7 tips for using ChatGPT to enhance SEO (without replacing people)

By Sara Lebow

As marketing budgets bend under the pressure of economic uncertainty, SEO is increasingly important for its low costs and compounding returns. Some 58% of marketers plan to use AI for content and SEO by the end of this year, compared to 10% who currently do, according to BrightEdge data.

Here are tips on how you can be part of that 58%.

1. Brainstorm content ideas

Because Google prioritizes expertise and experience, ChatGPT won’t be able to magically produce SEO-optimized content. But it can help human writers.

By asking AI for relevant ideas, the tech can work as a writer’s assistant to help produce quality ideas for human-generated content.

2. Create outlines and first drafts

When it comes to organizing your thoughts, AI can be your friend. ChatGPT can help outline raw notes, streamlining the path to publication.

This is another area to keep Google’s emphasis on expertise and experience in mind, and not create content that fully relies on AI, because it’s entirely possible Google will shift to identifying and flagging AI-generated content.

3. Enhance your titles with AI

Headlines and titles are vital for driving traffic. Rather than pondering the best approach, marketers can use ChatGPT to generate several headline options.

This approach can be effective beyond search. Gael Breton, co-founder of Authority Hacker, found that ChatGPT-written podcast titles optimized for clickthrough rate outperformed staff-written ones.

4. Proofread content

ChatGPT isn’t a copy editor, and it’s definitely not a fact-checker. Content marketers who use ChatGPT in this way will find themselves in hot water with its risk of confidently writing erroneous content.

But AI can serve as an initial proofreader to offer a first pass at grammatical issues. Grammarly’s newly announced AI bot, GrammarlyGO, hopes to take a step beyond finding typos by helping writers ideate and iterate.

Still, make sure all AI-driven content goes through a human editor to check for possible fact-checking and plagiarism errors.

5. Brainstorm technical terms

Writers can’t be experts on everything. ChatGPT is particularly useful for identifying niche language used within a given field. Authority Hacker offers the example of using ChatGPT to generate terms specific to horseback riding, and leveraging those terms alongside content marketers’ typical keyword approach.

6. Translate keywords

If you have a list of keywords associated with a certain piece of content, using ChatGPT can be the fastest way to reproduce those words in another language.

7. Remember the risks

AI is not a replacement for people. Even as Google and Microsoft evolve their own AI, it’s entirely possible the search engines are working to identify (and potentially penalize) AI-generated content.

Bard and the new Bing may put publishers at risk by moving content into search results, eliminating the need to visit websites.

But for now, focus on using AI to empower content writers rather than replace them. ChatGPT can streamline the writing process, enhance SEO, and even improve content quality if used correctly.

This article was first published on Insider Intelligence