Since 2022 ChatGPT (chat generative pre-trained transformer) has taken the world by storm and kick started an AI revolution. Since ChatGPT came out it seems like there’s a new generative AI tool every day, with most of them even leveraging the same technology that ChatGPT was built on, GPT-4. These GPT-4 tools are able to understand and generate human-like text which is making them popular assistants, editors, creative thinkers, writers, coders and so much more!
In today’s digital landscape, where AI technology and natural language processing are revolutionizing various industries, ChatGPT stands out as a powerful tool for content creators and marketers. With its remarkable capabilities, ChatGPT has the potential to significantly impact search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and help businesses create high-ranking content that resonates with their target audience.
But some are wondering if ChatGPT is enough and how they can utilize ChatGPT to become an SEO expert themselves. I will say that ChatGPT is not enough and we will discuss why, but I will also give you some copy and past prompts to get you headed in the right direction with high ranking SEO content creation…minimal experience required.
Is ChatGPT Replacing SEO?
Contrary to the misconception that ChatGPT is replacing SEO, it is essential to understand that ChatGPT and SEO are not mutually exclusive but rather work hand in hand. ChatGPT and SEO are a dynamic duo. While ChatGPT brings AI-powered language generation to the table, it complements, enhances and amplifies the effectiveness of SEO efforts. Additionally, I believe the most important feature of ChatGPT is that it allows me to speed up and streamline my workflow.
AI powered tools are still a long way from completely replacing SEO experts. However, I would argue that if you have yet to integrate AI tools, like ChatGPT, into your day to day workflow you’re already that much closer to AI actually taking over your job. It’s important to have AI work for you rather than you work for AI, so we’re going to discuss how SEO experts can effectively leverage AI and master it as a skill.
Different Ways to Leverage ChatGPT for SEO
These are 2 SEO specific ways you can leverage ChatGPT in your workflow: Keyword Research and Content Strategy. However, if you’re looking for other marketing applications for ChatGPT, check out my ChatGPT in Marketing blog.
1. Keyword Research
One of the foundational elements of effective SEO is keyword research. ChatGPT can play a valuable role in this process by aiding in the identification of target keywords and understanding search intent. By leveraging ChatGPT’s natural language understanding capabilities, content creators can gain insights into user search behavior, uncover relevant keywords, and optimize their content to align with user expectations.
Here are some prompts that you can utilize to conduct keyword research utilizing ChatGPT:
If you already know the main topic you would like to write about, then the following prompt can help you begin to develop an outline:
What are the most popular subtopics related to (main topic)?
In order to expand out each subtopic and develop talking points, then you can ask:
What are the most popular subtopics related to (subtopic)?
Now that you have an idea for your primary and secondary keywords, it’s important to develop semantically related keywords. Semantically related keywords are keywords that are conceptually linked to each other. By implementing semantically related keywords it can help improve the overall relevance and SEO of your content piece. There are many different paid tools that can help you do this, like SEMRush, but this prompt can help you get started just utilizing ChatGPT:
If I am writing a blog on the primary keyword “_____” what semantically related keywords should I include?
Once completed, you will have a list of keywords that can help you begin writing an SEO optimized content piece. It’s important to use other SEO tools that give you accurate information on search volume and intent for these keywords to ensure that you’re going to receive the right amount of high quality traffic that you’re looking for.
2. Content Strategy
Developing a comprehensive content strategy is crucial for SEO success. ChatGPT can contribute to content marketing strategies by aligning content with audience interests and optimizing it for search engine ranking factors. By analyzing user queries and preferences, ChatGPT can provide valuable insights into the type of content that resonates with the target audience, enabling content creators to craft engaging and relevant pieces.
Before starting to develop a content strategy, you should have a clear idea of the product or service you’re offering and who you’re offering it to. Once you have that, utilize the following prompt to begin generating a content strategy:
Give me a list of topics I can write about surrounding (general product or service) as well as suggestions for types of content to share that information with my target audience of (audience demographics).
To further develop this list of topics, it can also be helpful to ask ChatGPT for the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) surrounding your topic. By answering FAQs from Google’s “People Also Ask” section you have a higher chance of getting your article featured in that section which could increase your organic search traffic.
Here is the prompt you can use to identify FAQs for your primary topic:
What are some common questions people have searched about _____?
Now that you have developed your topic, keywords, and content strategy, it is time to start writing content that will rank #1 on Google.
How To Create High Ranking SEO Content Using ChatGPT
Creating high quality content that is going to rank does not have to be time consuming or laborious. Also, by leveraging AI you can strengthen your content so you can address readers’ needs more effectively, provide a clear structure and improve readability, ensure that the content remains engaging for readers, and integrate keywords naturally throughout the content to enhance search engine visibility.
Here are 5 copy and past prompts to help you kickstart your next SEO content piece:
1. Title Optimization
Asking ChatGPT to optimize your blog title can give you options for A/B testing copy or simply developing a headline that may have a higher click-through-rate (CTR). You can also test ChatGPT headlines against your own by A/B testing them when you send out the blog in your weekly newsletter.
Here’s how to ask ChatGPT to optimize your headline:
“I am writing a blog titled “_____”. How would you change the title of my blog?”
2. Outline Optimization
Previously, we talked about utilizing ChatGPT to develop topics, subtopics and FAQs that can help you begin to build an outline for your blog. Once you combine those ChatGPT outputs with your own expert level SEO knowledge about your topic and target audience, you can ask ChatGPT if there’s anything else you should include in your blog. By doing this, ChatGPT gave me specific talking points for each heading in my outline”
“I am writing a blog titled “_____”
It needs to be at least _____ words.
It also needs to contain each of the following keywords: ______, _____, _____,…
Here is the outline I have so far:_____
Do you have any suggestions for how I should optimize my outline?”
3. Keyword Building
Similarly to asking ChatGPT to give you secondary and semantically related keywords, this prompt will help ChatGPT build off your existing keyword list and add keywords that you may have not previously considered.
“Is there any other keywords that you think I should include that would help this blog rank #1 for its primary keyword “_____”?”
4. Writing the Blog
One of the key benefits of ChatGPT is that the more you talk to it, the better its responses are going to be. If you’ve been following this exercise from the beginning, then ChatGPT has had some time to become very familiar with the type of content you’re trying to write. This is when it becomes time to ask it to write your rough draft.
“Based on all of the information we discussed above, write the blog.
As a reminder, the blog should be at least ______ words, include all of the keywords we discussed and follow the following outline:_____”
5. MetaData Creation
Lastly, you can ask ChatGPT to give you ideas for your title tag and meta description. Metadata helps search engines (and potential readers) understand what is on your page. Even though metadata is not considered a ranking factor by Google, optimized metadata can help increase your CTR.
“Give me a meta title that is 60 characters or under and a meta description that is 150 characters or under for the blog you wrote above.”
ChatGPT Cutting off Responses
Throughout this exercise, one thing I noticed was that ChatGPT will eventually stop typing. This is especially true if you’re asking it to write long-form content like a blog post. I found that the following prompt is the perfect solution to continue getting your answer.
“Continue where you left off in a new response”
Is ChatGPT Good at SEO?
The effectiveness of ChatGPT in improving SEO outcomes has been a subject of interest and scrutiny. While ChatGPT can greatly enhance content creation and optimization, it’s important to understand its limitations and potential considerations. It’s also important to define what being “good” or “bad” at SEO means for ChatGPT.
If ChatGPT were “good” at SEO then it would be able to accomplish mid-level SEO tasks like keyword research and content strategizing with expert level quality that requires little to no modification from a human.
If ChatGPT were “bad” at SEO then it would not be able to accomplish mid-level SEO tasks, not provide any valuable insights that can be utilized to inform strategy, and not help SEOs save time in strategy development.
From my personal experience utilizing ChatGPT in my SEO practices I would say ChatGPT is just okay at SEO. It can occasionally provide valuable insights that help expand existing strategies but does require the use of additional tools and a human SEO expert to develop and verify its work. ChatGPT has many limitations that prevent it from being “good” at SEO.
A limitation I routinely encounter is that ChatGPT does not deliver on the word count. It only produced around 800 words. However, the content it did produce serves as a good starting point for you to edit the AI generated content and add human generated content. It is vital that your blog is AT LEAST 50% human generated content.
The problem with ChatGPT responses is that they often lack depth, expert knowledge and even accurate information. This means that if you’re publishing AI generated content that is not at least 50% human generated, it is probably going against Google’s Helpful Content Update which in turn can hurt not help your SEO rankings. The speed and flexibility of ChatGPT is great for SEOs alike, but it means nothing if the content never ranks.
ChatGPT also lacks real-time knowledge of search engine algorithms and specific ranking factors. Therefore, content creators should combine their expertise with ChatGPT’s capabilities to create content that aligns with SEO best practices.
Real-world examples and case studies demonstrate the impact of ChatGPT on search engine rankings and organic traffic. By leveraging ChatGPT to create optimized content, businesses have witnessed improvements in their search engine visibility and overall website performance. These success stories highlight the potential of ChatGPT as a valuable asset in the SEO toolkit.
It’s important to acknowledge that ChatGPT is not a substitute for human creativity and expertise. While it can provide suggestions and generate content, it’s crucial for SEO experts and content writers to curate, refine, and tailor the generated output to meet their specific goals and audience needs.
ChatGPT Powered SEO Tools
Besides utilizing ChatGPT directly for SEO, there are several tools out there that utilize GPT4 and other language processing models that enable you to complete complex SEO tasks more efficiently. Here’s a list of our top five GPT4 SEO tools and what makes each one unique.
1. Alli AI
AlliAI is a tool that you can add directly to your website using a code snippet. Once installed, AlliAI automatically makes SEO code and content recommendations for your website and allows you to review them in an easy to use dashboard. Approving and deploying the recommendations can be done with just a click of a button and AlliAI will automatically implement an unlimited amount of recommendations. AlliAI works with any CMS from WordPress to Shopify and PrestaShop. This tool removes the need for developers and helps reduce the time for implementation of SEO optimizations that rely on a developers assistance. AlliAI is also constantly changing and optimizing in correlation with all Google algorithm updates.
Key Features:
- Bulk OnPage Optimizations
- Live Editor for text, content, and code
- Real-time Deployment
- Automated A/B Testing
- Site Speed Optimizer
- Schema Markup
Price: Starting at $249/month
2. SEO Content AI
SEO Content AI has 45 different tools to help you with automated content creation for search engines that helps improve your online presence. Unlike AlliAI, SEO Content AI tools are hosted on their own website. This tool can help you with automated content creation across various channels including but not limited to; blog content, marketing, SEO, social media and ads and website copy.
Key Features:
- Bulk Content Creation
- Multi-Language Content
- AI-Powered Internal Linking
- Content Cluster Creation
- Long-Form Content
- Grammar and Plagiarism
- 45 Different AI Content Tools
Price: Based on usage. They offer a FREE version up to 50,000 words and is around $300/month for unlimited usage.
3. SEO.app
SEO.app is a ChatGPT Plus plugin that enables you to create highly optimized and high-converting SEO content directly in ChatGPT. SEO.app is approved by OpenAI and has 2 patents that allow them to create high quality automated SEO content. Their first patent allows them to do content generation using target content derived modeling and unsupervised language modeling. The second patent allows them to do content editing using content modeling and semantic relevancy scoring. SEO.app specializes in optimizing automated content for reach, conversion, facts, multilingual, and emotions.
Key Features:
- Long-form SEO content generation through ChatGPT
Price: FREE with ChatGPT plus subscription
4. SEOmatic
SEOmatic is an automated landing page generator that you can integrate directly into your CMS. You can connect SEOmatic to your database, upload a CSV file with your data, or use their AI assistant to find datasets relevant to your niche. This data connection feature allows the tool to identify areas of opportunity in your current SEO content strategy and keywords so it can recommend landing pages. Creating landing pages through the tools is automated due to built in or custom templates with placeholders. SEOmatic identifies, creates, and publishes landing pages with just a few clicks and sends you weekly SEO reports on their performance.
Key Features:
- High Converting Landing Pages
- Notion-like Text Editor
- One-click Blog Post Generator
- pSEO Datasets
- Scheduling Tool
- Fast Google Indexing
- SSL Certificate
- Custom Domains
- Weekly SEO Reports
Price: Starting at $39/month
5. SEO.ai
SEO.ai specializes in auto-generating long SEO-rich articles and identifying relevant keywords. This is another tool that’s rooted in its own website and does not integrate with your website or ChatGPT. The average length of articles produced by SEO.ai is 1600+ words and Google EEAT optimized. Unlike utilizing ChatGPT alone, SEO.ai also optimizes your content with bullets, highlights, quotes and different heading styles. Also, with a simple prompt, their AI will turn your audience’s goals into relevant keywords to target and even uncover keywords that your competitors target and receive traffic from.
Key Features:
- Long-form SEO content
- Keyword Research
Price: Starting at $49/month after 7-day FREE trial.
Takeaways from ChatGPT SEO
In this blog post, we explored the capabilities of ChatGPT and its role in SEO. We debunked the misconception that ChatGPT is replacing SEO and emphasized the dynamic duo of ChatGPT and SEO, highlighting their complementarity. We discussed how to leverage ChatGPT for keyword research, content strategy, and content creation to optimize SEO efforts.
While ChatGPT provides valuable insights and content generation capabilities, it’s crucial to blend AI technology with human expertise. Content creators must balance the power of ChatGPT with their own creativity, industry knowledge, and SEO expertise.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, exploring and experimenting with ChatGPT can lead to innovative SEO strategies, improved search engine rankings, and increased organic traffic when utilized in tandem with an SEO expert.
