AI SEO: ChatGPT for Keyword Research and Brainstorming
- May 18th, 2023
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Marketing
- Mary Hubbard
What makes ChatGPT such a unique innovation? AI SEO. If this is the first time you are hearing about ChatGPT: it is a language processing model capable of carrying on realistic conversations with users, “remembering” past statements, and providing lifelike responses. Given prompts, ChatGPT is capable of producing content that rivals what professional writers can produce. As the technology driving ChatGPT is refined, it will undoubtedly revolutionize fields including medicine, education, finance, art, and many more.
In its current state, ChatGPT still needs human assistance to perform effective copywriting and content generation. In fact, delegating content creation to AI has already proven disastrous for multiple companies. One of these is CNET, a media outlet that was recently forced to issue multiple retractions due to misinformation in AI-generated articles.
While you shouldn’t outsource all your writing needs to artificial intelligence, ChatGPT can streamline your content creation process in meaningful ways. This brief guide will introduce you to some practical do’s and don’ts for harnessing the power of AI SEO while also producing high-quality content.
AI SEO: The Don’ts
Don’t bypass human quality control
Ultimately, you are responsible for the information shared on behalf of you and your organization. From an ethical standpoint, an AI processing model cannot accept blame for spreading harmful misinformation. It also has no “skin in the game,” and it’s not internally motivated to produce content that will benefit you. To protect you and your audience from harm, you need a knowledgeable, capable human team to fact-check content produced by ChatGPT.
The GPT-2 Output Detector Demo can be a great tool for revising text produced by AI. It determines the probability of whether text is written by a human or an artificial source, meaning you’ll know how much more editing is needed. However, with how quickly ChatGPT is advancing, artificial content does not mean it is bad content.
ChatGPT is great at producing mediocre content that technically meets the brief, but won’t necessarily make you stand out. You still need SEO experts to optimize AI-produced content using keywords designed for SEO. It’s a good idea to generate keywords using ChatGPT, but then check those keywords using SEO tools. This will help you understand how effective the keywords might be and what search volume they correspond to. Four SEO keyword analysis tools to consider include:
- Semrush
- Google Trends
- Moz
- Ahrefs
Human SEO vs. AI SEO: Why You Still Need Human SEO Experts
Don’t use ChatGPT to write entire blog posts
ChatGPT will quickly write an entire blog post based on a prompt you provide. However, you might spend as much time creating prompts and performing quality control on AI-generated content as a copywriter would have spent writing the article for you. ChatGPT might produce content that sounds fine at first glance, but on closer inspection:
- frames you or your organization in a negative light
- is repetitive, circular or boring
- contains clear errors in logic
- reflects bias against marginalized groups
This can often be a result of improper prompt development. The best way to avoid this is by creating clear and detailed prompts — the more context you give ChatGPT, the better it can understand the prompt, resulting in high-quality output.
Don’t be too “nice” to ChatGPT
Most of us are at least somewhat prone to anthropomorphism. We know that ChatGPT is not a human, but we still find ourselves observing social conventions when we interact with it. Saying “please” or “thank you” to ChatGPT is fine (and might even reinforce the value of empathy in your daily life). But don’t be afraid to give detailed instructions to ChatGPT, even if they would sound demanding or excessively wordy to a human listener.
For example, you might challenge a human friend to tell you a story about cats. However, this prompt is too vague to get anything memorable out of ChatGPT. Instead, you could try something like:
“write a horror story in a conversational tone using some slang words. Use specific, concrete vocabulary and write for a young adult audience, using a style like Stephen King’s. The main characters should be a shy young girl and her curious cat who learn the following lesson: it’s important to be careful what you wish for.”
AI SEO: The Do’s
There’s no need to avoid ChatGPT completely — in fact, doing so could cause you to fall behind competitors in terms of quality, optimization, and efficiency. Instead, follow these tips for using AI in SEO responsibly as part of your content creation strategy.
Do use ChatGPT to generate ideas based on specific prompts
ChatGPT excels at brainstorming — taking an idea you provide and exploring the various paths it might take. You can explicitly ask ChatGPT for various kinds of lists and typically receive good results. You can even ask ChatGPT to organize the information it provides into a table, which makes it easier to navigate. It’s always important to feed ChatGPT specific, relevant keywords — vague prompts can easily lead AI in the wrong direction.
Blog topic ideas
You might ask ChatGPT for a list of blog topics on a specific theme. For instance, asking ChatGPT to generate a list of blog topic ideas about fruit and the keto diet produced these results:
As you can see, ChatGPT offered creative ideas that may or may not have occurred to a human writer. Additionally, you can ask ChatGPT for blog elements such as:
- Title suggestions
- Corresponding search intents
- Meta descriptions
It’s important to give detailed instructions, as always — provide ChatGPT with a limit, such as fifteen title suggestions, and clearly explain the purpose and context behind the blogs you’ll be writing. You might use phrases like “if you were marketing a personal training package” or “if you owned a lawn care business” to help AI understand your angle and audience.
Lists of facts
ChatGPT excels at providing lists of facts or statistics that you could incorporate into your own paragraphs. For example, asking ChatGPT for “three interesting facts about electric cars” returned the following results:
Facts like these can make great openers for blog posts or help you add interest to your body paragraphs. However, ChatGPT may or may not cite its sources. It’s vitally important to fact-check the information it provides. For SEO and credibility purposes, it’s helpful to track down the original source of the information and provide a hyperlink in your copy.
Do use ChatGPT as part of your keyword strategy
While it’s important to understand ChatGPT’s limitations, it can be a helpful tool for approaching keyword research from another angle. Unlike SEO tools, ChatGPT does not have access to internet search data. However, it has an unparalleled understanding of the semantic relationships between keywords and other topics, so it’s capable of making connections that Google’s keyword analysis tools would miss.
ChatGPT can perform a variety of keyword research functions, but consider these five functions to get started:
- Discover new keywords
- Generate long-tail keywords based on a primary keyword you provide
- Extract keywords from text you’ve written
- Extract keywords from text written by competitors
- Determine and evaluate competing keywords for a given keyword
As always, it’s important to provide detailed, explicit instructions to ChatGPT. You might say something like, “give me a list of fifteen long-tail keywords based on ‘neck pain’ as the primary keyword.”
Do Use AI as a Tool For SEO Content Strategies:
In a hurry to write a blog post? You can ask ChatGPT for a short outline based on a given title, then flesh it out yourself. When asked for a “short outline for a blog post about loose leaf tea,” ChatGPT provided the following:
A smart next move would be to transform each point on the outline into a sentence in your own words – using SEO keywords benchmarked with SEO tools.
ChatGPT excels at editting content you’ve produced
One of ChatGPT’s most attractive features is its ability to alter tone, readability, clarity and grammatical structure in a given text. Here are a couple of ways to use ChatGPT as part of your editing process.
Adding headers and sub headers
If you’ve got a large chunk of text, ChatGPT can organize it into sections for you. You can simply say, “please add headers and subheaders to this text,” then copy and paste your desired text. Dividing your text into sections with many levels of headers is an excellent way to guide your reader through a piece of writing. Headers and subheaders are especially essential for users on mobile devices.
Making paragraphs more concise
Writing winning digital content starts with conciseness. Your readers are looking for short paragraphs that pack lots of meaning into a very small package. Asking ChatGPT to edit writing for conciseness – and to break long paragraphs into shorter ones – can make for a more appealing read.
Transform your content creation strategy with Swarm Digital Marketing
Clearly, ChatGPT has an important role to play in content creation today. But without digital marketing experts who know how to use it, its benefits will be limited — and it could cause significant harm. When you partner with Swarm Digital Marketing, you’ll have a full-service team of experienced marketing pros on your side. We’ll help you get the most out of every available tool. Interested in a free consultation? Fill out our online form today and let’s get started!
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FAQs
1. What is AI SEO and how does it relate to ChatGPT?
AI SEO refers to the use of artificial intelligence in search engine optimization strategies, which includes content writing. ChatGPT is an AI language processing model that can be used to streamline content creation and keyword research, making it a valuable tool in AI SEO strategies.
2. How can ChatGPT help with content ideation and keyword research?
ChatGPT can generate blog topic ideas, lists of facts, and outlines based on specific prompts provided by the user. It can also discover new keywords, generate long-tail keywords, and extract keywords from text, making it a useful tool for AI SEO keyword research.
3. Can ChatGPT write entire blog posts for me?
While ChatGPT can generate content quickly, it is not recommended to use it for writing entire blog posts without human input. You may spend more time editing and fact-checking the AI-generated content than if you had written the article yourself.
4. What are some potential pitfalls of using ChatGPT for content creation?
Misplaced trust and overreliance on AI can lead to misinformation, poor content quality, and even harm to your organization’s reputation. It’s essential to have human quality control and SEO experts to optimize AI-generated content.
5. How can I use ChatGPT to edit my content effectively?
ChatGPT can help you add headers and subheaders to your text, as well as make paragraphs more concise and reader-friendly.
6. What are some SEO keyword analysis tools I can use alongside ChatGPT?
Some popular SEO keyword analysis tools include Semrush, Google Trends, Moz, and Ahrefs.
7. Can ChatGPT optimize my content for SEO automatically?
No, ChatGPT can generate content and keywords, but you still need SEO experts to optimize the AI-generated content using SEO best practices.
8. How can I ensure that ChatGPT generates high-quality content?
Provide detailed and explicit instructions when giving prompts to ChatGPT. This will help the AI understand the context and desired outcome of the content.
9. Is it safe to rely solely on ChatGPT for my content creation and AI SEO strategy?
No, it’s crucial to have a knowledgeable human team for fact-checking, content optimization, and quality control to ensure the best results in your AI SEO strategy.