Last Updated on April 21, 2024 by Callum Morris
What is Chat GPT?
Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have heard of the latest ‘big’ thing in the world of technology and marketing. That ‘big’ thing currently on a huge wave of hype is Chat GPT. If you have been actively seeking out and experimenting with different SEO tools over the last five years you will more than likely have become familiar with AI tools in SEO anyhow. However, until very recently, many considered artificial intelligence to simply be those robot videos by Boston Dynamics that go viral every so often.
So, when an easily accessible tool like Chat GPT went viral for its ease of use and plethora of use cases, the world forgot all its problems and felt we were heading into the ‘new age’ of AI technology.
"ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI."
If you open any social networking app like Twitter, Reddit or LinkedIn, within a typical doom-scrolling session of just a few minutes, you will see every other post on your feed with titles akin to:
- “I asked Chat GPT to make a story about a dragon reading Ronnie Cane’s blogs to a cheese grater and it was AMAZING.”
- “Chat GPT gave me a great recipe for how to make spaghetti Bolognese in 12 easy steps – imagine what else it could do!?”
- “Right now people are making MILLIONS with Chat GPT, but 97.8% of people don’t know how to use it which they will REGRET.”
- “Chat GPT is a money printing machine, if you don’t master it you will be LEFT BEHIND.”
- “Here’s how I used Chat GPT to give me suggestions for what I should write on my blog and it gave me them in just three seconds!!”
ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that is trained to generate human-like text. It uses a transformer-based neural network architecture and can be fine-tuned for a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as language translation and text summarization.
Sounds like something an AI would say, right? (that is the last and only time I will use that joke, I promise.)
How is Chat GPT being used in SEO?
If you ask Chat GPT how you can use Chat GPT for SEO it will tell you:
“ChatGPT can be used for SEO by generating high-quality content for websites and blogs. This can help to improve search engine rankings by providing relevant and informative content that is optimized for specific keywords.”
Now, I have severe issues with this self-proclamation from Chat GPT that I will unpack in a later section of this article. I am (I promise) trying my hardest to make this section of Chat GPT for SEO use cases as opinion-free as possible!
If you get broader with your question to Chat GPT regarding its own use cases and ask it how a marketer may use Chat GPT, it will say:
“Marketers can use ChatGPT to generate product descriptions, ad copy, and other types of marketing content. It can also be used to generate personalized and automated responses to customer inquiries, which can help to improve customer service and engagement.
Some potential use cases for ChatGPT in marketing include:
- Generating product descriptions and ad copy
- Personalizing and automating customer service responses
- Generating chatbot scripts for customer engagement
- Creating engaging social media posts
- Generating engaging and informative content for websites and blogs
- Creating personalized email campaigns
- Creating and optimizing content for SEO”
I guess, to conclude on how Chat GPT can be used for your SEO based on that information, you would say you can:
- Create large amounts of high-quality content for your web pages without writing a word yourself.
- Comprise compelling copy for your advertisements and marketing collateral without investing in a copywriter, market researcher or SEO agency.
- Responding to customer service enquiries and engaging with existing and potential customers as if you have a department of compassionate humans for it.
- Generate ideas for your brand’s marketing.
- Receive ideas for blog titles, thought-pieces, whitepapers and social media posts.
- Gather titles and headings for the web pages you are going to create in order to structure the page and not think about what ‘sections’ to add to your content.
- And much more.
What are the risks of using Chat GPT for your SEO?
Remember when I mentioned I was a contrarian? Well, this Chat GPT blog of mine, contrary to the status quo of standard Chat GPT content – being hype and awe – wouldn’t be technically incorrect to be seen as scaremongering and ‘anti-Chat GPT’!
I suppose, in my defence, if the definition of scaremongering is “the spreading of frightening or ominous reports or rumours” – then I am not technically scaremongering. Instead, what I am doing is simply warning you of the dangers and risks of using Chat GPT blindly for your SEO. Importantly, I am doing this through factual information based on my experience in search engine marketing and being a webmaster compared with what I know for certain regarding the way search engines such as Google think and how Open AI and Chat GPT are seen by them.
What are the SEO dangers with the main use cases for Chat GPT for search engine optimisation?
SEO risk with using Chat GPT for SEO content:
Content written by Chat GPT will be watermarked by Open AI. This means that Google will be able to easily identify AI-written content. Until the AI content watermark is firmly in place, Google works on a variety of machine learning methods to identify AI content based on its writing patterns.
Google sees any webpage published to the web that is evidently published with the aim of ranking, as opposed to being helpful, as against their guidelines and ultimately spam and at risk of a penalty. AI content for your SEO is against Google’s guidelines, full stop.
SEO risk with using Chat GPT to generate content ideas:
Chat GPT and the current state of AI in 2023 is less so artificial intelligence and more so artificial assistance and gathering and returning of information.
The information that Chat GPT writes back to you is information that it has gathered, stored and thinks is suited to what you’re seeking. Very similar to a search engine index, ironically.
Ultimately, if you are getting all of your ideas for content and SEO from Chat GPT and so are your competitors – what is going to set you apart?
To be fair to Chat GPT, it is actually rather self aware. When asked if there are any dangers to using Chat GPT for SEO and marketing, it responds:
“There are a few potential risks or dangers to using ChatGPT for SEO and marketing.
For SEO, one risk is that the generated content may not be entirely unique and may be flagged as duplicate content by search engines. Additionally, if the content is not well-written or relevant, it may not rank well in search results and may not drive traffic to the website.
For marketing, one risk is that the generated content may not be aligned with the brand’s voice and messaging.
Additionally, if the generated content is not engaging or relevant, it may not be effective in converting leads to customers.
Another risk for both SEO and marketing is that the generated content might be inaccurate or misleading, which could negatively impact the reputation of the company. It’s important to check and review the generated content before publishing.
Overall, while ChatGPT can be a useful tool for SEO and marketing, it’s important to use it responsibly and to review and edit the generated content before publishing to ensure it is accurate, relevant, and aligned with the brand’s voice and messaging.”
– Chat GPT responding to a very personal question in a quite cute, wholesome and self aware way, for a robot.
Personally, when reading that answer, I find it poorly written. The conjunctive words, phrases and language used is repetitive and boring which ultimately makes the content flow poorly and be hard to read. There are two things that need highlighting:
- Well, there are 182 words there that answers a simple question. The answer is poorly written, repetitive and boring. When people use Chat GPT for SEO and their website, they are likely playing with and publishing 1000s of words of content that Google and users will read and judge you for. Be smart.
- The risks outlined by Chat GPT about it being used for SEO purposes are incredibly contradictory to the answers it gave me just 30 seconds earlier when I asked what are the benefits of using Chat GPT for your SEO. If every single benefit to something is covered in red-tape stating ‘do not use’ – how are they benefits? This instance alone is an example of the ceiling of intelligence that Chat GPT’s artificial intelligence currently has. If you are using Chat GPT to generate answers, FAQs and content for your website – stop. Be smart.
So how should you use AI tools like Chat GPT in your SEO strategy?
Unfortunately, it’s likely that you are going to have to use Chat GPT for your SEO in a completely different way than you have been.
The right way to describe how Chat GPT can aid your SEO strategies is through a ‘hands-off’ approach. Sure, ask it a question. But, don’t copy and paste the answer to your website. Instead, use it as a framework for your thinking or as a reminder for things you may have forgot.
Why not use Chat GPT to generate HTML codes for your schema markup and NLP rich snippet data for webpages?
Ultimately, how you use Chat GPT and artificial intelligence to benefit your search marketing is up to you. However, I hope after reading this article and soaking in the variety of Kermit memes sprinkled on top, you feel more informed to be a good SEO using Chat GPT instead of a silly one.
Do you feel as if your brand isn’t as relevant as the competitors in your market? Get in touch with the Eighteen SEO team to learn more by filling out this form.
