SEO // ChatGPT

Best ChatGPT Prompts for SEO (2026)

Updated Sep 28, 2026 · 13 prompts

These are 13 ChatGPT prompts for SEO in 2026, covering the full workflow: keyword clustering, intent mapping, briefs, on-page optimization, internal linking, SERP gap analysis, and the Search Console work that decides what to update next. Each prompt gives ChatGPT a clear role and asks for an output you can act on the same day.

The rule behind all of them: ChatGPT has no ranking data of its own, so the quality of the answer tracks the quality of the export you paste in. Give it your keyword list, your Search Console rows, your crawl, or the headings of the pages that outrank you, and it becomes a fast, patient analyst. Give it nothing and it writes generic advice.

Where to start: the Search Console loop

If a site already has a few months of impressions, the highest-return prompts here are the three that read Search Console data: the striking-distance finder, the cannibalization check, and the title rewrite. Run them in that order once a week. The first tells you which pages to touch, the second stops you from updating the wrong one of two competing URLs, and the third fixes pages that rank but do not get clicked.

We run this loop on this site. One Claude data-analysis pack drew 408 impressions in 28 days at an average position of 7.6, more than every other prompt pack combined, and nearly all of it came from query variants no keyword tool listed with any volume. The export found it; a keyword tool would have told us not to bother.

Check indexing before you write anything

Content prompts cannot help a page Google has not indexed. Before briefing new articles, open the Pages report in Search Console and look at the reasons pages are not indexed. The technical triage prompt on this page sorts a crawl export into what actually blocks indexing. The single most damaging issue it catches is a sitemap that lists URLs which redirect: our own sitemap once listed every URL on the non-www host while the server redirected to www, and on inspection 2 of 70 submitted URLs were indexed, 20 were reported as page with redirect, and 48 had never been crawled. After the sitemap and canonical tags were moved to the host that actually serves the pages, 82 of 109 URLs were indexed within a week.

Writing for AI Overviews and answer engines

The answer-first rewrite prompt exists because AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, and Perplexity quote passages rather than pages. A passage gets quoted when its first sentence answers a question completely on its own, with the specific number or condition in it. Most articles bury that sentence in the third paragraph after an introduction. Rewriting the opening of your five most important sections this way is a small edit with a measurable effect on how often a page is cited.

Once the keyword export or the Search Console download is the thing you are actually working on, the ChatGPT prompts for data analysis pack handles the profiling, cleaning, and cohort work that turns a CSV into a readout, and the Claude prompts for data analysis pack is better when the question is whether a traffic change is real. For the research that comes before keywords (who the buyer is and what words they use), the ChatGPT prompts for market research pack has the interview and review-mining prompts, and the ChatGPT prompts for copywriting pack takes over when the brief turns into a page. To turn a winning prompt into a reusable template, refine it in Prompt Builder.

How to use these prompts

01
Pick the prompt that matches your task
Each prompt below targets one job. Choose the one closest to what you need instead of asking for everything at once.
02
Replace every bracketed placeholder
Swap [like this] for your real context: the product, the audience, the document, the constraints. Context is what separates a usable draft from generic output.
03
Run it, then push back
Read the first output critically and ask for a revision: tighter, more specific, a different angle, or with the weak assumptions named.
04
Save the version that worked
Once a prompt produces the output you want, keep it as a reusable template so the next run starts from your best version, not a blank box.

Keyword cluster builder

Group keywords into topic clusters

You are a technical SEO. Given this keyword list, group them into topic clusters. For each cluster give: a pillar page title, the search intent, and which keywords are pillar vs supporting. Flag any keywords that don't fit. Keywords: [paste list]

Search intent classifier

Decide what page type to build

For each query below, classify the dominant intent (informational, commercial, transactional, navigational) and recommend the page type that should rank (guide, comparison, listicle, product, tool). Queries: [paste queries]

Content brief that can rank

Brief a writer (or yourself)

Create an SEO content brief for '[keyword]'. Include: intent, title + H1, full H2/H3 outline, target word count, entities and related terms to include, 5 People-Also-Ask questions to answer, and the angle competitors are missing.

On-page optimizer

Improve a draft before publishing

Act as an on-page SEO reviewer. Here is my draft for '[keyword]'. Suggest a stronger title and meta description (within length limits), check heading structure, point out thin sections, and list internal links I should add. Draft: [paste]

Internal linking map

Connect your cluster

Given these published URLs and their topics, propose an internal linking plan: which pages should link to which, with suggested anchor text, prioritizing links to my money pages. URLs: [paste list]

SERP gap analysis

Find what to add

Here are the H2s from the top 5 results for '[keyword]'. Identify the subtopics everyone covers, the ones only some cover, and at least 3 angles nobody covers that I could own. Data: [paste headings]

FAQ + schema generator

Win People Also Ask boxes

Write 6 FAQ questions and concise answers for a page targeting '[keyword]'. Answers must lead with a direct response in the first sentence. Then output the FAQPage JSON-LD for them.

Title tag tester

Improve click-through rate

Write 10 title tag variations for '[keyword]', each under 60 characters, mixing angles: number, year, benefit, curiosity, and exact-match. Mark the 3 most likely to earn clicks and say why.

Striking-distance finder from Search Console

Pick the pages worth updating this week

Here is a Search Console export with query, page, clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position for the last 28 days: [paste or attach CSV]. Filter to rows at position 4 to 20 with at least [10] impressions. Group them by page, sum impressions per page, and rank the pages by the impressions they would gain from moving up. For the top three pages, list the queries driving them and tell me which sections or questions the page is missing, judging only from the query wording.

Keyword cannibalization check

Find two pages fighting for one query

From this Search Console query-by-page export: [paste], find every query where two or more of my URLs received impressions. For each, show the URLs, their positions and impressions, and recommend one of: consolidate into one page and redirect, differentiate the weaker page's intent, or leave alone because the split is small. Explain the recommendation in one sentence each.

Title and meta rewrite from real queries

Fix pages with impressions and no clicks

This page ranks at position [X] with [N] impressions and [C] clicks for these queries: [paste queries]. Current title: '[title]'. Current meta description: '[description]'. Write 5 title options under 60 characters that keep the main query near the front and add the specific hook the queries imply (a number, a year, a format, a use case), and 3 meta descriptions under 155 characters that answer the query directly. Do not promise anything the page does not contain: [paste page outline].

Technical SEO triage from a crawl

Sort a crawl export into what matters

Here is a crawl export from [tool] with URL, status code, canonical, indexability, title, and inlinks: [paste or attach]. Group the issues into: blocks indexing (noindex, canonical to another URL, redirects listed in the sitemap, 4xx and 5xx), wastes crawl (redirect chains, parameter duplicates), and cosmetic (duplicate titles, missing meta). Count each, list the 10 URLs to fix first, and tell me which issues are probably one template bug rather than many separate problems.

Answer-first rewrite for AI Overviews

Make a section easy to quote

Rewrite the opening of this section so it can be quoted on its own as the answer to '[question]'. The first sentence must answer the question directly with the specific fact or number, the next two sentences give the condition or exception that matters most, and nothing in those three sentences may depend on earlier text on the page. Keep my facts, do not add new ones. Section: [paste]

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Questions

Can ChatGPT do SEO without plugins?

Yes for strategy, briefs, clustering, and on-page suggestions. It can't pull live rank or volume data on its own, so feed it exports from your own tools, then let it analyze and plan.

How do I keep ChatGPT SEO content from sounding generic?

Give it real SERP data (competitor headings), your own examples, and a clear angle. Always add original insight or data ChatGPT can't know. Thin, templated AI text is exactly what gets filtered.

Does AI content rank in 2026?

Helpful, accurate content ranks regardless of how it's produced. What loses is unedited, undifferentiated output. Use these prompts to draft, then add expertise and verify facts.

What is a striking-distance keyword?

A query where your page already ranks on page one or two, roughly positions 4 to 20, with enough impressions to matter. These are the cheapest wins in SEO because Google has already decided the page is relevant: adding the section the query asks for, or rewriting a title that does not match it, often moves a page further than a brand new article would. The Search Console prompt on this page finds them for you from an export.

Can ChatGPT read my Search Console data?

Not directly from your account, but it handles an exported CSV well. Export the Performance report with the Queries and Pages tabs, or use the query-by-page view if you have it, attach the file, and ask ChatGPT to show the code it ran for each filter. Keep the export to one date range so it does not mix periods, and sanity-check one total against the Search Console interface before trusting the rest.

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