Prompts have become an indispensable tool for SEO practitioners as a result of the exponential growth in content development in recent years. An artificial intelligence chatbot called ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) may be directed and given simple instructions to produce images, movies, articles, and more.
The notion of using ChatGPT content for SEO should be explored because of the incredible quality of the content. Before choosing how to utilize a tool for content and SEO, one should constantly be aware of the instrument’s many drawbacks.
We’ll go over all of ChatGPT’s drawbacks, as well as its advantages and how SEO specialists may use it to enhance their content, in this article.
ChatGPT and SEO
Understanding how to use prompts effectively is a big advantage for marketers and SEO experts. This is so they can train the AI to produce high-quality material while adhering to SEO suggestions. By enabling articles to be tailored to each user’s writing style, tone of voice, and preferences using Large Language Models, AIs have transformed the creation of content.
To stay competitive in their industry today, SEO practitioners need to understand these tools. For SEO professionals concerned with producing high-quality content and adhering to SEO suggestions, mastering prompts and AIs is essential. They can give tailored information that is pertinent to their target audience using these techniques.
Why ChatGPT Can Do What It Does?
In a word, ChatGPT is a Large Learning Model, a subset of machine learning. An LLM is a type of artificial intelligence that can anticipate the word that will come next in a sentence after being educated on enormous quantities of data. How much data it was trained on will determine how many tasks it can complete (like writing articles). Large language models occasionally acquire unexpected skills.
Stanford University describes how GPT-3 was able to translate text from one language to another despite not having been particularly trained to do so thanks to an increase in training data. Large Language Models like GPT-3 (and GPT-3.5, which supports ChatGPT), are not taught to perform particular tasks.
They receive extensive training in a variety of subjects that they can subsequently apply to other fields. This is comparable to how people learn. For instance, even though a person was never explicitly taught how to make a table, they can use the information they gain from learning the foundations of carpentry to construct one.
GPT-3 functions like the human brain in that it has a general knowledge base that can be used for a variety of activities. The Stanford University GPT-3 article explains:
- Humans are “usually” intelligent and can learn anything, from composing poetry to playing soccer to filling out tax returns, in contrast to chess engines, which handle a specialized problem.
- Unlike the majority of existing AI systems, GPT-3 is getting closer to this level of general intelligence.
InstructGPT, a sizable language model that was taught to follow instructions from people and provide in-depth responses to challenging inquiries, is also incorporated into ChatGPT.
ChatGPT can receive instructions to write an article on almost any topic and can do so in any method stated because of its capacity to follow instructions. It is capable of producing essays that adhere to restrictions on word count and the inclusion of particular topic elements.
Things You Must Know About ChatGPT
As ChatGPT was trained on such a wide range of publicly accessible content, it is capable of writing essays on almost any subject. But it’s important to be aware of ChatGPT’s limitations before deciding to use it for an SEO effort.
The major drawback is the incapability of ChatGPT to produce correct data. Because the algorithm only predicts what words should come after the preceding words in a phrase in a paragraph on a particular topic, it can sometimes be incorrect. It doesn’t care about being accurate. Anyone interested in producing high-quality content should pay special attention to that.
1. Designed To Avoid Specific Types of Content
For instance, ChatGPT is expressly configured not to produce text on the subjects of violent violence, explicit sex, and hazardous content like guides for making explosive devices.
2. Oblivious to current events
Another limitation is that it is not aware of any information created after 2021. So, ChatGPT in its current state might not be useful if your content needs to be current and new.
3. Has pre-existing biases
It’s crucial to be conscious of the tool’s major limitation: it’s been programmed to be beneficial, accurate, and safe. These aren’t merely ideals; the mechanism is intentionally biased in that direction. It appears that programming to be benign prevents negativity from coming through in the output.
That’s great, but it also slightly alters the piece from what may otherwise be one that is neutral. In a sense, one has to take the wheel and tell ChatGPT directly to go in the direction they want. Here is an illustration of how the bias alters the result.
I requested that ChatGPT compose two stories, one in the Raymond Carver style and the other in the Raymond Chandler mystery writer style. The happy endings to both novels were out of character for both authors. I had to give ChatGPT specific instructions to steer clear of happy endings and steer clear of closure to the story in order to achieve an output that matched my expectations because that is how Raymond Carver’s stories frequently ended.
The point is that biases exist in ChatGPT, and one must be mindful of how they may affect the results.
4. ChatGPT Needs Very Exact Instructions
Clear instructions are required for ChatGPT to produce higher-quality content that has a better chance of being highly original or adopting a particular point of view. The result will be more complex the more instructions that are provided. This can work both as a drawback as well as a benefit.
The likelihood that the output will be identical to that of another request increases with the number of instructions in the content request. I duplicated the query and the result that other Facebook users had posted as a test. I asked ChatGPT the exact identical question, and the program generated an entirely original essay using the same format.
Although the articles varied, they had a similar structure and covered related subtopics, yet they were written entirely in distinct words. It makes sense that ChatGPT doesn’t plagiarize itself because it is designed to select entirely random terms when anticipating what the next word in an article should be. However, the limitations of just asking “give me this” is highlighted by the fact that comparable queries result in similar articles.
5. Identifying ChatGPT Content Is Possible.
Scientists at Google & other similar companies have been working for years to develop algorithms that would accurately identify any content that’s produced using AI. There are other studies on the subject, but I’ll only cite one from March 2022 that made use of GPT-2 and GPT-3 output.
Adversarial Robustness of Neural-Statistical Features in Detection of Generative Transformers is the title of the research study (PDF). The experiment’s goal was to see what form of analysis was effective at identifying AI-generated content that used avoidance-focused approaches. They used a number of strategies, such as adding misspellings and using BERT algorithms to swap out terms with synonyms.
According to this study, it has come to notice that even though these tools have been built using algorithms that are designed to avoid detection, however, some statistical characteristics of the content that’s been produced with the help of AI, such as the Flesch Index scores or Gunning-Fog Index, can be used to determine whether the content was artificially generated or not.
6. Hidden Watermarking
The fact that OpenAI researchers have devised cryptographic watermarking to help with content identification produced by OpenAI products like ChatGPT is more intriguing. A conversation by an OpenAI researcher, which can be found in a video titled Scott Aaronson Talks AI Safety, was recently brought to readers’ attention.
According to the researcher, ethical AI methods like watermarking can develop into industry standards, much like how Robots.txt established a norm for moral crawling. He added, “We’ve seen over the last 30 years that the big internet firms can agree on certain minimal requirements, whether out of worry for legal implications, a desire to be recognized as a responsible actor, or for any other reason.
Robots.txt is one simple example: you can specify whether or not you want search engines to index your website, and the major search engines will take your wishes into account. Similarly, going forward we can imagine that something like watermarking to very well become the industry standard, and anyone who wants to come across as a responsible player in this industry would include watermarking if it can be proven that it works, is affordable, doesn’t degrade output quality, doesn’t require much compute, and so on.”
Based on cryptography, the researcher created a watermarking system. Anyone with the secret code can check a document to determine if it bears the digital watermark indicating that it was produced by an AI. The code may take the form of word choice or punctuation, for instance.
The researcher also discussed the importance of watermarking and how it functions.
“Basically, every time GPT generates a large body of text, we want there to be a subtle, later-verifiable secret signal in the word choice that would otherwise be undetectable.
We want it to be considerably more difficult to pretend that a GPT output is human-generated. This could help to lessen academic plagiarism as well as other forms of mass propaganda production, including spamming blogs with comments that are allegedly relevant to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without ever erecting a building full of trolls in Moscow. or by unjustly accusing them while utilizing someone else’s writing style.
One might wish to make everything harder, right?”
The study concludes that watermarking defeats attempts by algorithms to avoid detection.
What Can You Do with ChatGPT?
The potential of machine learning and artificial intelligence in SEO and marketing is still being explored. ChatGPT is able to participate in conversations and respond to inquiries in a way that closely resembles that of a human.
It has the ability to create poetry, fiction, essays, and even ad copy, which is enough to worry experienced writers like myself. The New York City Department of Education has already prohibited its use due to concerns about cheating because it can be used to create information that is precise enough.
ChatGPT is intelligent enough to be used for writing Meta descriptions and debugging code in addition to content. It is currently a laborious technical procedure to use it for coding, but it appears plausible to expect that as the learning model expands, it will become much simpler.
It can also be used as a search helper, offering responses to inquiries in simple and understandable formats, saving users from having to browse through numerous web pages to find the information they need. For instance, ChatGPT provides you with a list of ingredients and instructions for making a meal rather than making you go through a dozen blog pages and scroll past a detailed account of how the blogger’s grandmother once made this dish for Winston Churchill.
This may sound a little terrifying to an SEO expert.
However, it would be wise to embrace AI technology rather than be concerned about it. There are various ways you can use it to organize your work and increase the effectiveness of repetitive or redundant jobs. Let’s examine how modern SEO experts are already utilizing ChatGPT.
Ways That SEO Pros Are Already Putting ChatGPT to Work
- Content Production
If you don’t have a talented team at your disposal, creating content might be a burden. Can ChatGPT carry this out for you? It can, but you should generally steer clear of using it to compose blog entries and web pages.
John Mueller, the Google Search Advocate, stated unequivocally in 2022 that the search engine considers artificial intelligence-generated content to be spam and a breach of the company’s rules. Even content that uses anti-detection algorithms can currently be identified by Google algorithms and penalized. When using AI, human monitoring should always be used.
To safely write content for social media posts, email pitches, PPC landing page copy, or even ad copy, anyone can use ChatGPT. It’s also a useful tool for brainstorming.
However, you must always carefully review any generated content as it may contain errors. ChatGPT could assist streamline numerous duplicated content jobs, such as ad variations if you use caution.
- Keyword Research and Analysis
Okay, so you don’t want to risk legal trouble by using ChatGPT to produce content. That doesn’t mean your content strategy can’t take advantage of its strength. Researching keywords is practically effortless using ChatGPT. Simply launch the chatbot, enter a couple of your desired keywords, and request related ones. Based on its knowledge of the search results, ChatGPT will generate a list of relevant terms.
It can also be used to assess the level of competition for different keywords.
- Content Strategy Development
Yes, you’ve heard correctly. You can request that ChatGPT create an overview of your content marketing plan. Although you could presumably ask for them, it doesn’t return granular plans but does provide a high-level set of approaches for content pertaining to a given field.
One caution regarding the use of a chatbot-created content strategy is the worry that your direct rivals might follow suit. As a result, you’re all writing blog posts that are essentially identical about “the advantages of AI,” “how AI SaaS may increase productivity,” etc.
- Better Understanding of Search Intent
The ability of ChatGPT to delve further into the search query and look past the words to the search intent is by far the most intriguing SEO-related potential it offers. Google does attempt to do this, and certainly, it has significantly improved over the course of the search engine’s existence. However, to paraphrase Keiran Flanagan in a tweet, “Google takes your question and attempts to answer it. ChatGPT considers your inquiry and frequently enhances it.”
Even while the beta version of this chatbot isn’t yet online, it appears that its capacity for learning will enable it to gain a much deeper grasp of each search’s objectives and occasionally even provide results the user wasn’t even aware they were looking for.
As an SEO expert, you already know that by modifying your content to more effectively address a query, your ranks will soar. You can achieve that with ChatGPT.
- Generating Good SEO Titles
Any writer will tell you that titles are among the hardest things to write, especially for SEO purposes. They frequently become dry topics like “How to Build Backlinks” or some other uninteresting equivalent.
To add some variety, I asked ChatGPT to give me a few title suggestions for a page on backlinking. It gave me ten options, all of which were more engaging than my “how to” line.
- Composing and Managing Analytics Reports
Spreadsheets and reports are the banes of many marketers’ working existence. Companies, however, demand data to demonstrate the impact of their work. That’s where ChatGPT can really change the game. Additionally, you may be able to find fresh ranking opportunities that you would have overlooked with the use of this functionality.
Imagine you don’t have much programming experience but you need to create regular expressions for analytics reporting. For instance, you might wish to use certain words to filter a report in order to find more room for your FAQs or how-to.
Anyone who has a working understanding of these expressions can utilize ChatGPT to use the chatbot to automatically produce a list.
Similarly, ChatGPT can help you with Excel or Google Sheets if you frequently struggle with them (and who doesn’t?). It can take a lot of the stress out of developing formulas and processing data.
Should One Use ChatGPT to Create Content?
- Detectable AI Content
Many claim that Google has no way of knowing whether the information was produced using AI. Since identifying AI is a challenge that has mostly been resolved, I find it incomprehensible that anyone would retain that viewpoint.
It is possible to identify content even when it uses anti-detection methods. For many years, researchers have been studying how to identify information that has been produced by machines, particularly how to identify content that has been translated from another language.
- Does Autogenerated Content Break Google’s Rules?
According to Google’s John Mueller, AI-generated content is prohibited per Google standards as of April 2022.
“For us, this would still effectively fall under the category of automatically generated content, which has been covered in the Webmaster Guidelines almost from the start.
And individuals have been creating material automatically in many different ways. For us, utilizing machine learning technologies to create content is fundamentally equivalent to manually rearranging words, looking up synonyms, or employing translation heuristics like people once did. That sort of thing.
Though we still use automatically created content, which means it still violates the Webmaster Guidelines, my suspicion is that the quality of the content may be a little bit higher than with the truly outdated tools. Therefore, we would classify such as spam.”
The “auto-generated” material part of Google’s developer website about spam was recently updated. It was made in October 2022 and revised close to the end of November 2022. The modifications reflect a clarification of what constitutes spam in autogenerated content. It originally stated:
“Automatically created (or “auto-generated”) material is content that has been generated automatically without adding enough value or providing something original;” Google has amended that sentence to add the word “spammy”:
Without adding anything new or of sufficient value, computer software automatically creates “auto-generated” or “spammy” information; This improvement seems to make it clearer that something is not always spam just because it was made mechanically. That content is problematic because it is devoid of all value additions and frequently exhibits “spammy” traits.
- At some point, ChatGPT might include a watermark.
Last but not least, the OpenAI researcher said that after ChatGPT was made available, watermarking will “ideally” be added to the GPT update.
Therefore, if ChatGPT is not currently watermarked, watermarking could be added in the future.
The Best Use of AI for SEO
The optimal application of AI tools is to scale SEO in a way that increases productivity. This typically involves giving an AI difficult research and analysis tasks. Given that Google expressly states that doing so is not against its criteria, summarizing websites to build a Meta description may be a permissible usage. (However, one must still proceed with caution).
It could be interesting to use ChatGPT to produce a content brief or overview. If content creation is delegated to an AI without first being checked for quality, accuracy, and usefulness, distributing it as-is might not be the most efficient use of AI.
To Sum it Up
ChatGPT is emerging to be quite an interesting tool that can be utilized in different fields. With particular for SEO, it’s simple to get carried away in the thrill of what it offers and what it might potentially be able to do. With only the small sampling of features we covered above; it might be able to save you hundreds of hours every year.
Nevertheless, there are certain drawbacks. First off, it can only use data up to 2021 in its current form, therefore it is unable to provide information on current events. We are currently unaware of how quickly the AI will be able to catch up on new events and relate them to other topics, but it is safe to assume that a future version of the chatbot will fix this issue. Additionally, it is not totally accurate and impartial. Its inputs can cause it to accept and then repeat inaccurate information, and the initial dataset it was trained on might not be bias-free.
Last but not the least, the idea of an AI is exciting and scary at the same time in terms of the kind of effect it can have on the human population and how our society functions. But it’s always a good idea to keep our minds open and see what this tool can offer in the coming future.
