ChatGPT for SEO: 11 Strategies and Prompts

I use ChatGPT daily to make my SEO workflows smarter and more efficient.

It takes a while to understand how you can get the most out of ChatGPT for website SEO.

And it’s not a magic bullet.

That said, it’s a powerful brainstorming tool that can help you with research and speed up your SEO decision-making.

Here are some ways I use ChatGPT for my daily SEO tasks (#5 is my favorite).

1. Generate Seed Keyword Ideas For Your Niche

Conventional keyword research starts from a seed keyword.

Seed keywords represent the main topic that you want to cover. These keywords should be relevant to your niche.

It’s easy to come up with a seed keyword when you know your audience.

For example, if you have a blog focused on indoor gardening, your most obvious seed keywords are going to be terms like:

• Indoor gardening
• Best indoor plants
• Plant decor

ChatGPT can get you a bit further than that. It can help you find niche keywords that you may not think of.

In this example, there are at least two solid ideas ChatGPT gave me that weren’t top of mind for me:

• Small space gardening
• Pet-safe houseplants

Brainstorming with ChatGPT like this is super helpful.

But it’s important to verify ChatGPT suggestions with a good keyword research tool.

That’s because ChatGPT can’t provide accurate search volume and keyword difficulty scores.

It may claim that it can, but it doesn’t have access to real-time data.

My go-to tool for keyword difficulty and volume scoring is the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool.

I typically choose a few keywords that make sense to me from ChatGPT’s suggestions. Then I use Semrush to check real, updated data on those keywords.

After checking “Small space gardening” in Semrush, I can see it’s a topic worth targeting with a healthy search volume and a reasonable keyword difficulty score.

That’s not all. Semrush will also show you tons more keyword variations matching your seed keyword.

Many of those keywords will be perfect as secondary keywords for your main topic. And some keywords could become entire dedicated topics of their own, like “container gardening for small spaces”.

How do I generate seed keywords with ChatGPT?

If you want to generate seed keywords, here’s a more generalized version of my prompt that you can use for any niche:

From this simple prompt, ChatGPT combined with Semrush can lead you down a path where you can find scores of relevant key ideas for your blog.

2. Search Intent Analysis

Understanding search intent is a critical SEO skill.

Most keywords have one (or more) of these intents:

• Informational
• Navigational
• Transactional
• Commercial

ChatGPT does a reasonable job of grouping keywords by intent.

But don’t limit ChatGPT to grouping your keywords into these 4 groups.

You can also get ChatGPT to elaborate the ideal content format that can satisfy search intent most promisingly for each topic.

Here’s an example output ChatGPT gave me for a list of keywords for the indoor gardening space:

Again, you need to check the results. They won’t be perfect.

For instance, it’s plausible that “indoor herbs to grow” has an informational intent.

My SEO instincts say this is a commercially driven keyword.

A quick overview of the SERP shows that Google is serving a mix of commercial intents with product roundups:

In fact, there's even a prominent “Popular Products” widget. That's another strong signal that Google is prioritizing product recommendations.

Use AI to speed up your SEO workflows. But don’t trust it blindly. Always verify ChatGPT’s recommendations.

How do you use ChatGPT to analyze search intent?

Use this prompt:

3. Cluster Topics and Keywords

Creating topic clusters from a list of keywords requires a lot of research.

You’ll need to think about:

• The search intent of each keyword in your list
• How each keyword fits with your main topics

I regularly use ChatGPT to assist with this. It’s one of the areas where LLM tools like ChatGPT do a pretty good job.

It’s much easier to understand the relationship between each keyword and a broader topic or subtopic this way.

Here’s an example of ChatGPT grouping a list of question keywords into different themes:

To get this result, I pasted a list of keywords scraped for People Also Ask questions into ChatGPT. In my prompt, I asked it to group similar keywords into broader themes.

How do I prompt ChatGPT to cluster keywords?

Use this prompt:

4. SEO Briefs and Content Outlines

ChatGPT 4o is a handy tool for generating content briefs.

You can use simple prompts consisting of just your target keyword, and ChatGPT will generate a reasonably comprehensive SEO brief for you.

However, this is one task where a good prompt makes a big difference to the result.

With a more specific and detailed prompt, you’ll get a more useful outline:

The search volume estimates aren’t too far off the real numbers here.

For instance, the Semrush Keyword Overview Tool has a search volume of 90.5K for “paleo diet” in the US region, compared to ChatGPT’s estimate of 110K.

(It’s not necessary to have the exact figure when large search volumes are involved. Your decision-making won’t change significantly either way.)

I also like ChatGPT’s suggestions for the ideal content format. The list of related keywords is pretty solid too:

The diversity of the suggested keywords is great, covering relevant subtopics that you’d need to include to rank on a competitive, high-volume keyword.

Overall, I think ChatGPT works great for generating SEO briefs, especially for popular and broad topics.

But there is a downside: it can’t find SERP features that Google is showing for a given keyword. That’s one area where you’ll have to switch tools.

Semrush shows a helpful breakdown of all links appearing in each SERP feature.

How do I generate a content brief with ChatGPT?

You can use this prompt for your SEO brief generation:

5. E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) is a core concept that determines how search quality raters and the Google algorithm assess the quality or “helpfulness” of a piece of content.

To evaluate the E-E-A-T of your content, check against Google’s documentation.

It helps to have a “machine perspective” on this by letting ChatGPT evaluate and score content for how well it demonstrates E-E-A-T.

My prompt scores the content on each factor individually:

How can I use ChatGPT to measure EEAT?

To ask ChatGPT to measure your EEAT, download Google's documentation on E-E-A-T and helpful content in doc or PDF format. (I linked to it at the start of this section.)

Attach the file to ChatGPT (I recommend you use 4o or above) and enter this prompt first:

After this prompt, attach your article in doc or PDF format and use this prompt:

I recommend making E-E-A-T analysis a regular part of your content audits, especially for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics.

6. Content Generation

If you want ChatGPT to completely automate content generation for you, you will likely still need human reviewers or editors.

That said, some marketers claim to be able to generate final drafts with LLMs. There’s no true consensus on this workflow yet.

Personally, I avoid writing with AI since it hinders my ability to add information gain.

It’s difficult to generate an article that I’m happy with.

Besides, if you get overeager with automation, Google can penalize your content:

Even if you don’t intend to generate content with AI, there are specific scenarios in which AI can be helpful for you:

• Rewriting sections in a different tone of voice
• Writing the next section in line with the earlier human-written sections
• Creating the first draft of a full article based on a detailed outline
• Paraphrasing complex sentences
• Using a custom-trained model to write like you do

In this test, I tried getting ChatGPT to write an article on the paleo diet.

Even with a strong brief, the generated draft was disappointingly mediocre.

The result is usually better if you break it down and generate content one section at a time.

You’ll still have to steer the LLM in the right direction and provide express instructions for every section.

For example, ChatGPT just had two bullet points in the “paleo vs keto” section of the original draft.

I asked it to generate a table that highlights the key differences between the two types of diet:

This is much more helpful.

The longer the article, the more painstaking this becomes. But there are certain parts of content production that benefit from an AI workflow.

What’s the best content generation prompt for ChatGPT?

Here’s the prompt I use for content generation from a brief:

7. SEO Titles

Most successful web pages with strong titles share two qualities:

• Good keyword placement
• Distinct from other articles (to get more clicks)

Your web page titles can make or break your SEO performance.

With ChatGPT, you can generate tons of variations of the same headline using different structures and frameworks.

Then, pick one you like best, modify it a little if needed, and you can come up with a fairly strong SEO title quickly.

Even if it’s not perfect, I still use ChatGPT for inspiration when I need headline idea. It can steer me in the general direction of the perfect title.

How do I generate blog post titles with ChatGPT?

This is the prompt I use for titles:

8. Image Generation

Original images add a lot of value to your content.

You can make content more helpful with:

• A conceptual illustration explaining a technical process
• Charts to visualize data
• Diagrams demonstrating your argument

For example, I asked ChatGPT to create a diagram explaining the difference between on page SEO and technical SEO:

The generated image isn’t perfect. I wouldn’t use it as-is.

But it’s good enough to explain to the designers in my team what I’m really looking for, which greatly minimizes confusion and speeds up the whole process.

How do I create charts or visualizations in ChatGPT?

Here’s the ChatGPT image prompt I used (generalized for any use case):

9. Improving Content Quality

You can prompt ChatGPT to summarize what a top-ranking article covers and then compare it with your own content.

This makes it easier to spot:

• Subtopics you forgot to include
• Questions that the competitor answers more thoroughly
• Formatting or structural choices they’ve used

First, download a few competitor articles as PDFs.

Attach them along with your own article and have ChatGPT find content gaps.

Here’s a head-to-head content gap analysis based on two articles I submitted to ChatGPT:

It’s a pretty good analysis that surfaced missing opportunities in one article compared to a competitor’s.

For a broader SERP-based analysis of competing articles, I recommend using ChatGPT’s “Deep Research” feature.

It’s a good way to summarize the SERP.

How can I use ChatGPT to improve content quality?

To improve content quality and find gaps, this is the prompt I recommend:

10. Content Review

ChatGPT is helpful when auditing underperforming content.

Ask it to critique your content as an expert would.

ChatGPT will point out issues that align with a good SEO copywriting checklist:

• Unclear or bloated sections
• Missed subtopics that are expected for the keyword
• Poor formatting (lack of headings, long paragraphs)
• Weak intros or generic conclusions
• Lack of examples, data, or visuals
• Awkward or robotic sentences

It doesn’t always catch every issue, but it gives you good feedback.

How can I review content with ChatGPT?

Attach a PDF or doc version of the full content of your article, then prompt:

11. Featured Snippet Optimization

The goal of all SEO is to grab top-ranking spots on Google.

Getting a standard ranking on the first page is great. But you can push your visibility even higher with a featured snippet.

The featured snippet is a concise answer to a web query that appears at the top of Google SERPs inside a prominent box.

Ranking in a featured snippet will dramatically increase the likelihood you’ll get the click for that search.

And I use ChatGPT to help me create content that is more likely to get a snippet:

Of course, there’s no surefire way to claim featured snippets. I look for patterns to increase my chances of ranking.

Also, most featured snippets are pretty short, about 40–60 words in length. Be sure to specify the word limit to prevent ChatGPT from giving a drawn-out answer.

Once you have the new section, add it to your post (towards the top of the main content) under a dedicated heading above it.

If it’s a definition (these are popular candidates for featured snippets), you can use a simple question heading and paste your answer under it.

This method has worked for my team at Exploding Topics on multiple occasions.

How do I write content for featured snippets with ChatGPT?

To target a featured snippet, I paste my content (or a relevant section) into ChatGPT and use this prompt:

For SEO, How Does ChatGPT Compare With Semrush?

The most important difference between ChatGPT and Semrush is accuracy of SEO data. ChatGPT generates creative but sometimes speculative insights, whereas Semrush provides precise, data-driven metrics, ensuring reliable keyword research, competitive analysis, and measurable SEO performance.

ChatGPT doesn’t have data for keyword, traffic, and backlink metrics, which are essential for making core decisions for your SEO projects.

That means you can’t compare website traffic or find exact keywords that people are actually searching for using ChatGPT.

You’ll need specialized SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, which are powered by vast databases of fresh content that's regularly updated.

So, ChatGPT isn’t a replacement for a proper SEO tool, as you can see in our Semrush review. It’s just there to help you brainstorm ideas and enhance your SEO workflows when used smartly.

Feature	ChatGPT	Semrush
Data Source	Trained on static data and public web content	Real-time search engine and traffic data
Keyword Research	Idea generation, brainstorming, clustering	Accurate search volume, long-tail variations, difficulty, CPC, SERP features
Search Intent Analysis	Fast, context-aware classification	SERP-based validation
Content Creation	Drafting, rewriting, outlining	Drafting, rewriting, outlining
Position Tracking	n/a	Tracks rankings, growth, and visibility over time
Competitor Analysis	High-level comparison via attached docs or copy-paste text	Domain-level insights, traffic data, backlink audits, keyword gaps, top pages
Site Audit	Superficial page-level analysis	Detailed technical SEO audits across a whole website
Backlink Analysis	n/a	Backlink profiles, referring domains, network graphs, link type and anchor text breakdowns

“Ranking” on ChatGPT

ChatGPT isn’t just a tool for helping you rank on Google. It’s an AI-powered search engine in its own right.

ChatGPT can recommend your products or cite your content as a source in a conversation.

It’s important to understand that it doesn’t have “rankings” in the way Google does. It’s super contextual, so its recommendations are a lot more volatile than standard search engines.

Yet, there are patterns that many SEO experts have observed about what makes content on ChatGPT:

• Brand mentions – The more mentions your website or brand accumulates on the web, the more likely ChatGPT is to see these as ‘votes’ in your favor when deciding which product to recommend or content to cite. The good thing is, even unlinked brand mentions have value now, unlike Google rankings where direct links matter more.
• Structured data – Like all machine learning tools, ChatGPT prefers structure to scan and understand content. Use schema markup and structured elements like tables where appropriate to enable ChatGPT to read your content easily.
• Reviews and reputation – ChatGPT takes user reviews into account when suggesting a product. Gather good feedback on aggregate review sites like Trustpilot, G2, and Google. For instance, a well-known tool like Semrush has a high chance of being recommended by ChatGPT for queries about SEO tools.

I also asked ChatGPT how it decides which product or content to rank.

It told me it considers:

• Query relevance
• Factual accuracy
• Trustworthiness
• Information gain

These are all components of high-quality content.

Improving your visibility on ChatGPT isn’t a clear science. It’s something you need to experiment with.

For the best possible metrics, I strongly recommend using the Semrush Position Tracking tool.

It’s one of the best ways to monitor your visibility on ChatGPT, which is how you can discover patterns.

And in Semrush, you can create a Position Tracking campaign with ChatGPT as the search engine:

Enhance Your SEO With ChatGPT and Semrush

ChatGPT is a good tool for SEO.

Whether you need seed keyword ideas, intent validation, or an E-E-A-T check, ChatGPT can really make your SEO workflow smoother.

Despite all that, ChatGPT cannot replace advanced SEO tools like Semrush.

I combine ChatGPT and Semrush daily to speed up my decision-making when it comes to keyword research, competitor analysis, and SEO briefs.

For tasks like backlink building, technical site audits, and monitoring traffic and keyword movements, I’m still entirely dependent on Semrush alone.

Put simply: I could work without ChatGPT. But without Semrush, I’d be flying blind.

As you’re trying out the ChatGPT SEO prompts in this article, sign up for a free trial of Semrush to complete your analysis.