What Does ChatGPT Mean for SEOs?

Written by

Al Sefati

Published on

February 14, 2023

ChatGPT, the new platform from OpenAI, is changing the way we think about SEO and content marketing. With its predictive text-based algorithm, the platform can provide original content, albeit without any guarantee of accuracy. How should SEOs use this new technology? According to Clarity Digital, the best ways to employ ChatGPT are for brainstorming, topic outlining, and keywords research. Learn more by checking out the latest Clarity Digital blog post.

What Does ChatGPT Mean for SEOs?

The rise of ChatGPT is one of the most significant tech stories of the past years, with the potential to affect SEO and content marketing for years to come. And while this is certainly a technology that SEO and marketing experts should know about, and perhaps even implement, it’s crucial to have clarity about exactly what ChatGPT can and can’t do.

What is ChatGPT?

You’ve likely heard all about ChatGPT, a new product from OpenAI. Not only can you ask this chatbot any question, but you can also ask it to compose content for you based on a topic, direction, or prompt. Naturally, the promise of AI-generated content has drawn the attention of SEO and marketing professionals, who are always on the lookout for efficient ways to build out their creative capital.

It’s critical to understand, though, that ChatGPT doesn’t have a mind of its own, and can’t compose original text in the way that a human being can. Instead, the algorithm uses a combination of Web crawling and predictive text to develop its content, word by word, based on the context of your query or conversation.

What are the Limits of ChatGPT?

Can ChatGPT provide you with some good copy? Without question. However, it’s crucial to note that the algorithm has a number of built-in limitations. For example:

     

      • It won’t provide instructions for how to build a bomb or do anything else dangerous/violent.

      • It steers clear of any controversial or taboo topics.

      • It can’t address current events, as it only crawls online content that’s a couple years old now.

      • It’s designed to frame every piece of content in a positive light, which can be problematic when you’re looking for content about the cons or the disadvantages of something.

      • The content is significantly affected by the quality of the direction you provide. A very simple/basic query or prompt is likely to result in content that’s very similar to what other users are getting from ChatGPT, which means content that’s fairly unoriginal.

    But perhaps the single most significant drawback to ChatGPT is that, with its predictive text algorithm, it offers content that’s grammatically sound and sensible, but not at all guaranteed for accuracy. In fact, the folks at OpenAI openly warn users against taking ChatGPT content too seriously. If you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet then you definitely can’t believe everything you read from ChatGPT.

    How Can Marketers Use ChatGPT?

    Google, well aware of the limits of platforms like ChatGPT, have cautioned against posting AI-generated content directly to the Web, noting that anything not written by an actual human is going to be penalized.

    That doesn’t mean ChatGPT is useless. Far from it! Here at Clarity Digital, we’ve found the program incredibly helpful for brainstorming, topic ideation, and even generating outlines for our writers and content strategists to use. ChatGPT is an invaluable resource for providing a basic framework onto which you can hang all your content creation needs. And from an SEO standpoint, it’s useful for keyword research.

    What we recommend is using ChatGPT on the back end, guiding your development of creative capital, without actually posting ChatGPT content directly to the Web. Anything you create in the platform needs to be rigorously fact-checked, then rewritten to ensure a natural, human voice and a totally original presentation.

    Let’s Chat about Chatbots

    With the ability to understand the meaning behind words and phrases, and to provide AI-powered insights and predictions, chatbot technologies are changing the way we think about SEO and content ideation. As such, businesses and website owners should stay ahead of the curve and incorporate these technologies into their SEO strategies, all while remembering the very real limitations that a platform like ChatGPT presents.

    Curious to learn more? We’d love to talk further about the role of AI in marketing and SEO. Reach out to Clarity Digital at any time.