It may feel a little as though Chat GPT is taking over the world, and it can be hard to work out if it can be trusted. However, the reality is, it’s becoming more regularly used and the technology is advancing at an exponential rate.
Increasingly people are using it as a tool for searching things online. If you feed it a query, it will give you an answer and quite a thorough one at that. For example, I asked it ‘can you suggest destinations in Crete that are ideal for a quiet couple’s holiday’ and it gave me seven different locations and a small write up on each one!
However, is it ready to rival Google, what are the SEO implications and how much can you really trust it in its current form?
How it works
The way that ChatGPT functions distinguishes itself from conventional search engines or online resources like Wikipedia. Rather than simply retrieving information from the web, ChatGPT almost has its own cognitive processes. This advanced language model takes extensive text data from online sources such as books, articles, websites, and blogs. It then employs sophisticated algorithms to give text responses that closely resemble human dialogue, offering a unique and innovative approach to interaction.
All this means that you when you use ChatGPT for search you will get a detailed and conversational response, however there are no source materials to reference so you have to rely completely on the AI. One big advantage though is you can feed it a follow up query to expand on specifics or narrow the search further.
When using Google or other search engines they employ sophisticated algorithms to trawl billions of web pages and sources – so you can be more sure of its accuracy and can view several different web pages to reinforce your findings or decisions.
What does this mean for SEO
When it comes to ChatGPT as a search engine, SEO really isn’t a priority because of the way it works. However, it can be used as a useful tool to help with SEO strategy, content creation and even keyword research.
We all know that effective keyword research is the key to a successful SEO strategy. And ChatGPT is a quick and easy way to help you with this. You can simply ask it to give you some keyword suggestions for a product service or topic. Unfortunately, it can’t provide you any data on Keyword Difficulty, Position or Volume but it can at least offer some further food for thought.
ChatGPT is also a great tool for content creation. It can help generate professional, informative content that you can ask to be optimised for your target keywords. Regularly creating these sorts of content updates and blogs aid in increasing a website’s authority and relevance in the eyes of search engines.
However, tread carefully. It can be very tempting to use it all the time, but this isn’t recommended. Google and other search engines are too smart and eventually, you will be found out and potentially penalised. It can also negatively impact, your brand or company’s ‘voice’ by losing its authenticity.
So, what next?
Let’s get it straight, Google is still the undisputed king. So, when it comes to SEO, Google Ads, content creation etc this still must be your main focus, and we have no doubt that Google will adapt to include AI in its own search results before long.
However, it’s worth keeping an eye on. Use it regularly by feeding it FAQ’s or common search terms relevant to your business or product as it will either back up what you are doing or offer some new ideas. And take advantage of it for aiding with content creation and keyword research, but only in moderation.
At Blue Bee we have over a decade of SEO experience and are also a Google Partner, so we are here to help make sure your SEO strategy is tailored for you to grow your organic traffic and rankings through content creation, Google Ads, Social Media and Lead Generation.
