30 Useful ChatGPT Prompts For Keyword Research

ChatGPT has quickly become one of my favorite tools when it comes to analyzing vast amounts of data.

As such, it’s particularly useful for identifying lucrative keywords and content clusters to go after.

But before we get started, it’s important to be aware of what ChatGPT can and cannot do.

ChatGPT’s Limitations For Keyword Research

While ChatGPT truly is a Swiss army knife when it comes to SEO and many associated tasks, it has it’s limitations.

One of those being access to data, either directly within Google Search Console, Bing’s Webmaster Tools, or products like Ahrefs.

Plus, some sites block OpenAI from scraping their websites, so you need to find other means to extract the relevant data.

I’d therefore urge anyone to at least upgrade to ChatGPT Plus at it allows you to paste in links, share CSVs and other files, all while having access to a more powerful model (GPT 4) and greater context windows.

What I’d therefore recommend is to extract your keywords data from your tool of choice and have ChatGPT analyze it accordingly.

With that being said, here are examples grouped by the various tools you potentially have at your disposal for keyword research.

Prompts For General Keyword Research

If we are talking about a new project, then I first like to get a sense of all the important keywords I could go after.

Can you suggest 20 broad keyword ideas related to [name niche/industry] that I should consider targeting? Please list the specific keywords.

Here’s the answer ChatGPT came up with for a site like ours:

You could rephrase the sentence to include more examples, detailed explanations, or the type of keyword (e.g., long-tail or questions) you want to find.

What are 15 long-tail keywords related to '[insert specific topic within your niche]' that have a high search intent but low competition?

List the top 10 question-based keywords people are asking about '[insert specific topic within your niche]' on search engines.

I'm selling [insert product type] online. Can you provide 15 product-specific keywords that potential customers might use to find these products?

Use Your Site To Generate More Ideas

Another approach, especially if you are subscribed to ChatGPT Plus, is to let it scrape your site to come up with new keywords and clusters to target.

Review the category page at this link ([insert category page link]). What additional keywords should we consider targeting to cover the breadth of topics presented?

And here’s what ChatGPT had to say:

Again, you would need to expand and ask a few more specifying questions.

For example, you could instruct ChatGPT to create sub-clusters based on the main category (“prompts” in this case) and list potential keywords and interlinking opportunities for each of those categories.

Here are a few more example prompts that you could utilize to find keywords based on existing content:

Based on the content of this article ([insert article link]), can you suggest additional keywords that we could target to enhance our SEO strategy?

Here's our website's sitemap ([insert sitemap link]). Can you identify key themes and suggest new keywords we should target across different sections?

After analyzing the article at this link ([insert article link]), specifically the sections on [insert section topics], what additional keywords could we target related to these sections?

Given this detailed guide ([insert guide link]), what long-tail keyword opportunities can you identify for us to target in our own content development?

Looking at this product page ([insert product page link]), what additional product-related keywords can we target to improve visibility and SEO?

Steal From The Competition

Your site isn’t the only source of inspiration ChatGPT can draw from.

What works with the prompts listed in the previous section is also applicable to websites others run – granted that they allowed OpenAI to scrape their website.

So, you could simply replace links to your articles, category pages, sitemaps, and more with those of your competitor.

Alternatively, you can also compare your website to those of the competition to identify gaps in content.

Here’s a prompt I commonly use:

Can you analyze the main topics covered on my website ([insert your website link]) and compare them with those on this competitor's website ([insert competitor's website link]) to identify any major content gaps?

Again, keep in mind that ChatGPT can be a little lazy when it comes to scraping all available web pages, so you may need to expand on the initial prompt or provide the data in a more condensed format.

Here are a few more prompts you can use to get the conversation started:

Examine the detailed content and categories on my site ([insert your website link]) versus the competitor's site ([insert competitor's website link]). What specific topics or categories are they covering that we are missing?

Based on the keywords we're targeting on our website ([insert your website link]), compared to those targeted by our competitor ([insert competitor's website link]), what are the key keyword gaps in our content strategy?

What innovative content types or features are present on the competitor's website ([insert competitor's website link]) that could represent a content gap or opportunity for our site?

ChatGPT is particularly powerful if you feed it data. For example, as a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you could feed it keyword data in CSV format to identify gaps in content:

Based on the keyword data from Ahrefs for our website and the competitor's, can you identify the top keywords where we overlap and where there are gaps? Highlight opportunities for new content or optimization.

Using backlink data from Semrush for both sites, can you analyze the types of content that are earning our competitor backlinks but not us? Suggest content ideas that could help bridge this gap.

Review the top-performing pages report from Ahrefs for both websites. Which topics or types of content are driving the most traffic for the competitor that we lack? Suggest strategies to compete in these areas.

Using the site audit feature in Semrush, compare the freshness of the content on our site versus the competitor's. Identify which topics or pages we should update or create new content for to stay competitive.

Utilizing the site audit reports from Ahrefs for both sites, compare the overall SEO health and scores. Highlight the critical issues affecting our site's performance and propose fixes.

With the help of Semrush's Market Explorer, compare our global SEO strategy against the competitor's. What new markets or languages are they targeting that we're missing out on?

Utilize Data You Own

The best source of data is the one you own, namely data coming directly from Google’s Search Console, Google Analytics, Bing’s Webmaster Tool, and more.

For example, you can prompt ChatGPT to analyze keyword data downloaded directly from GSC.

Based on the Click-Through Rate (CTR) and positions from Google Search Console for my website, which keywords are underperforming in terms of CTR despite high rankings.

ChatGPT will then take advantage of different models in the background and analyze the provided data in sequential steps:

Again, you can ask it to expand on its initial findings like this:

There really aren’t any boundaries to what you can ask ChatGPT to do.

For instance, I asked it to also incorporate search data from Bing into the analysis to identify opportunities across both search engines:

Another way in which I like to use ChatGPT is to come up with regular expressions (regex), which I then insert in GSC:

What regex pattern can I use in GSC to filter for long-tail keywords, assuming long-tail keywords are queries that contain four or more words?

I want to focus on the content that answers users' questions. What regex query can I use in GSC to extract all search queries that are phrased as questions (starting with who, what, where, when, why, or how)?

How can I craft a regex expression in GSC to exclude queries that contain terms unrelated to my target audience, such as 'free', 'cheap', or 'discount'?

Can you help me create a regex expression for GSC that groups queries by intent, such as 'buy', 'price', 'how to use', to better understand the intent behind the searches?

Organize Keywords

Lastly, I also like to use ChatGPT for organizing existing keyword lists to come up with clusters/categories, identify high-intent opportunities, and more.

Can you organize these keywords into clusters and come up with categories these should belong to?

Here’s what ChatGPT responds for a keyword list on a travel blog I run:

There’s a multitude of other prompts with which you can cluster keywords, including:

Here's a list of keywords for '[insert topic]'. Can you organize them into clusters based on user intent, such as 'informational,' 'navigational,' 'transactional,' and 'commercial'?

Based on their difficulty scores and search volumes, can you group these keywords into 'high competition,' 'medium competition,' and 'low competition' clusters?

Can you help cluster this list of keywords related to '[insert topic]' into logical groups based on their thematic similarities?

For a website dedicated to '[insert product type],' I've compiled keywords related to various features. Can you help cluster these keywords by specific features like '[feature 1],' '[feature 2],' and '[feature 3]'?

Conclusion

If you loved these prompts for your finding keyword opportunities, why not check out some related content?

Here are other social media and marketing-related prompts:

Let me know if you used any of the prompts listed here and how they helped you boosting your appearance across search engines.