ChatGPT has made marketing easier for marketers, small businesses, and content creators. In the context of digital marketing, ChatGPT is powerful. But, like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how you use it. Many marketers and business owners overrely on AI-generated content, neglect proofreading, ignore brand voice, and trust AI responses without critical evaluation. That’s where problems begin.
In this article, we’ll explore how to use ChatGPT effectively for SEO in your digital marketing efforts and how to integrate it seamlessly into your workflow without compromising your brand.
ChatGPT Is a Starting Point, Not an Endpoint
Many digital marketers use ChatGPT to accelerate content creation, and that’s acceptable. However, these LLMs will converge to optimal outputs. So, if everyone’s using similar prompts, your content won’t stand a chance at being indexed. That’s why SEO is becoming more important than ever and is about differentiation as much as it is about optimization.
The right way to use ChatGPT in SEO is for creativity. For example:
- Ask it to generate a list of blog ideas on a topic relevant to your industry.
- Use it to outline a post before adding your own research, voice, and insights.
- Let it suggest headlines or SEO meta descriptions, which you can tweak for accuracy and tone.
Remember, Google rewards unique content and a good user experience. ChatGPT can provide structure and inspiration, but it’s your responsibility to make the final content original and engaging.
Make Data-Informed Decisions Using Your Own Data
Don’t just rely on ChatGPT to tell you what to write. Instead, let your data guide your content strategy. Consider the following:
- What pages on your site already perform well?
- What search queries drive the most traffic?
- What questions do your customers frequently ask in person, by email, or via chat?
Once you’ve uncovered what’s working and what’s not from your website data, use ChatGPT to assist your answers in a clear, SEO-friendly way.
For example, if your data identifies “how to optimize Shopify for mobile SEO” as a hot search topic, prompt ChatGPT to help generate an outline or a rough draft for that specific query. Just make sure you write it through your own lens.
Don’t Lose Your Brand’s Voice
Here’s one area where many marketers go wrong. While ChatGPT can mimic intent, it doesn’t intuitively understand your brand’s personality or voice, even with proper training. They can hallucinate and generate bad outcomes for your content.
Brand voice is what makes your business stand out. If your tone is typically fun and witty, but ChatGPT’s output is formal, you’re creating dissonance that readers will notice.
To avoid this:
- Proofread and rewrite ChatGPT outputs in your company’s tone. Caution must be taken because search engines can detect GenAI content based on sentence structure and wording. There are patterns that humans can’t recognize, but machines can (think overuse of m-dash and in the age of sentences).
- Feed it content examples from your website as part of the prompt. This can help ChatGPT maintain a more consistent brand.
- The best use is to improve grammar or sentence structure, not to write everything from scratch.
ChatGPT is best used as a copy assistant, not a full-on replacement for a seasoned content writer. This is especially true when differentiating your brand in a competitive SEO landscape.
Tweak Your Inputs, Parameters, and Outputs
When querying ChatGPT, experiment with different phrasing to get results that better fit your needs. For instance:
- Ask it to write content for “a startup targeting ecommerce brands using a humorous tone.” Feed it more guidance if you don’t like the output.
- Include your target keywords like “SEO” or “digital marketing” directly in your prompts.
- Request specific structures like “write a blog post with H2 headers optimized for SEO.”
- For on-page SEO, have it provide SEO meta titles and descriptions. Search engines often do a poor job of generating them, so it’s a good idea to provide them.
The more context you give ChatGPT, the better the result. But beware of keyword stuffing. Overusing SEO terms can negatively affect readability and ranking. Tools like SurferSEO or Clearscope can help you find the right balance of keyword usage based on top-performing pages.
Always Check for Factual Accuracy of Responses
One of the biggest issues with AI-generated content is factual accuracy. ChatGPT may confidently produce incorrect or outdated information. That’s because it leverages patterns in historical data before serving real-time insights.
Always verify AI-generated content, especially if you’re dealing with technical subjects, data points, or legal/financial advice. If a claim seems off, do your research and use reputable sources. ChatGPT is only as good as the information and the large language model (LLM) on which it was trained.
Ensure Technical SEO Is in Place
While ChatGPT can help with content, it won’t ensure your site is technically sound. A blog post won’t rank well if your site loads slowly, has broken links, or lacks proper structure.
Here are a few tools and checks you should incorporate into your content marketing process:
- Bing Webmaster Tools: Ensure pages are indexed and free from errors. ChatGPT responses are built from Bing results.
- Lighthouse/PageSpeed Insights: Improve site speed for better UX and SEO.
- Schema Markup/Rich Results Test: Help search engines understand your content better.
You can even use ChatGPT to help generate structured data (schema markup) for your articles. Just verify the code is valid using the Rich Results Test before implementing.
The Best Use for ChatGPT in SEO Content Marketing? Proofreading and Refinement
Instead of treating ChatGPT as your primary writer, use it to enhance your content marketing:
- Paste your drafts in ChatGPT and ask it to check for grammar and tone consistency.
- Request ideas and alternative versions of headlines or meta descriptions.
- Ask for content summaries or social media captions based on your full article.
This is the most effective way to use ChatGPT for SEO content marketing. Otherwise, you risk your site being removed from search indexing.
Final Thoughts: ChatGPT and SEO (With Oversight) Go Hand in Hand
There’s no denying that ChatGPT is a game-changer for content marketing. But it’s not a magic wand. Your SEO strategy still depends on high-quality content, strong technical foundations, and consistent branding.
Here’s the bottom line:
- Use ChatGPT to brainstorm, outline, and accelerate content production.
- Always review and refine the output to maintain your brand’s voice.
- Verify facts and tailor everything to your target audience.
- Invest in SEO tools and knowledge to supplement AI-driven strategies.
If you’re serious about leveling up your digital marketing with AI, consider consulting marketing professionals who know how to blend tech and strategy.
Need Help with Your SEO?
At Uplancer, we help businesses merge ChatGPT-powered content with strong SEO and digital marketing strategies. Whether you need help refining your brand voice, scaling blog production, or auditing your current SEO, we’re here to help. Reach out today for a free consultation and make AI work for your brand, not against it.
