightonSEO about using Google Search Console to then pull into Google Sheets. We were talking about that at the time because Google's got a lot of APIs, the analytics, Search Console, and different things like that. I am still looking into that side of things.

With Search Console, I've not worked out 100% how it works yet, but I'm trying to get the Google search API to extract the 404 errors from a website and then put them into the report that we're creating for technical SEO audits. I'm still playing around with it at the moment because, originally, I was looking at just using Google Sheets and then pulling the data through from the APIs using Google Apps Script.

I’m looking at pulling it in from the platform that we're using. For example, in the AI platform app that I'm using, it's trying to work out how to put the APIs into it to then pull it through into the thing. I've still got to test a lot of that stuff out, but it's definitely something that I'm hoping to then get it all in.

When I spoke at Brighton last year, I did a talk about automating content audits. At that time, it was using Google Sheets, but now, with this new tool that I'm using, I could technically create an app for that that would then just generate the content audits directly, because we were pulling through meta titles, descriptions, h1s, heading titles, modified dates of the blog, missing queries that were not in the content from the queries from Google Search Console, etc. It pulled through a lot.

In other words, the next thing I'm probably going to look at is actually automating that in an app, where you just put in the URLs and it does it and generates the script for us for the client. That'll be made even quicker than the way that I taught it in Brighton last year, using Google Sheets.

There are a lot of opportunities there. With AI, it's just making it so much easier to create them, because I know a bit of HTML code, but I'm not an expert at it. I'm not a developer; at the end of the day, I'm a technical SEO, but it's just playing around with it and seeing how it goes.

AI is getting a lot cleverer now. It can just create these apps in no time, and it's crazy.”

At the beginning of our conversation, you talked about how you're still using conventional SEO platforms, and you can't see that changing. But the more you talk about it, the more I think that more SEOs are going to be developing their own apps using AI in the future for their own bespoke needs, and are less likely to use conventional SEO platforms.

Do you not think that's a path that we're going to go down in the future?

“Yeah, it could easily be the case, because creating these custom apps is getting a lot more accessible. It is getting a lot more accessible to people.”

Just using APIs from Majestic and other platforms.

“Exactly. It's a shame because I love using apps like Screaming Frog. Recently, we've changed. We used to use Semrush, but we're now using Ahrefs internally. It's a lot of that, with different things.

It is a shame, but the thing is, at least with these things, they are more customisable for people to then create them – and it's saving more time, in other words. It's quite accessible, with AI now, to then just create it straight away anyway.

I do think that, in the next few years, we might see a lot fewer people using AI SEO tools and creating their own, 100%.”

It could be that, in very small businesses, you need some standardised platform just to get things done quickly, and you want to have an SEO expert who can create bespoke things.

Is there a type of business that creating these sorts of apps that are powered by API is most suitable for? Or are we just talking about any business here?

“I'd probably say more agency-side, or companies with big marketing departments who are doing it internally, and they've got a lot of SEOs in the team. They might be looking at tools like this.

For smaller companies, of course, when they haven't got the budget or they haven't got the manpower to then create apps like this and have the time of people building them, they're probably going to still use platforms like Ahrefs and Semrush – things like that.”

Jonathon, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“My key takeaway from the tip today is literally to have a go at using AI, create your own apps, and see where it goes.

Don't worry if it breaks, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, you're still trialling it out. Just have fun and create apps that are going to hopefully help you in the future with your SEO workflow.”

Jonathon Roberts is the Technical Lead at Fly High Media. Find out more at FlyHighMedia.co.uk.