It seems you can’t go anywhere on the web these days without running into a conversation about ChatGPT and AI in general. The future of content seems certain to involve artificial intelligence at least to some degree, but what role it will play remains to be seen. 

Let’s use this post to take a look at where we are with ChatGPT currently, what impact it has on SEO, and what the future may hold. 

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that can generate natural, conversational dialogue. This technology represents an important shift from previous models that would respond in a more robotic, direct manner. The potential uses for this tool are many, including for use as a chatbot, automated content writer, and on and on. We are still in the very early days of ChatGPT, so it’s hard to say exactly where it is headed. 

An Easier Path to SEO Glory?

When you first learn about what ChatGPT can do, you might be tempted to think that you could just plug in some keywords, generate some articles, and quickly soar to the top of the SEO world. That’s a nice notion, but it’s just not reality. As the old saying goes, “if it were that easy, everyone would do it.”

First, there’s this – Google considers any form of automatically generated content to be spam. Whether or not Google will be able to tell if ChatGPT or another tool has produced your content is another debate entirely, but the fact remains that automated content remains against Webmaster Guidelines. So, if you opt to use this tool to produce content for your site, you do run the risk of incurring a penalty if Google catches on. 

You’ll also need to think about what kind of content you are putting on your site if you trust it to an AI model rather than a human being. How is that content going to differentiate your brand from the competition? What new angle or perspective will you bring to the topic at hand? If you are using a tool that is open to everyone, you’ll be producing the same content as every other site. 

A Middle Ground

For now, it seems like the application of ChatGPT as an SEO tool is going to be limited, but still potentially valuable. For instance, it could help you plan out articles, building an outline that you or another writer could then expand into a quality piece of content. Or, it might be able to generate small sections of copy that you aren’t using to rank, while saving your SEO-focused writing for the humans. 

Will ChatGPT one day be the default writer for the web? That seems unlikely, as it’s the injection of new ideas and original thinking that tends to make content useful. With that said, predicting the future of technology is a fool’s game, so we’ll just have to wait and see where it goes. Good luck with your ventures!