This article is not written to explain what ChatGPT is. It is written to give an overview of how iformat can use AI to help you rank.
A summary of this blog post
- iformat already uses AI and has been for some time
- ChatGPT is something we can use, and are experimenting with in detail
- The goal is to see how we can use it to make our work more efficient and your rank more effective
- As an SEO agency, we believe there are major concerns with using any AI freely, without human input
What is Chat GPT? A quick introduction
By now you have probably heard about ChatGPT and that it represents something of a paradigm shift in the use of Artificial Intelligence.
ChatGPT can do some amazing things but it is primarily designed to generate human-like text based on input data. So amongst other things, it can produce human-quality content based on questions you ask or instructions you give it.
This is important to our clients because we can see applications for this in terms of the creation of all types of marketing content like your website, promotional brochures, metadata etc.
But ChatGPT also helps people to find the information they need. It can give you answers on any subject you ask it – like a search engine.
However, the important difference between this and Google is that you can ask a question, get an answer, and then have a ‘chat’ to further refine the information you get.
This is different to Google where you search, read, then perhaps search again, and read more.
You do not need to do this with ChatGPT. It will give you answers and then respond to further questions, in the context of the whole conversation you have had, refining answers all time until you get exactly what you need.
This saves you time searching and reading to get the right answers you need.
How does this affect what iformat does for you?
Everything we do for you is to get you to rank as high as possible on Google. And if ChatGPT, or any other software, changes the way people search for stuff – we potentially need to refine what we do for you or how we do it.
Two important questions that stand out for iformat as an SEO agency:
- Will people use ChatGPT to find businesses?
- How can we actually use ChatGPT to help
I asked ChatGPT: If Chatgpt is a better Search Engine than Google – does that mean people will stop using Google?
Answer: It is unlikely that people would stop using Google in favor of ChatGPT as a search engine. While ChatGPT is a highly advanced language model with a vast amount of knowledge, it has limitations compared to traditional search engines like Google.
Google is designed specifically for searching the web and has numerous algorithms in place to return the most relevant and accurate results for a user’s query. It also uses many other signals, such as user location, search history, and the relevance of websites, to return the most relevant results.
In contrast, ChatGPT is primarily designed to generate human-like text based on input data, rather than to search the web. While it has been trained on a large amount of text and can provide answers to many questions, it may not always return the most accurate or up-to-date information.
In conclusion, while ChatGPT may have some advantages over Google in certain areas, it is not likely to completely replace it as a search engine. Each tool serves a different purpose and has its own strengths and limitations.
Firstly… It is quite amazing that ChatGPT can come up with that answer. Important to note that the content created has American spelling.
So I asked: “Would people use you to find a local business?”
Answer: People may use ChatGPT to find information about local businesses, but it is unlikely to replace more traditional methods, such as using a search engine or a directory service, for finding local businesses.
While ChatGPT has been trained on a vast amount of text and can provide answers to many questions, it may not always have the most up-to-date information about local businesses. Additionally, ChatGPT is primarily designed to generate human-like text based on input data, rather than to provide comprehensive listings of local businesses.
For finding local businesses, it is often more convenient and efficient to use a dedicated search engine or directory service that is specifically designed for that purpose. These types of services typically have more accurate and up-to-date information about local businesses, and they can provide more comprehensive listings and search options.
In conclusion, while ChatGPT may be able to provide some information about local businesses, it is not the most effective or efficient tool for this purpose.
Why is this important?
This answers a key question around a function of what we do for you.
If you are a plumber in Bayside, people are not likely to go to ChatGPT and search “plumber bayside” because in ChatGPT’s own words above:
“ChatGPT is primarily designed to generate human-like text based on input data, rather than to search the web”
So I asked ChatGPT: “Can you help me find a plumber in bayside?”
Answer: Yes, I can help you find a plumber in Bayside. Here are a few ways you can search for a plumber in Bayside:
- Use a search engine: You can use a search engine like Google to search for “plumber in Bayside.” This should return a list of results with websites for local plumbers in the area.”
- Use directory services: You can use a directory service like Yelp or Yellow Pages to search for plumbers in Bayside. These services typically provide customer reviews, ratings, and contact information for local businesses, including plumbers.
- Ask for recommendations: You can ask friends, family, or neighbors for recommendations of a good plumber in the Bayside area. Personal recommendations can be a great way to find a reliable and trustworthy service provider.
I hope this helps you find a plumber in Bayside. Good luck with your search!
So that is not very helpful. And this is not, at this stage, a concern for your business in terms of customers finding you.
How can we actually use ChatGPT to help you get higher up the rankings?
I asked ChatGPT: give me 5 bullet points on how you can help with SEO please
Answer: Here are five ways in which ChatGPT can help with SEO:
1. Keyword research: ChatGPT can help you with keyword research by generating a list of relevant keywords and phrases related to your business or website. This information can be used to optimize your website content for search engines, which can help improve your search engine rankings.
2. Content creation: ChatGPT can generate high-quality content for your website, including blog posts and articles. By incorporating relevant keywords and phrases into this content, you can help improve your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
3. Competitor analysis: ChatGPT can help you analyze your competitors’ websites and their search engine optimization strategies. This information can help you identify opportunities to improve your own SEO strategy.
4. Link building: ChatGPT can generate a list of high-quality, relevant websites and blogs where you can request a link back to your website. This can help improve your website’s authority and visibility in search engine results.
5. On-page optimization: ChatGPT can help you optimize various on-page elements of your website, including the title tag, meta description, and header tags, to ensure that your website is optimized for both users and search engines.
While these are just a few ways in which ChatGPT can help with SEO, it is important to note that effective SEO requires a comprehensive and ongoing strategy that involves a range of tactics and tools.
And this sounds great!
But we already have this.
We spend in the region of $30,000 per annum on various software that helps with this.
We have been using software that uses AI for a few years that:
- Researches and clusters keywords
- Analyses content to see what keywords we can use to improve
- Analyses your sites and competitors and offers suggestions for improvement
- Analyses link building and suggests opportunities
- Analyses and suggests on-page optimisation improvements
And we have all this in one platform in easy-to-read charts, diagrams and reports. We don’t need to have a chat! Everything we need is there – shared with the team.
The key difference is content creation.
How can we use AI for content?
iformat has already been using AI Software for content creation purposes for several years. Firstly, we have software that analyses the content on your site and offers suggestions for improvement in terms of length, keywords, formatting, and effectiveness. This is a form of AI.
But we have also tested and used some software to ‘create’ content from scratch.
We quickly identified that software (such as Jasper) is not at all good at creating quality, optimised, unique content, of a good length.
It fails miserably (in our opinion) but it will get better.
But we did find that it can be used for shorter blocks of text to a good standard; elements such as meta data descriptions, title tags, and even some product descriptions. And this can be done at scale.
We also found they can give great suggestions for winning headlines or ad text. The issue is that they all needed to be checked thoroughly and in many cases reworded to match the brand voice or specific details of products for example.
We also need to make sure that content is not duplicated or plagiarised as this can result in punishment from Google! So we tread very carefully with the use of it.
Can we use ChatGPT to create content?
I asked ChatGPT: “give me 5 points on how I can use chatgpt for content creation”
Answer: “Here are five ways you can use ChatGPT for content creation:
1. Generating ideas: ChatGPT can help you generate ideas for new content by answering questions and providing information on a wide range of topics. You can use this information to generate new ideas for blog posts, articles, and other types of content.
2. Writing articles: ChatGPT can generate high-quality articles on any topic you choose. You can use these articles as-is, or you can edit and refine them to fit your specific needs. This can save you time and effort compared to writing articles from scratch.
3. Generating product descriptions: ChatGPT can generate product descriptions for your e-commerce website or other online store. These descriptions can be optimized for search engines and can help improve your website’s visibility in search results.
4. Creating social media content: ChatGPT can generate social media posts and other types of content for your social media accounts. This can help you save time and effort in creating content, and it can also help you ensure that your content is relevant, engaging, and of high quality.
5. Generating email content: ChatGPT can generate email content, including email subject lines, email body text, and email signatures. This can help you create high-quality, personalized emails that are more likely to be read and acted upon by your recipients.
In conclusion, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for content creation, as it can save you time and effort in generating high-quality content, and it can also help you ensure that your content is relevant, engaging, and optimized for search engines and other platforms.
Rather than me writing notes on each point I asked ChatGPT: What are the concerns, in terms of Google, for using your content?
Answer: There are a few concerns to keep in mind when using content generated by ChatGPT, particularly when it comes to search engines like Google. Here are a few key considerations:
1. Duplicate content: Google penalizes websites that have duplicate content. If multiple websites are using the same content generated by ChatGPT, it could result in duplicate content issues that could harm your website’s search engine rankings.
2. Quality: Google values high-quality content and rewards websites that produce it. If the content generated by ChatGPT is low-quality or not relevant to your target audience, it may not rank well in search results and could harm your website’s search engine visibility.
3. Relevance: Google rewards websites that are relevant and helpful to users. If the content generated by ChatGPT is not relevant to your target audience or does not provide value, it may not rank well in search results and could harm your website’s search engine visibility.
4. Originality: Google rewards websites that produce original content. If the content generated by ChatGPT is not original and has been used by other websites, it may not rank well in search results and could harm your website’s search engine visibility.
These concerns highlight the importance of using high-quality, relevant, and original content on your website. It is important to carefully review and edit the content generated by ChatGPT, and to ensure that it meets your standards for quality and relevance. Additionally, it is important to avoid using duplicate content and to ensure that your content is original and provides value to your target audience.
What’s the conclusion?
- We can use AI and ChatGPT
- But we need to be careful
- We can not ask it to write important content, such as Pillar Content, or Supporting Pages without some kind of human editing, checking or oversight
- If we do – the primary risk appears to be your website being penalised for duplicate content
- And Google will not allow people to create AI-based content completely freely without restriction
- Google’s policy is:
- “Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines. This means that it is not used to generate content primarily to manipulate search rankings, which is against our spam policies.”
- “We have a variety of systems, including SpamBrain, that analyze patterns and signals to help us identify spam content, however it is produced.”
- So we need to create content that is helpful and unique
- If we can use ChatGPT for that we will
- But it will still need talented copywriters to ensure it is of the standards we need to rank
So what now for iformat and our clients?
We are looking at how we can use ChatGPT, primarily around content creation. Based on the quality of the content we believe it can help with:
- Blog ideas
- Blog outlines
- Creative headers and titles
- Product descriptions when an eCommerce site has hundreds of products
- Email newsletters and printed documents where we are not concerned about Google Rank
We will be working hard on this and will come back to you with systems we believe can assist us to do the best job for your rank without falling foul of Google.