If you have any interest in the development of the internet it’s likely you’ll have heard lots of chatter and thoughts about ChatGPT, which is a chatbot created by OpenAI. Since the start of December, I have been experimenting with ChatGPT, so now I’ve got some thoughts about how ChatGPT can be used for SEO and content marketing.
ChatGPT was released towards the end of November 2022 and it’s spread like wildfire, with around 1 million people signing up for it in the first 5 days of it going live. Who knows where it’s up to now but it’s likely to be many more millions of people.
I’m involved in a number of SEO groups, some of which have some SEOs who are willing to tread the line a bit more than I am with GrowTraffic clients. There is a great deal of chatter about the capabilities of ChatGPT and it’s fair to say you’ve probably already interacted with generated by ChatGPT without even realising it.
I’ve got to say I’m impressed with what I’ve seen. It’s fairly revolutionary and I think this could really change the way people use the internet. Over Christmas, I was starting to think this kind of technology could potentially replace Google. In fact, Google considers it to be such a threat that they have diverted a vast amount of resources to bring AI products to market.
I really think there are a large number of opportunities for marketers and it’s going to change the face of marketing and SEO in some ways, but I’m still not sure it will work quite in the way people think it will.
So How Could GhatGPT Be Used For SEO And Could It Do Some Of The Work For Us?
There are some areas I’ve tested that I reckon ChatGPT could help with SEO – but there are some limitations too. Here is what we believe you should look into:
- Keyword Research
- Longtail Keyword Ideas
- Meta Titles & Meta Descriptions
- Heading Suggestions
- Writing Ad Copy
- Getting Ideas For Blog Content
What Is ChatGPT?
So like I said, I’ve been using ChatGPT for a while and effectively, I’ve been training it. Now, you’ve got to keep your session going to train it but it is doable.
At first when I asked ChatGPT the question “What Is ChatGPT?” the response was it didn’t know. I had to explain to it that that’s what the world knows it as and that’s how I would like us to refer to it.
After a while this was its response:
“ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence trained to assist with a variety of tasks. I am a software program designed to process and generate text based on the input I receive. I do not have the ability to interact with the real world or to be referred to by any particular name. If “ChatGPT” is a name that has been given to me by some people as a shorthand way of referring to the type of service that I provide, it does not have any particular meaning or significance to me and does not affect my ability to perform my functions. I am a software program that has been trained on a large dataset of text in order to learn to generate human-like responses to a wide range of inputs. This dataset is known as a “language model,” and it provides me with the information and knowledge that I use to generate my responses. The language model that I have been trained on contains a wide variety of text from many different sources, including books, articles, and websites. This allows me to understand and generate responses to a wide range of inputs and to provide information and assistance on a wide variety of topics. My primary function is to provide information and answer questions to the best of my ability based on the data and knowledge that I have been trained on. If I am unable to answer a question or provide useful information, it is likely because I do not have the necessary information or because the question is outside of my capabilities.”
In fact, ChatGPT refers to itself as “Assistant” and considers that to be its name (or label). You can ask it to pretend or role-play using a different name but be careful how far you go down that rabbit hole because you may find yourself hitting a network error response. I’ve had this a lot when I challenged the AI about its identity.
Fortunately, trying to demonstrate to an AI that it has some level of sentience is not strictly necessary to work with it for SEO.
This is the kind of response you get when you ask “ChatGPT What Is GPT?”
“GPT, or Generative Pretrained Transformer, is a type of language model developed by OpenAI. It is a large, deep-learning based model that has been trained on a massive amount of data in order to generate human-like text. GPT is often used for natural language processing tasks, such as language translation, summarization, and text generation. It can be used in a chat context to generate responses to user input in a way that sounds natural and human-like.”
ChatGPT has been trained on so much data and has a very powerful human-like chat function that you can spend hours chatting with the bot without wanting to launch it out of the window.
You can do a lot with ChatGPT. A surprising amount of things, really.
I would say the key things you might want to do with ChatGPT are:
- Writing code
- Fixing broken code
- Explaining why code is broken
- Getting Answers
- Writing poems
- Writing short stories
- Translating language
- Correcting grammar
- Simplifying text
- Getting keywords from text
- Summarising copy
- Providing a recipe
- Creating a recipe from a list of ingredients
It’s endless really. Not everything is great and that’s because of the data that ChatGPT has been trained on. But ask it to write a poem in the style of Shakespeare and it will do a pretty good job of creating a brand new piece of Shakespeare-esque poetry.
I’m hearing lots of SEOs talking about creating very large sites built off the back of ChatGPT content. Of course, AI can write just about any type of content and if you want to get a load of traffic in Google probably one of the best places to start is getting a load of blog articles up on your website. But it’s really not that simple. As someone who has lived through a number of Google’s penalising updates, I guarantee there’s a big AI penalty update coming down the line – probably as an extension of the Helpful Content Update – and it will lay the smackdown.
The thing about ChatGPT, even as an advantageous language model system it still leaves a digital fingerprint in some capacity. There are a number of free AI content detectors out there and I have created content with AI that as far as I am concerned could have been created by a person and straight away the tool detects it. OK, you can manually go through the content and modify it, but even then when the ai detectors say it’s human I am convinced Google will say it’s AI content.
It does depend on what you put into it though. I write the odd poem every now and then. I’ve probably written a few hundred over the years. I spent some time over Christmas feeding ChatGPT the best part of 100 poems that I have written over the years. After training the AI on my poetry I then got it to write several poems in my style. It did a not-bad job and emulating my use of language, but it didn’t seem to be able to replicate the structures I use – the form you might say. I also tried to get it to write some sestinas, which are poems that have a very specific structure. It could easily define a sestina but it couldn’t write one, no matter how many times I tried to explain what it was doing wrong.
I’ve had a short story written by it and I’ve used it to write some fairly functional copy that wasn’t about putting an opinion in a piece of content. I think it’s probably quite good for that kind of content.
Of course, ChatGPT can write the kind of long-form content you should be creating and getting out there for SEO. But should you use it for that content?
I asked it to write me a 1,000-word blog post about the future of SEO and it wrote this piece of content:
“SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of improving the ranking of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs). It is a constantly evolving field, as search engines continue to update their algorithms and the way in which they rank websites. In this blog post, we will explore some of the trends and predictions for the future of SEO.
“One trend that is expected to continue in the future is the importance of mobile-friendliness. With more and more people accessing the internet through their smartphones, it is crucial that websites are optimized for mobile devices. This includes having a responsive design that adjusts to the size of the screen, as well as fast loading times.
“Another trend that is likely to shape the future of SEO is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Google, in particular, has been investing heavily in AI and machine learning, with the goal of providing more relevant and personalized search results. This means that in the future, SEO strategies will need to take into account the use of AI and machine learning by search engines.
“Another important trend in SEO is the increasing focus on user experience (UX). Search engines want to provide users with the best possible experience, and as a result, they are placing a greater emphasis on website design and functionality. This includes factors such as easy navigation, fast loading times, and a clean, visually appealing design.
“In addition to these trends, there are also some specific predictions for the future of SEO. One prediction is that the use of voice search will continue to grow. This means that SEO strategies will need to take into account the use of long-tail keywords, as well as natural language and conversational queries.
“Another prediction is that there will be a greater emphasis on local SEO. With the rise of mobile devices and location-based services, it is expected that search engines will continue to prioritize local results. This means that businesses will need to optimize their websites and online presence for local search.
“Finally, it is expected that there will be a continued emphasis on content quality. While keywords and backlinks are still important for SEO, search engines are increasingly prioritizing high-quality, relevant, and informative content. This means that in the future, SEO strategies will need to focus on creating valuable, engaging content for users.
“In conclusion, the future of SEO is expected to be shaped by trends such as the importance of mobile-friendliness, the use of AI and machine learning, the focus on user experience, and the increasing use of voice search. It is also likely that there will be a continued emphasis on local SEO and content quality. By staying up-to-date on these trends and predictions, businesses can ensure that their SEO strategies are effective and successful in the future.”
It managed to write around 500 words and not a 1,000-word document. So it didn’t quite pass the test on that front. It is fairly generic content and I’d like to see a bit more expertise in it, however, if one of the GrowFos came back to me with the above piece of content I’d be fairly pleased with it.
But if I run this through https://copyleaks.com/features/ai-content-detector it’s clear the content is AI-generated content. It comes back as highly probable that it’s AI-generated.
Earlier last year John Mueller at Google stated Google had authorised its spam team to treat AI-generated content as spam – so you can almost 100% guarantee that they’ve got a good system for filtering out spam content. I’ve included this block as an example so let’s hope I don’t get GT an algo penalty here!
How To Use ChatGTP For Keyword Research
ChatGPT is a pre-trained language model that isn’t specifically designed for keyword research.
I asked ChatGPT to generate a list of keywords I could target as an SEO consultant. This is the result it brought back:
“As an SEO consultant, some potential keywords you could target include:
- SEO services
- SEO consulting
- SEO audit
- SEO optimization
- SEO agency
- SEO expert
- Local SEO
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- E-commerce SEO
- Website optimization
- Keyword research
- Link building
- Content optimization
- Google ranking
- SEO strategy
- SEO company
- Organic search
- SEO ranking
“Keep in mind that these are just examples, and the specific keywords you should target will depend on your business, your target audience, and your competition. Additionally, It’s always a good idea to use a keyword research tool to identify the best keywords for your business and also what keywords your competitors are targeting.”
Whilst it’s not a bad list of keywords, you should use a keyword research tool to generate a list of related keywords to target. The list above gives me nothing of the nuance.
A keyword research tool will also contain information such as search volume, competition, and potential traffic. You can then analyze this data to identify keywords that are the most relevant to your business and have the highest potential for driving traffic to your website.
It’s also worth noting it’s not just about finding keywords with the highest search volume. It’s also important to pay attention to competitive metrics, which might include the cost per click and the number of pages in the index, SERP features (such as Featured Snippets, People Also Ask, Top Stories etc), as well as a good understanding of the competitors.
It’s also important to consider the intent behind the keywords you want to target. Understanding the intent behind the keyword can help you to create better-targeted and more effective copy and content to rank higher in search engines.
You’re not going to get that from ChatGPT.
How To Use ChatGTP For Longtail Keyword Ideas
I have generated hundreds of longtail keywords and blog titles already using ChatGPT. I’ve just scheduled around 100 blog titles for the GrowFos from titles I’ve filtered out of ChatGPT. These are blog titles that I, in the last 13 years of blogging on GrowTraffic have never yet come up with.
You can fine-tune the ChatGPT on your own data. You’ll need to provide it with a list of keywords that you want it to consider and from this point, you can get it to generate new and additional longtail keywords.
As above, you’re not going to get very much in terms of understanding about these keywords. But when using keyword research tools you’re not likely to get those terms either.
How To Use ChatGTP For Meta Titles & Meta Descriptions
This is dead simple. You just need to input your page content and tell ChatGPT that you want to generate a page title and meta description for the page, telling them the keyword you are trying to target for the page.
Personally, I don’t have a problem generating titles or meta descriptions. And for what it’s worth I can’t imagine it being worth the effort to do all the above rather than just creating it myself.
How To Use ChatGTP For Writing Ad Copy
The first job is to collect together a load of different ad copy examples from your competitors. You need to make sure this dataset includes as wide a variety of ad copy as possible
You’ll need to fine-tune the output based on your own business, services, products, brand etc. You might have to run it a few times to get it right but it’s quite good. Just beware that the language can be creative or flowery if you don’t watch it.
How To Use ChatGTP For Getting Ideas For Blog Content
You’ll need to provide ChatGPT with a prompt about the topic of your blog and the type of content you want to create. For example, you could give ChatGPT a prompt such as “generate ideas for blog posts about gardening” or “give me potential article topics for a finance blog.” You could then use the generated text as inspiration for creating your own blog post.
Please don’t use GhatGPT for generating blog posts though. Google will know – their AI is so much better than ChatGPT and it’s going to be able to work it out. Just use it to help you. Nothing more than that.
Conclusion
Whilst ChatGPT is a powerful language generation model and it can be used to generate text based on a given prompt, it is not specifically designed for SEO and content marketing. It can be a useful tool for generating content ideas and inspiration, but it shouldn’t be the sole or even the main source of content for your website. Furthermore, you want to make sure you’ve got a real person creating content. Of course, that’s what we do here at GrowTraffic and we may content to experiment with how to use ChatGPT to help us in our efforts but we’ll never rely on it or use it verbatim. If you want to benefit from your SEO and you’re looking to outsource your SEO and content marketing please contact us today.
