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How AI Boosted My Blog’s SEO (And How It Can Help Yours Too)
When I set off on this blog adventure in 2007, one of the things I promised was that I would share what I’ve learned about blogging. Over the years, I’ve written posts about my readership, the various technologies I’ve used, and what I’ve accomplished by sharing these almost 900 posts, from getting on national TV news to building my keynoting and consulting business and generating many great opportunities.
Why SEO Matters: Why AI is the Foundation of Your Blog’s Success
Today, I want to discuss what artificial intelligence (AI) has done to improve my blog’s performance and how it can help you. And don’t worry—contrary to all the horror stories you read about how AI is limiting students’ abilities to think for themselves, I don’t use AI to generate ideas or write my blog. I use it to improve my blog’s performance.
Like the old line about the tree that falls in the uninhabited forest, if you write a blog and no one reads it, did you actually make a sound? Regardless of what you write about, the whole point of creating a blog is to have people read it. Otherwise, it’s like being on stage in a dark suit and wetting yourself—it might feel warm, but very few people in the audience notice.
Leveraging AI for SEO: A Game-Changing Boost for Bloggers
Sadly, though, the attributes you need to write a blog worth reading—creativity, writing skills, and something to say—are not necessarily the skills you need to generate as much search engine optimization (SEO) as possible. You need to understand the technology behind generating robust SEO performance to do that.
That’s where artificial intelligence can improve your game.
Step-by-Step: How I Use AI and ChatGPT to Boost My Blog’s SEO
After I’ve used my creativity and writing skills to create my post, I paste it into ChatGPT and ask the learning engine to optimize my prose for SEO. Then, I can choose which AI suggestions to use and where I prefer to keep my original voice.
Next, I turn to the chatbot for help in crafting a powerful headline and subhead. I have the final say on whether to use its suggestions verbatim or to stick with my own.
For example, my original headline for this blog was “Using AI to Improve Your Blog.”
When I asked ChatGPT for better titles, these are what it suggested:
“Your current title, ‘Using AI to Improve Your Blog,’ is clear but could be more personal and engaging. Here are a few suggestions that might resonate better:
- “Unlocking Your Blog’s Potential with AI: A Personal Guide”
- “Transform Your Blog’s SEO with ChatGPT: My Journey”
- “How AI Supercharged My Blog’s SEO (And How It Can Help Yours Too)”
- “AI and Blogging: How I Boosted My SEO Performance with ChatGPT”
- “From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Using AI to Power Up Your Blog”
After that, I request robust H3 subheads and the specific spots in the text where I should place the headings. Next, I ask for appropriate internal links from the enormous library of posts on my website and three or four external links from other sites that will generate the most Google juice. With that request, I also ask for the keyword slug that will build the most interest online. I request the strongest alternative title for the post’s image, and I also ask ChatGPT to write the most SEO-friendly excerpt and meta description from my post’s final text, which I paste into the proper spot in WordPress (my blog host).
Results Speak for Themselves: AI Boosts My Blog’s SEO Performance
Of course, as I said at the beginning of this explanation, the only reason to do this work is to increase my readership. And because I’ve been doing this for only a few weeks, the jury may still be out for statistically relevant information. Still, I’m amazed to report that in that short time, my untargeted readership online (not the posts I send directly to you, but the posts people find through organic search) has increased by at least 300%. Not only that, but my readership on the social media sites I post on has increased at least that much as well.
Better still, this additional work takes much less time than I used to spend just finding appropriate internal and external links, and it removes the drudgery of something I never liked doing in the first place.
Instead of supplanting my creativity, running my posts through ChatGPT allows me to spend more time doing what I enjoy (thinking and writing), eliminate the things I don’t relish (researching and testing SEO scenarios), and substantially increase the yield on my efforts.
All in all, AI gives me an outstanding ROI.
Thank you for the concept and the outcome, Bruce! It’s so helpful to know the various ways to use chatGPT in our work and personal worlds!
Thanks for sharing Bruce! Going to try this with our business blog posts!! You are always on the forefront :).
You’re very welcome Lisa. Please report back how it works for you.
Bruce, you are absolutely right; it’s a game-changer. I use it daily to enhance my communication and boost my creative ability. Recently, I’ve experimented with Claude 3.5 and noticed that its responses and analysis are a bit more polished. However, Chat GPT remains my go-to tool for most tasks.
It’s important to understand that AI cannot replace your depth of knowledge and experience with a particular topic or problem. We’ve long adhered to the principle of “garbage in, garbage out.” Unfortunately, some people expect AI to fully grasp complex dynamics without providing a well-crafted prompt. This can lead to accepting what is essentially very polished garbage. Proper input is crucial for AI to generate meaningful and accurate outputs.
PS – yes ChatGPT polished this commentary 🙂
Thanks, David. You’re absolutely correct. Each week that I upload a new blog, I learn new things I can do to enhance the post using ChatGPT. It’s exhilarating.
Very helpful info Bruce. Cool of you to share the work you put in to figure this out for yourself.
Thank you Marc. I hope you can use these tips to your benefit.
Hi Bruce, once again you have both inspired me and educated me about something that I can immediately benefit from personally. I have been using Chat GPT for suggested alternative wording on blog posts I have been writing daily, and now I will apply the formula you have just spelled out to boost my reach. As always, thank you for your continued insight and thought provoking blog posts that I always enjoy reading/listening to…!!
Thank you Fred. These tips really work for me — I hope they can do the same for you!