You already know the value of a solid SEO strategy, but what if you could streamline your efforts and get even better results with less manual work? Enter ChatGPT—the cutting-edge AI tool that can help take your SEO game to the next level.
Imagine having a reliable assistant that can handle keyword research, optimise content, and provide actionable insights for both on-page and off-page SEO. ChatGPT can do all this and more, freeing your time to focus on strategic decisions and creative tasks.
Side note: While AI can handle much of the heavy lifting, expert oversight is key to maximising your SEO potential, but we’ll get into that later. But for now, let’s explore how ChatGPT can enhance your optimisation efforts and help you achieve better results.
ChatGPT and SEO: The perfect pairing?
SEO is arduous for large businesses with endless marketing budgets, so it’s easy to see why SMEs struggle to develop and execute strategies that achieve results.
SEO presents a range of challenges for both businesses and marketers, with Statista listing a lack of resources as the number one concern—closely followed by strategy issues.
ChatGPT is an advanced tool that can analyse data, collect information and automate various SEO processes, making it a vital weapon for marketers.
Can it replace SEO audits and strategies? No. However, AI can automate various processes and supercharge your productivity.
In this guide, we’ll explain how to use AI for SEO and reveal its limitations.
What is ChatGPT?
In simple terms, ChatGPT is a high-tech assistant that can answer questions, find information and analyse data. It uses Natural Language Processing to answer inputs and queries, utilising the datasets it was trained on.
It is important to remember that AI can only function on preexisting data. However, OpenAI, the company that created and trained ChatGPT, used large datasets, allowing it to perform a range of functions.
How does ChatGPT help with SEO?
SEO is a complex task that requires expertise and constant monitoring. Many marketers find this challenging, so it’s easy to see why businesses struggle to generate consistent results from their SEO campaigns.
While the platform isn’t an SEO tool, it can help with various processes, including:
- Keyword research
- Optimising content
- Providing tips for off-page SEO
- Supporting on-page SEO
- Image optimisation
While the platform can be beneficial, it also knows its limitations. We asked ChatGPT if it could replace an entire SEO strategy, and it came back with this answer:
ChatGPT for content marketing and on-page SEO
There are many ways to leverage ChatGPT for SEO purposes, and understanding how they work could save a lot of time and money. Content marketing is integral to any digital marketing strategy, and leveraging AI can help you achieve more with your budget.
Keyword research
Keyword research is the difference between an SEO strategy that gets results and one that fails to make an impression. It’s not just a case of finding relevant keywords but matching them with search intent and ensuring they align with your objectives.
For example, choosing high-competition keywords as a small business means you’re competing with larger websites and will not secure results.
ChatGPT can help you isolate relevant keywords and generate long-tail terms that secure better results for your brand.
For example, typing in “generate 10 long-tail keywords for a UK SEO agency” and got the following results:
Creating content outlines
ChatGPT has received a lot of negative feedback regarding content creation, but some of it is valid. After all, Google’s Helpful Content Update clearly states that content should be original and offer value to readers.
While it’s best for humans to write content, AI writing tools can speed up the process by generating outlines that cover all bases.
Its superior research capabilities include looking at high-ranking content and delivering outlines that enable you to focus on quality and relevance.
Not only does this save you a lot of time on research, but you can also focus on creating quality content. For example, we asked ChatGPT to create an outline for a post on “digital marketing strategies”, and it came up with this in seconds:
Not only does ChatGPT suggest topics to cover, but it also helps you write compelling conclusions.
Crafting headlines
Headlines might not seem important, but they ensure target audiences read your content.
According to Moz, 80% of audiences don’t make it past the headline, so you can spend hours creating an engaging blog post, but the headlines can destroy its potential.
Finding the right balance between optimisation and creativity can be challenging, but ChatGPT provides some inspiration.
Topic clusters
Topic clusters are a vital strategy for websites that create and publish a lot of content. When executed correctly, clusters provide a better experience for website visitors and help search engines identify your authority and knowledge of particular subjects.
While topic clusters can improve your search engine rankings and help you organise your content, they’re hard to implement. While ChatGPT has a basic topical clustering tool, its premium subscription offers users more options.
Meta descriptions and title tags
Meta descriptions and title tags are vital in ensuring your content appears on the SERPs and enticing audiences to click on it.
When someone enters a query into Google, it brings up relevant results. Title tags and meta descriptions are the first things your target audience sees, and they define whether they’ll click on your website.
Even seasoned marketers find it challenging to balance optimisation and creativity, but ChatGPT can help you create better title tags and meta descriptions.
However, remember to specify the number of characters to ensure your meta description aligns with Google’s recommendations.
Harnessing ChatGPT for off-page and technical SEO
Many people mistakenly think ChatGPT is only suitable for on-page SEO and content marketing, but it’s actually a powerful tool for the more technical side of things.
Using AI can free up a lot of time, from link-building to reputation management and enhancing your website’s technical elements. It’s also ideal for navigating more complex tasks.
Outreach
Link-building is one of the most important components of any SEO strategy. Whether you love or hate it, sourcing placements in high-authority publications shows search engines that people value your content.
While you won’t be able to use the platform to assess your backlinks, it can streamline outreach by isolating relevant websites.
For example, asking AI to provide high-authority websites within your niche can save a lot of time and effort, which you can then invest in creating quality guest posts.
Use the following prompt and tailor it to your business: “My business is {industry}. Give me a list of relevant UK websites for guest post outreach”.
Reputation management
The internet means consumers have more access to information about brands than ever before. Whether they research a business through social media or look at Trustpilot reviews, it’s easy to decide whether a brand is worth their time and money.
Unfortunately, negative reviews happen – for many reasons. The damage they cause can influence consumer trust and prevent you from attracting customers (Forbes).
While you can’t change bad reviews, you can address them and show your customers that you care about their experiences. Reputation management means replying to negative comments and addressing concerns—which can take a lot of resources.
ChatGPT can help you respond to negative reviews and stay on top of comments, ensuring your audience knows you value their opinions.
Schema markups
Schema markup writing is a process where you provide structured data to help search engines understand the context of your content. The process can be incredibly complex – especially if you’re not familiar with how schema.org works.
ChatGPT can help you create schema markup for your content, which you’ll insert into the website’s HTML. As you can see from the following product schema markup, you can copy and paste the code into the HTML.
Hreflang snippets
If your website caters to multiple geographical locations or audiences, you’ll need to ensure consistency with hreflang tags, which tell search engines which version of your website to display for different audiences.
Leveraging ChatGPT can help you create hreflang snippets in a fraction of the time it would take to make them manually. You can do this by using the following prompt:
‘Write hreflang code for a Spanish post about {topic}. English version: {URL}. Here’s the Spanish URL: {Spanish blog post URL}.’
Top tips for using ChatGPT effectively
ChatGPT SEO can help you achieve more from your digital marketing strategy while focusing on other business areas. However, it’s not a fix-all solution, and relying on it too much could impact your website’s growth.
Here are our top tips to get the most out of AI.
Create original content
You can ask ChatGPT to create an entire blog post, but we advise against it. Remember, AI can only function on preexisting data, so asking it to create a 1000-word blog post means the content won’t offer original perspectives and value.
Great content can inspire readers to take action and set your brand apart as an industry authority—it’s not something you want to cut corners with.
If you lack time, outsourcing your content marketing needs can provide a positive ROI and establish your authority.
Check everything
AI is still a relatively new technology, and ChatGPT isn’t flawless. Previous research into the platform highlighted its limitations, including a tendency to align with stereotypes and display cultural biases (Science Direct).
Whether using AI to assist with content or create hreflang snippets, double-checking all outputs can save time and prevent reputational damage.
Don’t be afraid to experiment
The best thing about ChatGPT is it takes just seconds to respond to inputs, which cuts down the time needed for manual research. Instead of accepting the first answer, experiment with prompts and narrow down your results.
For example, we asked the platform to provide UK websites that an estate agency can use. However, if you’re a new business, you’ll want to find easier-to-secure guest posting opportunities.
ChatGPT can help with that – as you can see from the narrowed-down results.
Key takeaways:
- SEO is a long-term investment, and it can take months to see results. When executed correctly, you can expect more organic visibility and the opportunity to cement your brand as an authority.
- While ChatGPT can automate and streamline various SEO processes, it doesn’t replace the need for human expertise. Investing in professional SEO services can give you measurable growth if you want to maximise your budget.
- When leveraging AI, remember it’s meant to support various tasks. Relying solely on it isn’t a good idea, as the technology can only function using existing data.
- Always double-check ChatGPT’s information, from datasets to keywords and content suggestions.
- Enjoy experimenting with AI and discover how it can fit into your marketing strategy. All brands are different, but most find ChatGPT plays a significant role in SEO processes.
The bottom line
Now you know how to use ChatGPT for SEO, it’s time to experiment with the technology. If you’re new to SEO or lack time and resources, relying on AI might seem like a good idea.
However, with constantly changing algorithms and high levels of competition, AI can never replace SEO experts. As an agency that knows how to leverage ChatGPT ethically, we can achieve quicker results and diversify our output, maximising your budget.
If you’d like to discuss your needs today, please book a free proposal with a specialist. We’d love to explain how we can achieve your SEO objectives.
