SEO
SEO During A Recession (Does It Still Work?)
It doesn’t take a professional economist to predict the global markets are headed for a downturn.
In the past year, inflation rates in the United States have hovered around 7%, with the IMF predicting the worst is yet to come. People everywhere feel the crunch of high gas prices and rising food costs.
And as expenses rise, many businesses are preparing to tighten their belts, cut unnecessary spending and ride out the storm until the global markets turn back around.
As you’re looking to cut the fat in your own company, it can be very tempting to slash your advertising and marketing budget.
This is a huge mistake.
By eliminating or even scaling down your marketing efforts, you’re hurting the growth and maintenance of your customer base. New customers will be harder to reach while existing customers will be unaware of new products, services, and deals.
Remember, marketing is an investment – not an expense. And in an age dominated by the internet, this is especially true of search engine optimization.
So, if you are considering cutting your SEO budget, DON’T DO IT.
Seriously. Don’t even think about it.
SEO can continue to move the needle for your business, even when other growth initiatives are coming up short.
In this piece, we’ll look at why that happens and show why SEO should be an important part of your marketing plan, no matter the economic conditions.
Why Does SEO Do Well In Economic Downturns?
When times are tough, you need to find a better value for your dollar. Your money needs to stretch further and work harder.
In marketing, few channels work harder than search for most products and services.
How do we know this? Because economies are cyclical, and this isn’t our first recession rodeo.
In the SEO era (i.e., since roughly 1991), we’ve had three significant recessions. During these times, it’s been discovered that SEO still performs. This can be attributed to a few reasons, namely:
- It’s flexible: Even if you’re a small fish competing with an industry-dominating competitor, SEO gives you the flexibility to attract new customers. Long-tail keywords help you target highly specific searches. Local search helps people in your area find you, and a regularly updated website lets visitors know that you’re thriving (or at least maintaining), despite the larger economic environment.
- It’s integrated: SEO fits in with your Facebook, Snapchat, or any other to help your business appear in search results. This creates an inbound marketing funnel just by taking an optimal approach to things you’re probably already doing.
- It’s budget-friendly: Aside from your computer/internet/electricity costs – all of which you’re already paying for – SEO is primarily a time investment. Even if you’re outsourcing your search engine optimization, you’re paying for your expert’s time and not hard costs like billboards, paid digital ads, and television commercials (all of which also require a labor investment).
To reap the benefits of SEO, you don’t need to buy anything; you only need to do your homework, create great content, and optimize your site for web crawlers.
Now that we’ve established that SEO can work in times of economic uncertainty, let’s look at what you need to do to make it work for you.
How To Prepare For SEO In A Bad Economy
Whether you are a freelancer, an agency, or an in-house SEO, there are things you need to do to prepare your decision-makers for an economic downturn.
If you skip this, there’s a good chance you’ll get cut with the rest of the marketing budget.
When the economy takes a turn for the worse, the key to keeping decision-makers on board with search marketing efforts comes down to effective tracking and communication about the value it provides.
The first step is to ensure that you and your client are up to date on how the campaign is performing.
If you don’t already know your customer lifetime value and customer acquisition costs, now is the time to figure them out. This will give you a metric to keep in mind when calculating the value of your SEO work.
You need to adopt attribution modeling if you are still looking at last-click metrics for search.
Your goal is to make your work irreplaceable. This means communicating your value early and often.
You also need to let decision-makers know that even if someone comes in offering to do the job cheaper (and they will), your results will more than makeup for any additional costs of hiring you.
But to do that, you need to be on the same page with the decision-maker.
To be on the same page, you must agree on the results.
Goals Are The Key To Reducing Churn During Downtimes
Once you agree on the results, you can start setting smart goals for what the results will be.
Set the goal and get the decision-maker to agree to it. This helps you set yourself up for long-term success.
And get it in writing (either on paper or digitally), if possible, with both parties signing off.
This establishes in no uncertain terms that the relationship will continue if the goals are met.
It’s definitely a risk if you don’t hit the goals, so don’t set a goal you don’t think you can hit.
If the decision-maker wants to set an unrealistic goal, you need to push back.
Suggest making the unrealistic goal a “stretch goal” and setting a more realistic actual goal.
Don’t get pressured into agreeing to something you can’t deliver.
And make sure your plans are tailored to your specific situation, whether that’s as a freelancer, SEO agency, or B2B marketer.
As A Freelancer: Diversify And Focus On Core Competencies
For people who make a living by selling their services and expertise to businesses, recessions can be scary.
And it’s not just about an inability to find new clients – it could be existing clients who decide to reduce their costs by taking SEO in-house or even old clients who suddenly don’t have the money to pay you.
There’s no guaranteed way to keep your clients, and unfortunately, attrition is part of the game. That said, there are a few things you can do to set yourself up for continued success.
The first thing you should do is diversify your client base. Certain industries are going to be hit harder by recessions than others.
While this can be great if your clients are largely unaffected, it can be downright disastrous if they’re struggling in an industry. And it can be hard to predict which fields will struggle and which will thrive.
You must also find measurable ways to prove your value and expand your core competencies. That means clearly defining your goals (see above section). It also means changing the queries you’re targeting to reflect economy-driven changes in customer behavior.
For more information, we have an excellent article from the COVID-19 recession in which SEO experts gave us their tips for keeping SEO clients when things are rough.
As An Agency: Manage Relationships With Existing Clients
If you’ve been at a digital agency during a recession, you already know marketing budgets are usually one of the first things to get cut. And that makes good client management absolutely vital.
Communication and personal touch can go a long way to demonstrating your commitment to your clients. Of course, getting measurable results doesn’t hurt either.
You should use the recession as a chance to find new opportunity areas. What has changed about the client’s target customer’s behavior because of financial strain? How can you help the client position themselves as the perfect solution?
Focus on enhancing your relationships, offer timely advice, and, when in doubt, over-communicate. These are surefire ways to stay in your clients’ good graces.
You also need to understand where your agency is at risk. If you’re afraid you’ll lose clients, identify specific actions you can take to mitigate that risk.
Review your software subscriptions and other tools to see if you can afford to cut one or more if need be.
Because everyone is worried about their business, it can also be a good time to renegotiate with vendors.
And don’t forget about your team. Your employees are going to be just as stressed as everyone else. Have a tangible plan for keeping them motivated and productive.
For more ideas about how to sustain your SEO agency during a recession, be sure to read this piece.
As A B2B: Prioritize The Right Marketing Strategy And Platform
In a shaky economy, business-to-business (B2B) marketing needs to work harder and do more. And search engine optimization is a key area where you can outwork your competition without stretching your budget.
While you may be tempted to switch all your resources to areas offering short-term results like sales promotions or performance marketing, abandoning your SEO strategy is a big mistake.
For one thing, you’re forsaking all the hard work you’ve already done to get your site to rank on Google, which allows your competitors to swoop in and steal those clicks from right under you.
Not to mention, you risk being forgotten once the recession ends.
Instead of panicking, reevaluate your SEO strategy.
How were you performing before the recession? What keywords were you strong in, and which were you weak in? Are there any related queries you can start targeting that will bring in visitors others in your field may be overlooking?
Give potential customers or clients confidence in your offerings by prominently featuring reviews, testimonials, and case studies on your website. These tend to use the vernacular of your industry, which helps your ranking too.
You should also rethink what platforms you’re using. Obviously, your SEO strategy is going to be primarily focused on Google, adhering to the latest best practices to increase your search engine ranking. Still, it’s also important not to neglect your social media presence.
These are an often-forgotten way to rank in search results for specific keywords, often without much extra work. This is one of the few exceptions where it’s okay to use duplicate content for SEO purposes.
For example, you can share your recent blog post to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter and generate traffic, all with just a single piece of content.
Be sure to take a close look at your integrated campaigns and how they’re performing.
Are you on the same platform your audience uses? And are you positioned correctly on each one?
For example, if you’re selling scrap metal to industrial companies, posting a video of your employees doing a viral dance to TikTok probably isn’t doing you a bit of good.
For more information on developing a sustainable B2B digital marketing plan, be sure to read this article.
The Bottom Line Is The Bottom Line
Business is all about revenue – and hopefully profit. But in lean times, you can’t adopt the same tactics that you used in the salad days.
You need to make smarter decisions allowing you to operate more efficiently without sacrificing quality. And this is especially true of your SEO strategy.
Just remember, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. No recession will last forever, and neither will any boom period.
That’s why it’s important to consistently find new ways to add value with search engine optimization. Set your goals, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and don’t lose heart.
If you can do these things, you’ll be set to come out of the looming recession even stronger than you went in.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
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SEO
Why Google Can’t Tell You About Every Ranking Drop
In a recent Twitter exchange, Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, provided insight into how the search engine handles algorithmic spam actions and ranking drops.
The discussion was sparked by a website owner’s complaint about a significant traffic loss and the inability to request a manual review.
Sullivan clarified that a site could be affected by an algorithmic spam action or simply not ranking well due to other factors.
He emphasized that many sites experiencing ranking drops mistakenly attribute it to an algorithmic spam action when that may not be the case.
“I’ve looked at many sites where people have complained about losing rankings and decide they have a algorithmic spam action against them, but they don’t. “
Sullivan’s full statement will help you understand Google’s transparency challenges.
Additionally, he explains why the desire for manual review to override automated rankings may be misguided.
Two different things. A site could have an algorithmic spam action. A site could be not ranking well because other systems that *are not about spam* just don’t see it as helpful.
I’ve looked at many sites where people have complained about losing rankings and decide they have a…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 13, 2024
Challenges In Transparency & Manual Intervention
Sullivan acknowledged the idea of providing more transparency in Search Console, potentially notifying site owners of algorithmic actions similar to manual actions.
However, he highlighted two key challenges:
- Revealing algorithmic spam indicators could allow bad actors to game the system.
- Algorithmic actions are not site-specific and cannot be manually lifted.
Sullivan expressed sympathy for the frustration of not knowing the cause of a traffic drop and the inability to communicate with someone about it.
However, he cautioned against the desire for a manual intervention to override the automated systems’ rankings.
Sullivan states:
“…you don’t really want to think “Oh, I just wish I had a manual action, that would be so much easier.” You really don’t want your individual site coming the attention of our spam analysts. First, it’s not like manual actions are somehow instantly processed. Second, it’s just something we know about a site going forward, especially if it says it has change but hasn’t really.”
Determining Content Helpfulness & Reliability
Moving beyond spam, Sullivan discussed various systems that assess the helpfulness, usefulness, and reliability of individual content and sites.
He acknowledged that these systems are imperfect and some high-quality sites may not be recognized as well as they should be.
“Some of them ranking really well. But they’ve moved down a bit in small positions enough that the traffic drop is notable. They assume they have fundamental issues but don’t, really — which is why we added a whole section about this to our debugging traffic drops page.”
Sullivan revealed ongoing discussions about providing more indicators in Search Console to help creators understand their content’s performance.
“Another thing I’ve been discussing, and I’m not alone in this, is could we do more in Search Console to show some of these indicators. This is all challenging similar to all the stuff I said about spam, about how not wanting to let the systems get gamed, and also how there’s then no button we would push that’s like “actually more useful than our automated systems think — rank it better!” But maybe there’s a way we can find to share more, in a way that helps everyone and coupled with better guidance, would help creators.”
Advocacy For Small Publishers & Positive Progress
In response to a suggestion from Brandon Saltalamacchia, founder of RetroDodo, about manually reviewing “good” sites and providing guidance, Sullivan shared his thoughts on potential solutions.
He mentioned exploring ideas such as self-declaration through structured data for small publishers and learning from that information to make positive changes.
“I have some thoughts I’ve been exploring and proposing on what we might do with small publishers and self-declaring with structured data and how we might learn from that and use that in various ways. Which is getting way ahead of myself and the usual no promises but yes, I think and hope for ways to move ahead more positively.”
Sullivan said he can’t make promises or implement changes overnight, but he expressed hope for finding ways to move forward positively.
Featured Image: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock
SEO
56 Google Search Statistics to Bookmark for 2024
If you’re curious about the state of Google search in 2024, look no further.
Each year we pick, vet, and categorize a list of up-to-date statistics to give you insights from trusted sources on Google search trends.
- Google has a web index of “about 400 billion documents”. (The Capitol Forum)
- Google’s search index is over 100 million gigabytes in size. (Google)
- There are an estimated 3.5 billion searches on Google each day. (Internet Live Stats)
- 61.5% of desktop searches and 34.4% of mobile searches result in no clicks. (SparkToro)
- 15% of all Google searches have never been searched before. (Google)
- 94.74% of keywords get 10 monthly searches or fewer. (Ahrefs)
- The most searched keyword in the US and globally is “YouTube,” and youtube.com gets the most traffic from Google. (Ahrefs)
- 96.55% of all pages get zero search traffic from Google. (Ahrefs)
- 50-65% of all number-one spots are dominated by featured snippets. (Authority Hacker)
- Reddit is the most popular domain for product review queries. (Detailed)
- Google is the most used search engine in the world, with a mobile market share of 95.32% and a desktop market share of 81.95%. (Statista)
- Google.com generated 84.2 billion visits a month in 2023. (Statista)
- Google generated $307.4 billion in revenue in 2023. (Alphabet Investor Relations)
- 63.41% of all US web traffic referrals come from Google. (SparkToro)
- 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps. (SparkToro)
- Only 49% of Gen Z women use Google as their search engine. The rest use TikTok. (Search Engine Land)
- 58.67% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones. (Statista)
- 57% of local search queries are submitted using a mobile device or tablet. (ReviewTrackers)
- 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product when conducting a search on their smartphones. (Think With Google)
- 54% of smartphone users search for business hours, and 53% search for directions to local stores. (Think With Google)
- 18% of local searches on smartphones lead to a purchase within a day vs. 7% of non-local searches. (Think With Google)
- 56% of in-store shoppers used their smartphones to shop or research items while they were in-store. (Think With Google)
- 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results (e.g., “click to call” option). (Think With Google)
- 63.6% of consumers say they are likely to check reviews on Google before visiting a business location. (ReviewTrackers)
- 88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all of its reviews. (BrightLocal)
- Customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider a business reputable if they find a complete Business Profile on Google Search and Maps. (Google)
- Customers are 70% more likely to visit and 50% more likely to consider purchasing from businesses with a complete Business Profile. (Google)
- 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day. (Think With Google)
- 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase. (Think With Google)
- Mobile searches for “store open near me” (such as, “grocery store open near me” have grown by over 250% in the last two years. (Think With Google)
- People use Google Lens for 12 billion visual searches a month. (Google)
- 50% of online shoppers say images helped them decide what to buy. (Think With Google)
- There are an estimated 136 billion indexed images on Google Image Search. (Photutorial)
- 15.8% of Google SERPs show images. (Moz)
- People click on 3D images almost 50% more than static ones. (Google)
- More than 800 million people use Google Discover monthly to stay updated on their interests. (Google)
- 46% of Google Discover URLs are news sites, 44% e-commerce, 7% entertainment, and 2% travel. (Search Engine Journal)
- Even though news sites accounted for under 50% of Google Discover URLs, they received 99% of Discover clicks. (Search Engine Journal)
- Most Google Discover URLs only receive traffic for three to four days, with most of that traffic occurring one to two days after publishing. (Search Engine Journal)
- The clickthrough rate (CTR) for Google Discover is 11%. (Search Engine Journal)
- 91.45% of search volumes in Google Ads Keyword Planner are overestimates. (Ahrefs)
- For every $1 a business spends on Google Ads, they receive $8 in profit through Google Search and Ads. (Google)
- Google removed 5.5 billion ads, suspended 12.7 million advertiser accounts, restricted over 6.9 billion ads, and restricted ads from showing up on 2.1 billion publisher pages in 2023. (Google)
- The average shopping click-through rate (CTR) across all industries is 0.86% for Google Ads. (Wordstream)
- The average shopping cost per click (CPC) across all industries is $0.66 for Google Ads. (Wordstream)
- The average shopping conversion rate (CVR) across all industries is 1.91% for Google Ads. (Wordstream)
- 58% of consumers ages 25-34 use voice search daily. (UpCity)
- 16% of people use voice search for local “near me” searches. (UpCity)
- 67% of consumers say they’re very likely to use voice search when seeking information. (UpCity)
- Active users of the Google Assistant grew 4X over the past year, as of 2019. (Think With Google)
- Google Assistant hit 1 billion app installs. (Android Police)
- AI-generated answers from SGE were available for 91% of entertainment queries but only 17% of healthcare queries. (Statista)
- The AI-generated answers in Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) do not match any links from the top 10 Google organic search results 93.8% of the time. (Search Engine Journal)
- Google displays a Search Generative element for 86.8% of all search queries. (Authoritas)
- 62% of generative links came from sources outside the top 10 ranking organic domains. Only 20.1% of generative URLs directly match an organic URL ranking on page one. (Authoritas)
- 70% of SEOs said that they were worried about the impact of SGE on organic search (Aira)
Learn more
Check out more resources on how Google works:
SEO
How To Use ChatGPT For Keyword Research
Anyone not using ChatGPT for keyword research is missing a trick.
You can save time and understand an entire topic in seconds instead of hours.
In this article, I outline my most effective ChatGPT prompts for keyword research and teach you how I put them together so that you, too, can take, edit, and enhance them even further.
But before we jump into the prompts, I want to emphasize that you shouldn’t replace keyword research tools or disregard traditional keyword research methods.
ChatGPT can make mistakes. It can even create new keywords if you give it the right prompt. For example, I asked it to provide me with a unique keyword for the topic “SEO” that had never been searched before.
“Interstellar Internet SEO: Optimizing content for the theoretical concept of an interstellar internet, considering the challenges of space-time and interplanetary communication delays.”
Although I want to jump into my LinkedIn profile and update my title to “Interstellar Internet SEO Consultant,” unfortunately, no one has searched that (and they probably never will)!
You must not blindly rely on the data you get back from ChatGPT.
What you can rely on ChatGPT for is the topic ideation stage of keyword research and inspiration.
ChatGPT is a large language model trained with massive amounts of data to accurately predict what word will come next in a sentence. However, it does not know how to do keyword research yet.
Instead, think of ChatGPT as having an expert on any topic armed with the information if you ask it the right question.
In this guide, that is exactly what I aim to teach you how to do – the most essential prompts you need to know when performing topical keyword research.
Best ChatGPT Keyword Research Prompts
The following ChatGPT keyword research prompts can be used on any niche, even a topic to which you are brand new.
For this demonstration, let’s use the topic of “SEO” to demonstrate these prompts.
Generating Keyword Ideas Based On A Topic
What Are The {X} Most Popular Sub-topics Related To {Topic}?
The first prompt is to give you an idea of the niche.
As shown above, ChatGPT did a great job understanding and breaking down SEO into three pillars: on-page, off-page & technical.
The key to the following prompt is to take one of the topics ChatGPT has given and query the sub-topics.
What Are The {X} Most Popular Sub-topics Related To {Sub-topic}?
For this example, let’s query, “What are the most popular sub-topics related to keyword research?”
Having done keyword research for over 10 years, I would expect it to output information related to keyword research metrics, the types of keywords, and intent.
Let’s see.
Screenshot from ChatGPT 4, April 2024Again, right on the money.
To get the keywords you want without having ChatGPT describe each answer, use the prompt “list without description.”
Here is an example of that.
List Without Description The Top {X} Most Popular Keywords For The Topic Of {X}
You can even branch these keywords out further into their long-tail.
Example prompt:
List Without Description The Top {X} Most Popular Long-tail Keywords For The Topic “{X}”
Screenshot ChatGPT 4,April 2024List Without Description The Top Semantically Related Keywords And Entities For The Topic {X}
You can even ask ChatGPT what any topic’s semantically related keywords and entities are!
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 2024Tip: The Onion Method Of Prompting ChatGPT
When you are happy with a series of prompts, add them all to one prompt. For example, so far in this article, we have asked ChatGPT the following:
- What are the four most popular sub-topics related to SEO?
- What are the four most popular sub-topics related to keyword research
- List without description the top five most popular keywords for “keyword intent”?
- List without description the top five most popular long-tail keywords for the topic “keyword intent types”?
- List without description the top semantically related keywords and entities for the topic “types of keyword intent in SEO.”
Combine all five into one prompt by telling ChatGPT to perform a series of steps. Example:
“Perform the following steps in a consecutive order Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, and Step 5”
Example:
“Perform the following steps in a consecutive order Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4 and Step 5. Step 1 – Generate an answer for the 3 most popular sub-topics related to {Topic}?. Step 2 – Generate 3 of the most popular sub-topics related to each answer. Step 3 – Take those answers and list without description their top 3 most popular keywords. Step 4 – For the answers given of their most popular keywords, provide 3 long-tail keywords. Step 5 – for each long-tail keyword offered in the response, a list without descriptions 3 of their top semantically related keywords and entities.”
Generating Keyword Ideas Based On A Question
Taking the steps approach from above, we can get ChatGPT to help streamline getting keyword ideas based on a question. For example, let’s ask, “What is SEO?”
“Perform the following steps in a consecutive order Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, and Step 4. Step 1 Generate 10 questions about “{Question}”?. Step 2 – Generate 5 more questions about “{Question}” that do not repeat the above. Step 3 – Generate 5 more questions about “{Question}” that do not repeat the above. Step 4 – Based on the above Steps 1,2,3 suggest a final list of questions avoiding duplicates or semantically similar questions.”
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 2024Generating Keyword Ideas Using ChatGPT Based On The Alphabet Soup Method
One of my favorite methods, manually, without even using a keyword research tool, is to generate keyword research ideas from Google autocomplete, going from A to Z.
-
Screenshot from Google autocomplete, April 2024
You can also do this using ChatGPT.
Example prompt:
“give me popular keywords that includes the keyword “SEO”, and the next letter of the word starts with a”
Screenshot from ChatGPT 4, April 2024Tip: Using the onion prompting method above, we can combine all this in one prompt.
“Give me five popular keywords that include “SEO” in the word, and the following letter starts with a. Once the answer has been done, move on to giving five more popular keywords that include “SEO” for each letter of the alphabet b to z.”
Generating Keyword Ideas Based On User Personas
When it comes to keyword research, understanding user personas is essential for understanding your target audience and keeping your keyword research focused and targeted. ChatGPT may help you get an initial understanding of customer personas.
Example prompt:
“For the topic of “{Topic}” list 10 keywords each for the different types of user personas”
Screenshot from ChatGPT 4, April 2024You could even go a step further and ask for questions based on those topics that those specific user personas may be searching for:
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 2024As well as get the keywords to target based on those questions:
“For each question listed above for each persona, list the keywords, as well as the long-tail keywords to target, and put them in a table”
Screenshot from ChatGPT 4, April 2024Generating Keyword Ideas Using ChatGPT Based On Searcher Intent And User Personas
Understanding the keywords your target persona may be searching is the first step to effective keyword research. The next step is to understand the search intent behind those keywords and which content format may work best.
For example, a business owner who is new to SEO or has just heard about it may be searching for “what is SEO.”
However, if they are further down the funnel and in the navigational stage, they may search for “top SEO firms.”
You can query ChatGPT to inspire you here based on any topic and your target user persona.
SEO Example:
“For the topic of “{Topic}” list 10 keywords each for the different types of searcher intent that a {Target Persona} would be searching for”
ChatGPT For Keyword Research Admin
Here is how you can best use ChatGPT for keyword research admin tasks.
Using ChatGPT As A Keyword Categorization Tool
One of the use cases for using ChatGPT is for keyword categorization.
In the past, I would have had to devise spreadsheet formulas to categorize keywords or even spend hours filtering and manually categorizing keywords.
ChatGPT can be a great companion for running a short version of this for you.
Let’s say you have done keyword research in a keyword research tool, have a list of keywords, and want to categorize them.
You could use the following prompt:
“Filter the below list of keywords into categories, target persona, searcher intent, search volume and add information to a six-column table: List of keywords – [LIST OF KEYWORDS], Keyword Search Volume [SEARCH VOLUMES] and Keyword Difficulties [KEYWORD DIFFICUTIES].”
-
Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024
Tip: Add keyword metrics from the keyword research tools, as using the search volumes that a ChatGPT prompt may give you will be wildly inaccurate at best.
Using ChatGPT For Keyword Clustering
Another of ChatGPT’s use cases for keyword research is to help you cluster. Many keywords have the same intent, and by grouping related keywords, you may find that one piece of content can often target multiple keywords at once.
However, be careful not to rely only on LLM data for clustering. What ChatGPT may cluster as a similar keyword, the SERP or the user may not agree with. But it is a good starting point.
The big downside of using ChatGPT for keyword clustering is actually the amount of keyword data you can cluster based on the memory limits.
So, you may find a keyword clustering tool or script that is better for large keyword clustering tasks. But for small amounts of keywords, ChatGPT is actually quite good.
A great use small keyword clustering use case using ChatGPT is for grouping People Also Ask (PAA) questions.
Use the following prompt to group keywords based on their semantic relationships. For example:
“Organize the following keywords into groups based on their semantic relationships, and give a short name to each group: [LIST OF PAA], create a two-column table where each keyword sits on its own row.
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Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024
Using Chat GPT For Keyword Expansion By Patterns
One of my favorite methods of doing keyword research is pattern spotting.
Most seed keywords have a variable that can expand your target keywords.
Here are a few examples of patterns:
1. Question Patterns
(who, what, where, why, how, are, can, do, does, will)
“Generate [X] keywords for the topic “[Topic]” that contain any or all of the following “who, what, where, why, how, are, can, do, does, will”
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 20242. Comparison Patterns
Example:
“Generate 50 keywords for the topic “{Topic}” that contain any or all of the following “for, vs, alternative, best, top, review”
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 20243. Brand Patterns
Another one of my favorite modifiers is a keyword by brand.
We are probably all familiar with the most popular SEO brands; however, if you aren’t, you could ask your AI friend to do the heavy lifting.
Example prompt:
“For the top {Topic} brands what are the top “vs” keywords”
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 20244. Search Intent Patterns
One of the most common search intent patterns is “best.”
When someone is searching for a “best {topic}” keyword, they are generally searching for a comprehensive list or guide that highlights the top options, products, or services within that specific topic, along with their features, benefits, and potential drawbacks, to make an informed decision.
Example:
“For the topic of “[Topic]” what are the 20 top keywords that include “best”
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, April 2024Again, this guide to keyword research using ChatGPT has emphasized the ease of generating keyword research ideas by utilizing ChatGPT throughout the process.
Keyword Research Using ChatGPT Vs. Keyword Research Tools
Free Vs. Paid Keyword Research Tools
Like keyword research tools, ChatGPT has free and paid options.
However, one of the most significant drawbacks of using ChatGPT for keyword research alone is the absence of SEO metrics to help you make smarter decisions.
To improve accuracy, you could take the results it gives you and verify them with your classic keyword research tool – or vice versa, as shown above, uploading accurate data into the tool and then prompting.
However, you must consider how long it takes to type and fine-tune your prompt to get your desired data versus using the filters within popular keyword research tools.
For example, if we use a popular keyword research tool using filters, you could have all of the “best” queries with all of their SEO metrics:
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Screenshot from Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, March 2024
And unlike ChatGPT, generally, there is no token limit; you can extract several hundred, if not thousands, of keywords at a time.
As I have mentioned multiple times throughout this piece, you cannot blindly trust the data or SEO metrics it may attempt to provide you with.
The key is to validate the keyword research with a keyword research tool.
ChatGPT For International SEO Keyword Research
ChatGPT can be a terrific multilingual keyword research assistant.
For example, if you wanted to research keywords in a foreign language such as French. You could ask ChatGPT to translate your English keywords;
Screenshot ChatGPT 4, Apil 2024- The key is to take the data above and paste it into a popular keyword research tool to verify.
- As you can see below, many of the keyword translations for the English keywords do not have any search volume for direct translations in French.
Screenshot from Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, April 2024But don’t worry, there is a workaround: If you have access to a competitor keyword research tool, you can see what webpage is ranking for that query – and then identify the top keyword for that page based on the ChatGPT translated keywords that do have search volume.
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Screenshot from Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, April 2024
Or, if you don’t have access to a paid keyword research tool, you could always take the top-performing result, extract the page copy, and then ask ChatGPT what the primary keyword for the page is.
Key Takeaway
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ChatGPT can be an expert on any topic and an invaluable keyword research tool. However, it is another tool to add to your toolbox when doing keyword research; it does not replace traditional keyword research tools.
As shown throughout this tutorial, from making up keywords at the beginning to inaccuracies around data and translations, ChatGPT can make mistakes when used for keyword research.
You cannot blindly trust the data you get back from ChatGPT.
However, it can offer a shortcut to understanding any topic for which you need to do keyword research and, as a result, save you countless hours.
But the key is how you prompt.
The prompts I shared with you above will help you understand a topic in minutes instead of hours and allow you to better seed keywords using keyword research tools.
It can even replace mundane keyword clustering tasks that you used to do with formulas in spreadsheets or generate ideas based on keywords you give it.
Paired with traditional keyword research tools, ChatGPT for keyword research can be a powerful tool in your arsenal.
More resources:
Featured Image: Tatiana Shepeleva/Shutterstock
How the TikTok Algorithm Works in 2024 (+9 Ways to Go Viral)
How to Use Keywords for SEO: The Complete Beginner’s Guide
Blog Post Checklist: Check All Prior to Hitting “Publish”
How To Protect Your People and Brand
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How to Craft Compelling Google Ads for eCommerce
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The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing
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PPC6 days agoHow the TikTok Algorithm Works in 2024 (+9 Ways to Go Viral)
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SEO5 days agoHow to Use Keywords for SEO: The Complete Beginner’s Guide
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SEO7 days agoBlog Post Checklist: Check All Prior to Hitting “Publish”
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MARKETING6 days agoHow To Protect Your People and Brand
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SEARCHENGINES7 days agoGoogle Started Enforcing The Site Reputation Abuse Policy
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PPC7 days agoHow to Craft Compelling Google Ads for eCommerce
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MARKETING7 days agoElevating Women in SEO for a More Inclusive Industry
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PPC7 days agoHow to Brainstorm Business Ideas: 9 Fool-Proof Approaches
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