Testing ChatGPT SEO: How Useful Is ChatGPT for SEO?

ChatGPT and the wider generative AI (GenAI) revolution has irrevocably transformed how we work. Content Nation, like every forward-looking brand and agency, is in the process of exploring what that means for our operations.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) has long been a mainstay of our business offering, and a foundation of any effective digital strategy for clients around the world. So how does using ChatGPT for SEO impact that offering?

We’re diving deeper beyond our recent whitepaper—The Remarkable Rise of Generative AI: Is ChatGPT About to Steal Your Marketing Job, or is Gemini the Great Opportunity Content Marketing Is Looking For?—to explore GenAI and SEO potential in more detail.

So, hold onto your little white hats, because the human experts at Content Nation have been busy finding out. In this article, we explore the data around ChatGPT SEO and keywords, and dive into ChatGPT SEO prompts to guide your wider opportunities.

What data tells us about ChatGPT SEO keyword analysis

SEO is all about the data, so in order to understand this evolving landscape, the humans at Content Nation have undertaken some serious testing to assess the basic capabilities of ChatGPT to identify high-value keywords.

As any SEO-savvy marketer knows, good keywords are a combination of volume (the number of searches for a given term), and difficulty (the competition to rank for that term). For the purpose of this experiment, we analysed the volume metrics for the terms suggested by ChatGPT for a simple assessment of a large number of keywords.

We identified 10 topic areas for keyword research. For each of the 10 topic areas, we asked ChatGPT for 50 keyword suggestions, providing 500 keywords in total—250 assessed in the Malaysian search market, and 250 assessed against global search volumes.

Malaysia: Government agency, electronics brand, snack food provider, energy conference, theme park.

Global: Technology company, medical tourism, telecoms technologies, food and beverage retailer, global financial firm.

We then took ChatGPT’s suggested keywords across the 10 topics and assessed them within our tried-and-tested keyword research platform. The results were educationa(i)l.

Malaysia market: Of the 250 search terms suggested by ChatGPT across five topic areas, a whopping 205 of them offered no search volume at all. That means over 80% of search words suggested were of no value.

Global market: Of the 250 search terms suggested by ChatpGT across five topic areas, a significant 119 offered no search volume. That means almost half (49%) of search words suggested were of no value.

	Malaysia	Global
ChatGPT Terms Searched	250	250
Terms with No Volume	205	119
% With No Volume	82%	47.6%

While SEO and keyword strategy is complex, this high-level assessment shows that ChatGPT still has a long way to go in straightforward keyword suggestions.

Given the pace of evolution in these tools, I think it’s highly likely that a mature, widely accepted GenAI-driven keyword research tool will establish itself in the market in the next few years, creating new opportunities for advanced keyword research.

As things stand, any reliance on ChatGPT for keyword suggestions needs to be backed by more manual assessment of the relevant data. That means while it can offer a helpful tool to inspire keyword research or prompt ideas, marketers should be wary of simply plucking words suggested and plugging them into their on-page SEO efforts.

Where else can ChatGPT and SEO make friends?

Keyword research is the foundation of good on-page SEO, but it’s by no means the only area where ChatGPT might offer advantage. Here are five ChatGPT SEO prompts that could add value to your optimisation efforts.

ChatGPT SEO Prompt 1: Write me a meta description for my webpage in no more than 156 characters

Meta descriptions are the small snippets of text which display in search engine results. Broad guidance is that these should be no more than 156 characters long, which can be tricky! So why not get ChatGPT to do the work for you? You can ask for several options and choose the best.

Remember the clearer the prompt, the better the output. Include a note of the industry, the brand, and the purpose of the specific page.

ChatGPT SEO Prompt 2: Generate meta titles for my webpage of no more than 55 characters

Another great way to leverage ChatGPT is to create meta titles—the small title descriptions that appear at the top of web pages on your browser and display on search engine results. These are important features to hook your audience and boost your SEO.

One thing to remember is to follow the character length of no more than ~55 characters. This handy title tag tool by SEO rockstars Moz can be used to assess the outputs.

ChatGPT SEO Prompt 3: Give me some SEO keywords to act as guidance for my keyword research

While ChatGPT falls short when it comes to blunt provision of keywords for web pages, it can help act as a thought starter to get your human brain into gear.

Ask ChatGPT for some initial keywords, and use these as seed ideas for your own SEO keyword research. That means the same, data-driven process to identify strong keywords, but with a spark of GenAI-joy to challenge your method.

As well as a thought starter, ChatGPT can help you look outside the box for your established keyword research. If you’re struggling to think of semantically similar terms or alternative phrases, why not ask ChatGPT to help you out.

“What are some related keywords to takeaway sandwiches” for example could open up a rich new vein of keyword terms to assess.

ChatGPT SEO Prompt 4: I’m identifying SEO keywords for an [industry] brand in [country], what are some local words or terms that might be useful to know?

As a global agency, we often work with brands and markets across the world. That means local vernacular or slang can be a powerful SEO opportunity. Identifying local variations on words, for example “telly” as an alternative to “TV”, can provide the basis for some interesting SEO keyword research in a market like the UK.

This is best used as a basis for keyword analysis, since you can then leverage genuine data to see how valuable these terms are for your SEO. When it comes to writing, it’s always important to work closely with clients or local experts to ensure that wording is used correctly, naturally, and in line with brand tone and guidelines.

ChatGPT SEO Prompt 5: Write an 800-word article that includes the keyword terms X, Y, and Z, on the topic of [Topic]

While it isn’t great at identifying high-volume keywords, ChatGPT can be leveraged to turn identified keywords into valuable SEO content. By using ChatGPT SEO prompts that explicitly request inclusion of certain keywords, we prime the output to optimise for our on-page goals.

The output ChatGPT offers should be considered a foundation for a good SEO-driven article, rather than the finished article itself. It’s important to always curate and adjust content with a human perspective, and adapt and build on the skeleton provided by ChatGPT to provide content that genuinely appeals to the reader.

Want to find out more about ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or the wonderful world of SEO? Dive into our whitepaper or get in touch with us today!